Post by Li Tun-ye on Jun 9, 2008 0:09:19 GMT -5
Let's first get this party started by quoting the back of the DVD:
"A disturbing and perverse film, that is irresistible to Kung Fu/ Martial Arts lovers."
Disturbing? By all means, yes. Perverse? Perhaps only in the brief moment of shock when I realized how my laughter practically signed my first class ticket to Hell. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I was only able to attain an English dub/edit. Thus, any attempt at cohesion and plot that the original Chinese film made may have been completely obliterated by the innacuracies of apathetic American editors. That being said, The Crippled Masters may very well be the most amazing unintentional comedy I have ever witnessed.
The story follows a pair of martial artists who are betrayed by a corrupt villain who apparently is king of a mythical Chinese land in which a man can have both arms brutally severed and then tossed out into the street where he manages to survive with NO MEDICAL ATTENTION FOR OVER TWENTY MINUTES.
This opening scene introduces the first of a the titular cripples. He weakly stumbles through town as depressing music plays ... making his way to a restaurant. Yes, a restaurant. While bloodied and otherwise mortally wounded, our hero instead makes for the nearest restaurant only to be pummeled by the bouncer for being unsightly while he struggled to maneuver his remaining "arm nub thing" to lift a piece of chicken from the plate. Why he was even given a table and not some form of MEDICAL ATTENTION still remains a mystery.
He's "rescued" by an old coffin maker who was brought to take away the supposedly dead body. Again, the hero is pummeled by a pair of toughs sent by the king to purchase more coffins (something that they were apparently in great need of, as both the cripple and the coffin maker are spared with the realization that the old man was the soul supplier of coffins to the town).
The crippled hero wanders off on a soul seeker journey involving a rather depressing attempt to drink from a river, an even more depressing attempt to steal food from barnyard animals, and the utterly disturbing montage in which he makes a new life for himself in a small town by farming and playing a twisted game of blind man's bluff with the local children.
I didn't know whether to feel happy for him or cry ...
Unfulfilled by maiming only one of his loyal martial arts masters, the king proceeds to destroy another fighter's legs with acid (thus leading to the pluralization of "Crippled Masters"). He in turn is found by the armless cripple who takes vengeance on him in an unintentionally hilarious montage of torture and beatings until an old man hidden in a basket in a mountain dwelling insists that the pair should set aside they're differences.
Yes ... you heard me correctly. An old man contorted himself into a ball and placed himself into a basket in his hermitage patiently awaiting the day that a pair of cripples would come beating the crap out of each other so that he could teach them a greater life lesson.
It works.
The two learn the value of teamwork by learning their respective halves of a secret fighting style ... and by questionable training methods involving rope and what basically can be described as a "death trap cut from the movie Saw for being too damn amusing." While neither crippled proved able to master all aspects of their new fighting style, the pair proved to be quite gifted with what remaining appendages were left. The legless cripple earned an upper-body strength that could put Russian gymnasts to shame while the armless cripple mastered kicking, leg strength, and the illogical ability to wield a staff with his left "nub arm thing" and his right foot (an image not even Tim Burton could have conjured). In the greatest display of martial prowess, the two return to the restaurant in which the armless cripple was walloped in the earlier portion of the film and proceed to utterly humiliate the waiter and absolutely wreck the bouncer.
All of their hard training came to this single moment, apparently.
From this point on, the film becomes a quest of revenge against the corrupt king while more of the king's character is revealed. Here's what I managed to learn:
1) in an attempt to appear more villainous, the king not only disfigured his face with what could only be described as an awful love child of herpes and bread mold, but the "scar" was in a constant state of flux wherein it changed shape every other scene.
2) the king proved to be the most competent fighter in the whole city, relying on the unusual hump of scoliosis that was lined with what seemed to be steel. The unusual back bulge proved to be a disturbingly affective defense mechanism while at the same time providing the most humiliating death a Kung Fu film extra could have ever hoped for.
True to form, a greater secret style of martial arts became the next focal point: a style that would apparently be derived by observing The Eight Jade Horses which were in actuality a set of eight miniature horses in various adorable poses. The two heroes somehow glean the information from a supporting character introduced at some point after the first successful cripple fight but before the stereotypical "master dies at the hands of the villain" moment.
The movie comes to its great climax as both cripples storm the kings home stowed away in a coffin, but the fight somehow spills over into their secret mountain training ground from an earlier point in the film in a move that can be attributed to either poor film editing or a surprisingly minuscule kingdom with a secret mountain training ground conveniently located within a short walk from the villain's mansion.
By this time the greatest sign of true teamwork unfolds as the legless cripple mounts the armless cripple with the aid of a spring-loaded retractable harness device constructed entirely out of bamboo. Now officially one martial artist, the pair of cripples proceed to trounce the villain in the most contrived, Home Alone style of dispensing justice. The villain thwarted, the film cast aside the unnecessary burdens of plot resolution by having the screen freeze on the falling corpse of the king while "THE END" zoomed onto the screen in all of its Technicolor glory.
Aside from the poor dubbing, agonizingly one-sided cripple fights, and zealous use of dramatic zooms, the film proved to be surprisingly entertaining. Not entertaining in the sense of a one man show performed by a celebrated stand-up comedian who talks of his misadventures growing up as a Latino in New York. But rather it was entertaining in the sense of having that same stand-up comedian break all of his appendages before being forced to brawl with inept extras just barely qualifying for the role of Putty Patrollers from the old Power Rangers series. Again, it is entertaining. However, you'll have to stifle that small voice in your head that shouts "You're going to hell for just watching this."
Defining moment:
Having to sit through the armless cripple struggle through the means streets of an archaic China nearly took the cake. But my heart ultimately goes to the 5 minutes that pass in which the second hero is crippled, found by the armless cripple who was enjoy a relaxing day of armless fishing, beaten mercilessly by the armless fisherman, then carried off nonchalantly to an obviously inhabited cave dwelling where an old contortionist in a basket teaches the pair a little lesson in forgiveness and friendship.
Li's Score:
6 out of 10 stars. It's the kind of movie that's just bad enough to be the feel-good comedy you're day needs. I would have given it 7, but I've forfeited decent portion of my salvation for laughing at the armless cripple playing blind man's bluff with the children. Some party games just can't be marketed ...
"A disturbing and perverse film, that is irresistible to Kung Fu/ Martial Arts lovers."
Disturbing? By all means, yes. Perverse? Perhaps only in the brief moment of shock when I realized how my laughter practically signed my first class ticket to Hell. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I was only able to attain an English dub/edit. Thus, any attempt at cohesion and plot that the original Chinese film made may have been completely obliterated by the innacuracies of apathetic American editors. That being said, The Crippled Masters may very well be the most amazing unintentional comedy I have ever witnessed.
The story follows a pair of martial artists who are betrayed by a corrupt villain who apparently is king of a mythical Chinese land in which a man can have both arms brutally severed and then tossed out into the street where he manages to survive with NO MEDICAL ATTENTION FOR OVER TWENTY MINUTES.
This opening scene introduces the first of a the titular cripples. He weakly stumbles through town as depressing music plays ... making his way to a restaurant. Yes, a restaurant. While bloodied and otherwise mortally wounded, our hero instead makes for the nearest restaurant only to be pummeled by the bouncer for being unsightly while he struggled to maneuver his remaining "arm nub thing" to lift a piece of chicken from the plate. Why he was even given a table and not some form of MEDICAL ATTENTION still remains a mystery.
He's "rescued" by an old coffin maker who was brought to take away the supposedly dead body. Again, the hero is pummeled by a pair of toughs sent by the king to purchase more coffins (something that they were apparently in great need of, as both the cripple and the coffin maker are spared with the realization that the old man was the soul supplier of coffins to the town).
The crippled hero wanders off on a soul seeker journey involving a rather depressing attempt to drink from a river, an even more depressing attempt to steal food from barnyard animals, and the utterly disturbing montage in which he makes a new life for himself in a small town by farming and playing a twisted game of blind man's bluff with the local children.
I didn't know whether to feel happy for him or cry ...
Unfulfilled by maiming only one of his loyal martial arts masters, the king proceeds to destroy another fighter's legs with acid (thus leading to the pluralization of "Crippled Masters"). He in turn is found by the armless cripple who takes vengeance on him in an unintentionally hilarious montage of torture and beatings until an old man hidden in a basket in a mountain dwelling insists that the pair should set aside they're differences.
Yes ... you heard me correctly. An old man contorted himself into a ball and placed himself into a basket in his hermitage patiently awaiting the day that a pair of cripples would come beating the crap out of each other so that he could teach them a greater life lesson.
It works.
The two learn the value of teamwork by learning their respective halves of a secret fighting style ... and by questionable training methods involving rope and what basically can be described as a "death trap cut from the movie Saw for being too damn amusing." While neither crippled proved able to master all aspects of their new fighting style, the pair proved to be quite gifted with what remaining appendages were left. The legless cripple earned an upper-body strength that could put Russian gymnasts to shame while the armless cripple mastered kicking, leg strength, and the illogical ability to wield a staff with his left "nub arm thing" and his right foot (an image not even Tim Burton could have conjured). In the greatest display of martial prowess, the two return to the restaurant in which the armless cripple was walloped in the earlier portion of the film and proceed to utterly humiliate the waiter and absolutely wreck the bouncer.
All of their hard training came to this single moment, apparently.
From this point on, the film becomes a quest of revenge against the corrupt king while more of the king's character is revealed. Here's what I managed to learn:
1) in an attempt to appear more villainous, the king not only disfigured his face with what could only be described as an awful love child of herpes and bread mold, but the "scar" was in a constant state of flux wherein it changed shape every other scene.
2) the king proved to be the most competent fighter in the whole city, relying on the unusual hump of scoliosis that was lined with what seemed to be steel. The unusual back bulge proved to be a disturbingly affective defense mechanism while at the same time providing the most humiliating death a Kung Fu film extra could have ever hoped for.
True to form, a greater secret style of martial arts became the next focal point: a style that would apparently be derived by observing The Eight Jade Horses which were in actuality a set of eight miniature horses in various adorable poses. The two heroes somehow glean the information from a supporting character introduced at some point after the first successful cripple fight but before the stereotypical "master dies at the hands of the villain" moment.
The movie comes to its great climax as both cripples storm the kings home stowed away in a coffin, but the fight somehow spills over into their secret mountain training ground from an earlier point in the film in a move that can be attributed to either poor film editing or a surprisingly minuscule kingdom with a secret mountain training ground conveniently located within a short walk from the villain's mansion.
By this time the greatest sign of true teamwork unfolds as the legless cripple mounts the armless cripple with the aid of a spring-loaded retractable harness device constructed entirely out of bamboo. Now officially one martial artist, the pair of cripples proceed to trounce the villain in the most contrived, Home Alone style of dispensing justice. The villain thwarted, the film cast aside the unnecessary burdens of plot resolution by having the screen freeze on the falling corpse of the king while "THE END" zoomed onto the screen in all of its Technicolor glory.
Aside from the poor dubbing, agonizingly one-sided cripple fights, and zealous use of dramatic zooms, the film proved to be surprisingly entertaining. Not entertaining in the sense of a one man show performed by a celebrated stand-up comedian who talks of his misadventures growing up as a Latino in New York. But rather it was entertaining in the sense of having that same stand-up comedian break all of his appendages before being forced to brawl with inept extras just barely qualifying for the role of Putty Patrollers from the old Power Rangers series. Again, it is entertaining. However, you'll have to stifle that small voice in your head that shouts "You're going to hell for just watching this."
Defining moment:
Having to sit through the armless cripple struggle through the means streets of an archaic China nearly took the cake. But my heart ultimately goes to the 5 minutes that pass in which the second hero is crippled, found by the armless cripple who was enjoy a relaxing day of armless fishing, beaten mercilessly by the armless fisherman, then carried off nonchalantly to an obviously inhabited cave dwelling where an old contortionist in a basket teaches the pair a little lesson in forgiveness and friendship.
Li's Score:
6 out of 10 stars. It's the kind of movie that's just bad enough to be the feel-good comedy you're day needs. I would have given it 7, but I've forfeited decent portion of my salvation for laughing at the armless cripple playing blind man's bluff with the children. Some party games just can't be marketed ...