The Battle Wizard is a Chinese comedy from 1977. At least I hope the ambition was to make a comedy, or an action/fantasy/comedy at least. Don’t get me wrong, it’s entertaining at times but if this were really seriously ment, it’äs really really bad. Therefore I choose to believe that it’s intentionally funny.
The story is simple enough. A couple of decades ago a man and a woman had a love affair, but since he is of the finer families and she’s not, there can never be a marriage or something in that direction. The man’s soon to be wife really rubs it in too. And her boyfriend ( I think) doesn’t take it too well either and there’s a fight coming up. Here’s when the comedy really starts, one of the guys shoots some kind of lasers from his fingers. Ok, it was 1977 and I’m guessing the budget was really “challanging”, but it really looks horrible.
I guess that could work somehow in a fantasy, but there are more things that look really horrible. I think they mixed in all elements that are possible for this kind of asian fantasy film. There is a girl more or less commanding snakes, there’s fire breath and even more lasers coming from the hands of other characters. At least they have a different color and shape.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We are now in the present time and since this affair/fight created such wounds they have used the last 20 years or so to formulate their revenge. To be honest I had a tough time connecting to the film so I’m not really sure what the plot really is but it involves kidnapping of the children to lure the right person into the trap in which the revenge will take place.
It’s easy to get sidetracked when the one thing you remember after the film is the horrible special effects and costumes. Well, not the ordinary sloths, I don’t have any problem with them, but there are creatures that are so obviously fake that it’s impossible to look past them. There’s this guy with a metal plate in his head and claws for hands. Like crab claws. But his arms are so long that you can clearly see that he’s holding a prop as an extension of his real arm. And then there is the gorilla… It really makes the Ape in Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park look good!
But I managed to get through it, I guess that ought to count for something. I was daily entertained at times but mostly because it looks really hideous. It’s not bad enough to be good, to be a real turkey. It’s just …bad but with some rediming sequences.
Oh, and then there’s that bone shooting arrows which is clearly made out of plastic.
