SPIRITUAL
KUNG-FU (1978) Blu-rayDirector: Lo Wei
88 Films
Jackie Chan becomes a "karate ghostbuster" in the oddball SPIRITUAL KUNG-FU, on Blu-ray from 88 Films.
When the manual for the Seven Deadly Fists – a fighting style forbidden because it is too brutal – is stolen from the library of the Shaolin monks, the grandmaster is worried because the manual for the fighting style created to counter it The Five Style Fists was lost centuries ago. When the disgraced grandmaster voluntarily goes into confinement to repent, leaving blind Elder Clarity imposes punishment on those other who let their guard down on the night of the theft, including novice student Yat-Ling (Chan) who was on night watch during the theft. When a meteor damages the monastery's library, five ghosts start appear and frighten the brothers. While the elders attempt to exorcise the spirits, Yat-Ling is the only one of the order foolhardy enough to maintain watch on the library where he discovers the lost Five Style Fists volume and realizes that the ghosts are practitioners of it who intend it to teach him. Unbeknownst to the monks, the Seven Deadly Fists manual was stolen at the order of the patriarch of the Luk family who wants his son Luk Ching (James Tien, THE BIG BOSS) to use it to become a clan leader and bestow the prestige upon his family denied to him by the Shaolin monks. After Luk Ching challenges and murders the heads of several clans, Sek Ying of the Wudang clan comes to the monastery with his daughter Phoenix to warn them but he is murdered and the Grandmaster soon suspects the killer to be among their order.
Although the basic storyline is not too unusual with its monastery intrigues and Chan playing a variation of his mischievous wastrel character who shapes up at the right moment, SPIRITUAL KUNG FU becomes utterly bizarre with its supernatural elements with the ghosts as five men in ballet tights, bleached white skin, and Raggedy Andy red wigs whose appearances are accompanied by some odd Jean-Michel Jarre-type synthesizer music. The double exposure effects are old school but sometimes ambitious and humorous (one of the ghosts is rumored to be Yuen Biao, one of Chan's Peking Opera school "brothers"). The mystery aspect of the story is played straight with Tien an imposing villain and some novelty in having the supposedly venerable grandmaster seeming more concerned with the reputation of the order than a thorough investigation into the killings or Luk's challenge for the leadership of the clans. The fight choreography is excellent as usual but the largely static camerawork compares poorly to Chan's more dynamic coverage in films to come.
Shelved incomplete when Wei's company ran out of funding, SPIRITUAL KUNG-FU was completed at the end of the same year when the producer raised more funds in light of the dual successes of Chan's SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW and DRUNKEN MASTER for another producer. The film was released in the late eighties in the U.K. by video label Trans- Global under the title KARATE KICKBOXER but not until the nineties on VHS and then cropped DVD in the U.S. by Simitar. Anamorphic widescreen releases appeared around the same time in the U.S. from Columbia Tri-Star and the U.K. from Hong Kong Legends utilizing Fortune Star's new masters, while the first Blu-ray editions were upscales from this material. 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a new 2K scan of the original camera negative which was conformed to the Cantonese-language Hong Kong cut of the film (98:40) which was slightly shorter than the initial Mandarin version. Colors are bold and close-ups reveal nice detail in the costumes, make-up, and settings while some of the long shots are subject to the distortion of early anamorphic lenses still in use in Asia in the late seventies. Original mono DST-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks are included in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English while an alternate Cantonese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is also included with some slight variations in music selections but is largely the same as the original mix. Each Chinese track is accompanied by its own English subtitle track (although has more to do with sync since there are no variations in the translation between the subtitles for the Cantonese and Mandarin tracks) while another subtitle track translates credits for the English track.
The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Hong Kong cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema who note the film's U.K. retitle, comment on the oddness of its comic elements – also suggesting that Chan had not yet found the balance between his slapstick and the more conventional elements of the genre – and the film in the context of Chan's deteriorating relationship with producer/director Lo Wei who had initially propped up Chan as the next Bruce Lee. In "Rick Baker on SPIRITUAL KUNG FU" (9:45), in which the Eastern Heroes fanzine writer recalls the Trans-Global VHS retitling and shows the cover which features an image of GHOSTBUSTERS circle, discusses the film's shelving along with DRAGON FIST which was shot back-to-back with it, and offers up perhaps a bit more favorable appreciation of the film than the commentators.
88 Films is typically thorough with regards to the different versions of the film, offering up a selection of VHS-sourced scenes from the Korean version (3:24) – the film was shot in Korea – involving a girlfriend for Chan's character who gets in a fight with Phoenix, as well as an alternate shot from the Mandarin version (0:15) in which Chan is knocked out with a potion during his night watch (he gets a blow to the back of the head in the Cantonese version, and the inclusion of the Mandarin audio on earlier releases lead to sync issues). "Fighting Style" (4:24) is a generic archival featurette with Chan, director Stanley Tong, and Sammo Hung which could have been included on any Chan release. The disc also includes the film's Hong Kong theatrical trailer (4:13), an English theatrical trailer (3:22), and a Japanese theatrical trailer (2:34). The first pressing includes a limited edition slipcover, set of 4 double-sided art cards, and an A3 foldout poster. (Eric Cotenas)