18 Bronze Girls of Shaolin (1983) User Reviews

Crazy kung fu comedy – a bit too crazy in places

[freydis-e · 4/10 · 22 October 2009]

A woman pretends to be blind. Lots of other people pretend to be mute. Half the male characters dress as women. One guy fights himself. Others fight giant roses. Various people may be called Pai Yu Fei – they don't seem sure. And who is the mysterious Lady Killer? Reading this kind of stuff, I'd want to take a look and the film is certainly weird, but for a long while it doesn't make enough sense even to be funny. 'I'm confused,' says the hero half an hour in. 'I'm as confused as you,' says a villain, half an hour later. 'What's happening?' says someone else. 'I have no idea,' comes the reply. They are not alone. You'll be confused. You'll have no idea what's happening.

The acting and direction isn't that great, early on there isn't much action, the jokes tend not to be that funny and there's never any story. We're told Pai Yu Fei is some kind of rebel leader, learning kung fu to get revenge, but what she's rebelling against and what she wants revenge for is anyone's guess.

Then again there are the hilarious bronze girls (gold suits and face-paint) – over the opening credits, they use their bodies to ring a giant bell. And once the local ancient white-haired monk pops up with a line or two of explanation, we're launched into a final half-hour of non-stop, funny, inventive action (especially when the BGs get going – check out the five-high shoulder rides!) Excellent stuff! – pity about the first hour.

One part martial arts, two parts comedy, three parts total confusion

[ckormos1 · 4/10 · 28 December 2016]

After the bronze girls prance around a bit, the narrator explains that the Shaolin Temple was once lead by an evil monk who allowed girls to learn martial arts. (You won't find that in your history books!) A man of mystery kills a few monks. Doris appears in disguise at the temple and they take her to the abbot who is testing some of his bronze babes. She has come to learn martial arts. They refuse. The abbot discovers one of the bronze babes is missing. Her name is the same name Doris gave. Though Doris could not speak a man understood her mumbling and translated. That man goes to see a man in the same costume as Doris who is also a crippled mute. Doris is also there but now as a hot chick. A blind girl plays the lute. She also has the same name.

I could go on describing the action but there is no point because it never makes any sense. I find conflicting information about who directed this movie and no information about who wrote the script. I suspect no one wanted their name on this mess. Also I go by the HKMDB release date of 1978 not 1983.

My copy is a VHS converted to a digital file. It retains the square picture aspect of old televisions. No attempt was made to pan and scan. This leads to a ridiculous scene at about the 33 minute mark. Kam Kong is supposed to be standing across from a man who looks exactly like him. This is the old "split screen" special effect. The 4:3 VHS aspect cuts off the extreme right and left of the original movie. The result is instead of Kam Kong standing next to his double all you see on the right is the actor's right arm and on the left the actor's left arm. No faces nor bodies just two arms! Kam Kong then fights against himself. Yueh Hua is in the disguise.

The entire middle of this movie is comedy and it all fell flat for me. Some people might find it funny though. I won't hold that against the movie but it still falls below average in my rating. This movie is strictly for hard core fans only. I am a hard core fan. I watched it once and I doubt I will ever watch it again.

Wacky kung fu film, but not in a good way

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 9 December 2016]

18 BRONZE GIRLS OF SHAOLIN is a very odd and very cheap kung fu comedy from Taiwan. It's another rip-off of 18 BRONZEMEN although as the title would suggest, the bronze characters are now kung fu-fighting women whose metallic structure doesn't seem to prevent them from jumping around, fighting, and defying the basic laws of physics. For most of its running time this is a very broad comedy with lots of bizarre and surrealistic elements that unfortunately don't really work all that well apart from in a few instances.

The entire purpose of the film seems to be a depiction of characters pretending to be something they're not. Thus we get a woman who pretends to be blind and a group of men who pretend to be women. The main thrust of the plot is about a secret training manual which has been stolen and the efforts of the main characters to track it down. Yueh Hua has a cameo but otherwise the cast is undistinguished. The dubbing and picture quality are typically poor. The film's one highlight is when the characters battle with giant roses, which is really bizarre. Otherwise it's your typical kung fu inanity.

not a 'fu film, just a bad parody

[winner55 · 3/10 · 26 October 2006]

This film manages to fit in every cliché - and I mean that literally, EVERY cliché - of the historical-romance kung fu film, without ever actually weaving them together with any sort of noticeable plot. Normally, such a situation would invite those unfamiliar with the genre to view the film as an introduction, to acquaint themselves with the conventions of the genre - but that would be a mistake here, since genre conventions only work because they establish a skeletal structure a film builds its story and drama around, and that doesn't happen here.

This seems to be the remnant of some species of Cantonese comedy - broad slapstick in an even broader parody - but without a real story, the parody falls pretty flat, leaving us with only slapstick - and not very well performed, at that. Some of the actors here have done comedy before, but this film was clearly rushed through production, and so didn't allow them any time to develop characters that could perform this slapstick.

Yuen Hua is listed as the male lead, but only plays a cameo; Lung Jun Ehr has more screen time, but doesn't know what to do with it; King Kam (here as "King Kong") seems to have a sense of what comedy here might actually develop, but isn't allowed to develop it.

Previous reviewers have noted this as a "so bad it's funny" kung fu film, which indicates limited experience with the genre on their parts, in both senses - they haven't seen enough good kung fu, and they haven't seen enough good Chinese comedy. This film is an intentional comedy, and it is badly made, which means that it is not funny. It is a late "chop-socky" parody of the chop-socky genre; it is not a kung fu film at all really, and really wasn't meant to be; sorry, but it just doesn't work.

Really Bad

[zensurfer-31578 · 2/10 · 19 September 2017]

Really bad, except for the fight scenes at the end. The most girls of shaolin I counted were 15, though most of the time I think there were only about 10. Those were the good things about this movie. The English dialogue was terrible, 99% of it made no sense and almost no sentence would be recognized as an English sentence. I am not sure but I think it was supposed to be a comedy, It failed. And the synopsis seems to have nothing to do with the movie.

Hilariously bad kung-fu flick.

[drake2j · 7/10 · 13 March 2002]

False monk, Ching Kung, trains 18 girls to master the arts of bronze girl kung-fu. At the beginning I was completely lost about what was happening but that didn't spoil the fun. Anyway, one of the bronze girls was missing and everyone was on disguise and looking for her, I didn't get it if they found her or not but then some monk appeared and announced that the secret bronze girl fighting manual was stolen and everyone rushed to find the thief, o brother..

Highly recommended for those who have enough sense of humor for silly kung-fu flicks.

(BTW. the movie was made 1983)

Hilarious fun-filled karate movie

[Sputum · 7/10 · 29 April 1999]

If oriental girlies painted gold is your thing, then you could be on to a winner here! The plot revolves so fast that i never really understood it despite watching it several times. Despite that it's really funny with some super-quotable quotes and stupid stunt action. Woo woo!