'Shaolin Challenges Ninja' Best Kung Fu film ever???
NO... not by a long shot.
But give this one a good ending, scratch that, any kind of coherent ending at all and its the best kung fu movie i've ever seen.
If you're a fan of Kung Fu films in general, do yourself a favor, see this and try to argue against any of the follwing:
a)that the concept of displaying Chinese martial arts vs Japanese martial arts is extremely interesting
b)that it's one of the best demonstrations of the use of Shaolin Kung Fu ever (or at least Shaolin Kung Fu in its stage/theatrical incarnation), courtesy of the extremely skilled Gordon Liu
c)The ending, namely the last 5 minutes nearly destroys your enjoyment of the first 100 minutes, but then you realize the first 100 were just too damn good... but yet you still quietly wonder what they were thinking, maybe something along the lines of: "hey i think we've actually got a masterpiece on our hands, quick better destroy it with the most putrid and convoluted ending in the history of cinema" Of course, being made in Hong Kong, its a little one-sided in favour of the Chinese martial arts, however they were fair and represented the equivalent Japanese martial arts reasonably well. I thought the story would have been better if they just ended at them declaring a draw, also poor Gordon had to take on all of them, why not get his uncle the Shuai Jiao expert come to his aid to face-off against the Judo expert, instead of him just pulling an Akiyama by greasing up.
Either way, the movie is great and needs a modern sequel or remake...