The Eighteen Bronzegirls Of Shaolin (HK 1978)

Rating: **
Review Date: 10/1/00
Cast: Yueh Hua, Lung Jun Er

Unimagineably strange and impossible to follow, but it offers a lot of unintentional laughs. During the Ching dynasty, there was an evil monk at Shaolin Temple who accepted female students and taught them the deadly art of Shaolin bronzegirl kung fu. After that was established, I lost track of what was happening. One bronze girl (Lung Jun Er) managed to escape, and she happened to be the leader of the Ching resistance - I think. The rest of the film revolved around the Shaolin monks trying to get the renegade bronze girl back, and her efforts to put an end to the evil Shaolin monks - I think. There were also a bunch of men inexplicably disguised as mute old ladies and "the three ugly brothers" who were part of the resistance movement. The film is incredibly silly, and the bronze girls only show up during the hilarious opening credits and during the final fight at the end of the film (although many of them are male stuntmen). The kung fu is fun and plentiful, but the highlight of the film is Taiwanese beauty Lung Jun Er. She's sharp and sexy, full of conviction and intensity, and her kung fu and swordplay is fantastic. In short, she's awesome, and she alone makes the film enjoyable and worth watching.

Some great lines from the film include:
"Let me take a leak first. I'd hate to piss in my pants while we're fighting."
"Forget it. The way I see it, it's bad luck for us to see a woman pissing."

"Do you know where we are?"
"This is where we stopped to take a crap this morning, sir."