Kung Fu Wonder Child

From the archive

“So. Many. Questions…” You may have noticed that I’ve been on a bit of a spree with these Taiwanese fantasy-fu flicks of late. However, I think I’m feeling a bit sated with them at this point, and the law of diminishing returns seems to be setting in. There are only so many unconvincing male impersonators, bad effects (both optical and practical) and almost illegible and/or illiterate subtitles a man can take, and I think I’ve reached my capacity in almost of these categories. Fortunately, my queue of such things seems to be nearing an end, with just a couple more to go. Still, after this delirious experience, I feel in need of a week or two’s break from the madness. The villain here is the usual long-haired sorcerer (Li), who is collecting souls for the usual, megalomaniac purposes, and keeping them in large, ceramic jars in his yard. As you do. Among his collection are the father and sibling of Chiu Hsu (a rather under-used Oshima, albeit very early in her career), and she eventually links up with helpful unconvincing male impersonator, Hsiu Chuen (Lin, of course) and not one, but two, annoying comic sidekicks, Mi Fu and Tudor. Hsiu is a servant at a martial arts school, where her grandfather (Long) is the cook. Except Hsiu wants to learn the skills taught at the school, and Gramps is not just the mild-mannered chef he initially appears to be. Hilarity ensues. Well, if your idea of hilarity is a dog peeing on someone’s face, at least. This is the kind of thing where it feels like the makers threw every idea they came up with onto the screen, regardless of a) relevance and b) whether or not it could be executed with any degree of competence. For example, the first would include the extended opening prologue about a Chinese hopping vampire, and his two kids. It serves no purpose and seems to have strayed in from a completely different movie. As for the second… well, outside of the willingness of Taiwanese stunt-people to fling themselves around and into things for our enjoyment, this rarely gets to passable, even allowing for it approaching forty years in age. I did laugh that one of the monsters Hsiu ends up fighting, is obviously a flying facehugger from Alien. That said, there is a surprisingly decent stab at mixing animation with live-action, when the villain transforms into an animated dragon for the final battle. If it’s not exactly Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it’s not notably worse than the Disney efforts in this area. In general though, the execution trails far behind the imagination, and as a result, does the latter something of a disservice. The slabs of childish humor are no more of a help. In the film’s defense, the target audience is likely also childish, or at least, child-ish. On that basis perhaps some slack needs to be cut? Yet I couldn’t help thinking, “It was acceptable in the 80s, it was acceptable at the time…” Dir: Tso Nam Lee Star: Hsiao-Lao Lin, Yukari Oshima, Jack Long, Hai-Hsing Li Kung Fu Wonder Child Director: Lee Tso-nam Year: 1986 Rating: 6.5 Ever since I read the short and extremely favorable review in Asian Cult Cinema a few years ago I have been dying to see this film. Fantasy films with female fighters, hopping vampires, sorcery, ghosts, zombies and flying just sounded like my kind of film – especially one with a very young Yukari Oshima in it. It is not an easy film to locate – this is actually a Taiwanese production and that tends to make films more difficult to find – but finally with the help of a friend I was able to see it. I must admit to being a bit disappointed – perhaps my expectations were too high – but it is not nearly the deliriously over the top film that I had been hoping for, but it was still an enjoyable low budget fantasy romp full of good deeds and evil intentions. There are in fact hopping vampires and zombies and ghosts and much flying about – but with a budget too low to give them much justice. Much of the film is actually comedic in nature – full of magic pranks and tacky humor (dog urinating on unconscious man/vampire falling face first into a cow pie sort of thing) – than an action fantasy. After a slow build-up the last thirty minutes finally gets fairly serious and there is some fun action towards the end. A very petite Taiwanese actress by the name of Lin Hsiao Lan starred in a few of these Taiwanese fantasy films during the 1980’s (Magic of Spell being another) and she has some nice kung-fu moves – though much of the kung-fu in this film is augmented with wires. She and her grandfather work in a Taoist school and temple as a cook and his assistant. Lin works around the temple doing chores but spends most of her time with her two student friends using her knowledge of magic that she has picked up to play tricks on people. Unknown to her, there is a great evil lurking within the temple with plans to gain great powers. Fortunately, where evil resides so sometimes does good – and her grandfather turns out to be much more than a cook. Yukari enters the story all dressed in white and flowing locks and she is looking for her sister and grandfather who have been kidnapped by the evil one and stuffed in a jar. Yukari, Lin and the grandfather all team up to try and save her family and defeat the evil before he is too strong. Magic spells and kung-fu are utilized to fight the evil one and his servants – red headed twins and a blue zombie with green hair. Though the film didn’t really meet my expectations, it is a nice example of the low budget comedy/fantasy films that were being made around that time. It is also great of course to see Yukari in one of her earliest roles – a few years before becoming a star in Angel. She looks great, has some nice scenes (though she is clearly not the focus of the film) and it’s great to see her in a non-Girls with Guns flick.