Spiritual Kung Fu 4K 1978 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Jackie is a young, mischievous hooligan who guards the Shaolin Temple. While he is on duty, a very valuable book called "Six-Fingered Kung Fu," which possesses enormous power, is stolen. As it turns out later, it was stolen by a sinister warrior who wants to subjugate all the clans. In the library, where he often goes, Jackie meets five strange ghosts who teach him animal styles of Kung Fu: Dragon, Snake, Crane, Tiger, and Leopard. Now he must use everything he has learned in the battle for everyone's future.

Review 4K Movie

When it became clear that Jackie was right after all, and that the new mix of martial arts and humor was way more successful than the same old stories about all kinds of avengers with their fists/feet/heads of rage, Lo Wei, without thinking twice, did something extremely predictable: instead of trying to turn Jackie into the new Bruce Lee, Lo began to actively cultivate new ground, attempting to bring a touch of comedy to Astral Kung Fu.

However, Lo Wei would not be Lo Wei if he had not done all this in a slapdash manner, hastily trying to cash in on a successful brand. The result was something that could only have come from Wei: what seemed like a surefire hit, a martial arts comedy starring Jackie Chan, turned out to be not quite a complete disaster, but a considerable mess and a failure to understand the source material. The main “misunderstandings” are apparent almost immediately: Lo completely failed to understand that the humor in Jackie's films is very light and at the same time very kind. It is, so to speak, universal, so that both adults and children can enjoy watching their idol. The humor in Astral Kung Fu is simply not funny, primitive, and unacceptably drawn out, as can be seen in the scene where the ghosts first appear, when they chase the slow-witted Shaolin monks for a long and tedious time, while the monks try unsuccessfully to catch them.

There is also ghostly farting and urination (now on the ghosts themselves), plus the spirits themselves look, to put it mildly, not particularly serious. However, surprise surprise, the second half of the film completely gets rid of even these attempts at “joking,” leaving the only reminder of the comedic elements in this film as the character Jackie, who is his usual cocky, smiling, and sometimes dim-witted self. This is, in my opinion, a clear sign that even these jokes from the first half were inserted by Wei with a strong sense of reluctance: on the one hand, he had to make money off his newfound success, but on the other hand, Wei had long been angry with Chan precisely because of his foolishness and attempts to introduce comedic elements into his roles. Therefore, after cramming a little bit of “funny” into the first half of the film, Lo devoted the remaining half entirely to his favorite intrigues (to his credit, the final plot twist about the identity of the main villain turned out to be quite unexpected).

In principle, it all looks rather primitive and at times even pitiful, but the fight scenes—staged by Jackie himself—tip the balance slightly in the positive direction, as there are enough of them to distract attention from Wei's clumsy attempts at humor. Although the gimmick with five different “animal” styles is reminiscent of the Eight Drunken Gods from the evergreen Drunken Master. But anyway, without any particular merits, Astral Kung Fu is not particularly annoying.
It's just another film that makes you want to say with dissatisfaction: oh, that Lo Wei of yours.