Snake Fist of a Buddhist Dragon (1979) User Reviews

Incomprehensible

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 7 July 2016]

SNAKE FIST OF THE BUDDHIST DRAGON is one of the most incomprehensible martial arts films I've ever seen. The reason becomes obvious when you realise it was put out by Joseph Lai and the infamous IFD Film & Arts Company, who were responsible for more cut and paste adventures than any other film production companies put together. And sure enough Godfrey Ho is the man here credited as writer.

What SNAKE FIST OF THE BUDDHIST DRAGON amounts to isn't very much at all really. I recognised no cast members and the plot line, about heroes defending a temple from the evil Manchu invaders, is simplistic to say the least. Different sites list either Taiwan or South Korea as the base of operation for this production but I'd go for the latter given Ho's resume. What you do get is a whole slew of plentiful fight scenes which I believe have been ripped off from other kung fu films (probably Korean ones at that) so there's a lot of very average fight scenes and that's about it. To say that this film is a waste of time is a bit of an understatement.

Bad.

[winner55 · 10 February 2005]

Like a bad Robert Tai film as re-edited by Godfrey Ho. Basically a hodge-podge of clips from other films, tied together with an almost incomprehensible narrative about brothers separated at birth, ming rebels fighting the Manchus, etc. This sort of thing got produced with surprising frequency in Hong Kong throughout the '70s & '80s, but usually as a "sequel" to a successful film (using outtakes), as a cash-in on the original. But this is not a sequel as far as I can tell; in fact I can't fathom its reason for being, since the cast (of the binding narrative thread) are all unknowns, the story has little drama to it, the craftsmanship is shoddy (etc.); and above all, the only good fighting in the film is in the clips from other movies. Bottome line: if you're new to fu, avoid it; if (like me) you really must see every kung fu film ever made, at least try to spend as little money as possible on it.