[KFCC] Budha's Palm Review

Story: Years ago, JianFei was scarred while saving the girl he loves. In later years, she is set t o take part in a marriage of convenience with Ouyang Hao of the Dark Moon Clan. JianFei challenges Ouyang, but is beaten, and thrown into a cave occupied by ‘Flaming Cloud Devil’.

Years ago, Flaming Cloud Devil’s master was killed by opponents trying to learn the secret of the Buddha’s Palm technique. Flaming Cloud took revenge on those opponents, and then hid away in the cave. He vows to teach JianFei the Buddha’s Palm, but when his old opponents learn that he is still alive, all hell breaks loose.

Review: There is a famous story that tells of a young George Lucas taking the treatment for a little film called ‘Star Wars’ to a studio exec. He was told it would be a good idea, were it not for the fact that he had handed over enough content to fill three films. Had Mr. Lucas not taken the advice, and instead thrown every idea into one movie, then he may have produced something as hollow and confusing as the ‘Buddha’s Palm’. There’s even a light-sabre in it.

‘Buddha’s Palm’ is an early 80’s Shaw Brother’s wuxia movie. It should be wonderful, but it’s like watching every episode of ‘Monkey’ on fast-forward in one sitting. It’s an obvious inspiration for ‘Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain’ and other wuxia films, but it makes a common mistake for the genre by throwing so many faceless characters and clans into allegiance, opposition and betrayal that apathy quickly sets in. Not a single character is given any casual dialogue with which to build a little background on their character. They just ally or oppose all over the place and we, the audience, are expected to follow who’s who. To make things worse, a lot of these relations between clans are explained in numerous sudden flashbacks. If you blink and miss the subtitle that says ‘…and this is how it happened’, then your grasp on the plot is doomed. Then to compound the confusion, a lot of the events are narrated or even mocked by anonymous voice-overs. Brain. Beginning. To. Hurt.

It’s not all bad tidings. The film’s mixture of hokey animated special effects, cheap but elaborate fantasy/period film sets, and wonderful costumes make this an aesthetic treat (especially on this Celestial remastered DVD). There are some nice ideas in there, even if some of them could really have benefited from elaboration. The ‘Foot Monster’ is a bad guy with a massively oversized foot, which sits on the end of a stretchy leg, and there is a demonic child who sprays blue acid from a growth on his face. Another nice touch is ‘Dameng’, a mixture between a Chinese Dragon dance costume, a robot, and that big orange dog from ‘Sesame Street’.

It’s not that Buddha’s Palm is a bad film as such, but only the most hardcore and patient wuxia fans should go out of their way to see it, because it’s fairly inaccessible to everyone else. It can be very hard work to keep up with events, and even harder work to care for the characters involved. It does at least deliver a feeling of erratic madness, but the odd structure, clumsy pacing and lack of a central narrative make it hard to enjoy the many interesting ideas and attractive visual that the movie boasts. Go see ‘Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain’ instead, it’s a similar, yet far superior movie.