The Guy With The Secret Kung Fu

Several years back, I was clued into this movie. I've had something of a fascination with kung fu/martial arts/samurai films since I was much younger, and I've always thought that while it's not one of the best of the genre, this movie definitely has one of the best titles. I have an old VHS tape of it from a Sunday mid-afternoon airing on some third rate cable channel, the veritable dumping ground for most martial arts cinema in suburban Pennsylvania. Until yesterday, I had never seen it on DVD.

Standing before the shelf of martial arts films at a record store in Times Square, I found it. I stood in awe for a second, because it never occurred to me that a movie like this would actually exist outside of my own consciousness, but there it was, staring me in the face. Matching the sheer greatness of the title, the back-of-box verbiage is priceless:

"The Guy With The Secret Kung Fu is actually two guys, brothers in fact and their kung fu is no secret, it is in full effect as they fight to stop the oppression and corruption of the Ching Dynasty. Meng Fei is in top form as one half of the rebellious brothers as he fights corrupt judges, evil warlords, and some really big invincible zombie."

I don't know if two sentences ever so fittingly matched the film they describe. As ridiculously written as that is, that's how ridiculous the movie is. Again, it's not the best in the genre, but the title is outstanding. Upon looking deeper into the shelf, I also found an interesting trend among some of the titles: the presence of the word "Guy." All on the same shelf, I found movies called "Filthy Guy," "Invincible Super Guy," and "Crazy Guy With Super Kung Fu." I suppose it's something in the translation that makes a word like "Guy" so common in these film titles, but wouldn't it be great if they were all part of a long "Guy" series? If that were so I'd make it a point to at least familiarize myself with all of them.

I chose not to buy "The Guy With The Secret Kung Fu," because they were asking (a ludicrous) $14.95 for it. I'm positive I could find it online for a fraction of that, but I still might not even choose to pick it up. Watching it too much might take away some of that Secret Kung Fu luster.

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