Kung Fu From Beyond the Grave, 1982.

I don’t talk about a lot of kung fu movies because there isn’t a lot to say about them – they’re all awesome, the end. People fight. What more do you need? I therefore like to hold off from burying you under a mountain of extremely-similar posts but every once in a while, something fun comes along that needs to be brought up. Kung Fu From Beyond the Grave is absolutely one of these instances. During the Hong Kong equivalent of Dio de Los Muertos, the plot to Hamlet occurs and a son must avenge his father’s ghost. The difference of course between this and Hamlet is that Hamlet didn’t have a roast chicken floating through the air to signal the presence of the undead and it probably just featured some old guy in white make up instead of a gnarly goblin-looking demon from hell. Anyways, Lo Lieh plays the bad guy and he’s in all sorts of flicks – 36th Chamber, Stranger and the Gunslinger, Mad Monkey Kung Fu, One-Armed Swordsman, Executioners from Shao- look, he’s in a lot of movies. I’m used to seeing him with a moustache so when I first saw him in this film, having blood spat all over him in some sort of ritual, I thought he was Bolo Yeung who is unfortunately playing the role of Sir-Not-Appearing-in-This-Picture.

FIGHTS! There’s a lot of them.
-Sword fight with guy who can climb backwards up trees then moonwalk-finger-joust with explosive results.
-Brief fight with some mooks to display his worthiness to enter the bad guy’s pad. It’s pretty good due to the age old tradition of calling someone a bastard after having one’s kung fu insulted.
-Follow-up mook fight in which someone is nearly made a eunuch.
-Jiang shi vs wizard fight. His cape is enchanted and can turn undead and summon KKK garden gnomes that will defeat undead.
-Count fucking Dracula arrives to fight the Jian shi.
-Wizard vs Ninja.
-Stretch Armstrong’s zombie vs our heroes when they try to recover Dad’s bones.
-Heroes vs Wizard by way of explosive lanterns vs firebreath
-Heroes vs Wizard by way of prostitutes detonating his protective cloak with uh…menstrual blood.

Perhaps obvious by the inclusion of the living dead, this departs from regular kung fu films but in a good way. The creepy atmosphere is a nice touch. We get to watch our hero learn the i ching from the Cantonese necronomicon which summons some jiang shi assassins. This is crazy. Like a World of Darkness plot written 4 minutes before game-night after sucking down some sort of sugar-filled liquer. Sourpuss or Bols perhaps. With the power of the unavenged souls of the damn, our hero can become invisible by entering the spirit realm. This is straight madness.

The dubbing is bad (good), the film quality is awful (good), the laser-lightning bolt special effects are pretty bad (good), the fight scenes are good (good), the plot and dialogue is completely fucking off the rails (good). Can this movie do anything wrong? No. It’s entirely unhinged in the best possible way. There’s Blood and Beasts but no Breasts. I don’t think this movie would be able to handle breasts – it’d be sensory overload. Watch this with some friends and let the drinks flow. Two Thumbs Up Seal of Approval.