There was nothing about the old VHS box for Shaolin Invincibles that made us think we were renting anything other than a standard “kungfu orphans get revenge on villains who murdered their parents” story. We plucked it from the shelves because, well, why not? We were up for renting anything that wasn’t Unique Lama. By the time Ocean Shores video splashed that bright red “The End” graphic onto the television screen, we’d seen tongue-waggling ghosts, bug-eyed zombies, and that most treasured of kungfu film appearances — the kungfu gorilla. I won’t say that the impact of Shaolin Invincibles on our mental faculties was as pronounced as it was after watching Young Taoism Fighter for the first time, but that’s a pretty high bar to set.

At the time, though my friends and I were voracious consumers of any and every kungfu movie on which we could get our hands, we were also operating more or less in a vacuum. Pre-internet days, you know. So while I wanted to know more about the movies I was watching, there simply didn’t exist the resources that would help me complete the task. I learned to recognize various stars and directors, I didn’t have much historical context beyond that I could paste together based solely on movies I’d seen. There was no way for me to tell a Hong Kong film from a Taiwanese film, and no way for me to understand that I should know the difference — I didn’t suspect that the most bizarre kungfu films we were renting were the product of a Taiwanese film industry that seemed to think acid-fueled fever dreams were the best source material for kungfu movie scripts.

We live in a more enlightened time now, and thanks to the tireless efforts of of sites like Die Danger Die Die Kill!, I have a clearer picture of the Taiwanese kungfu film market. With the ability to put everything into context, I’m no longer surprised that director Hau Chang cranked out a movie as bizarre as Shaolin Invincibles. It was really just standard operating procedure for a man who gave us films like Ape Girl and the truly inspired martial arts fantasy Legend of Mother Goddess. In fact, Shaolin Invincibles is one of his more normal films.

Things start out familiar enough. A murderous Ch’ing ruler (Chen Hung-lieh, Temple of the Red Lotus and Come Drink with Me) has a family murdered, but the little daughters are spirited away by a convenient group of Shaolin monks. Years later, the girls ave grown into Lu Szu Liang (Chia Ling, The Legend of Mother Goddess) and Lu Yu Liang (Doris Lung Chun-Erh, Master of the Flying Guillotine and Young Hero of Shaolin), masters of several secret Shaolin techniques. Now that they’re grown, the abbot allows them to leave the temple to seek revenge on the men who slaughtered their family. Along the way, they’ll be helped by Kan Feng Chih (Carter Wong, 18 Bronzemen and Big Trouble in Little China).

Captain of the guard Lei (Yee Yuen), who happens to own the most splendid robe in all of China (and dolls himself up with matching cosmetics), soon figures out that the guys dropping by the dozens are being offed by the Lu sisters, and even though he’s never seen them, somehow he’s able to mobilize every thug in the province to try and take them out. This results, as you can imagine, in a lot of dead thugs. Also, one of the women disguises herself as a man for no reason other than there was a law in Taiwan that every kungfu movie had to feature a woman who is obviously a woman but passes for a man simply because she dons traditional men’s attire. Afraid that the king will find out that he lied about slaughtering the whole Lu clan, Lei then turns to the sorriest bunch of elite killers I’ve ever seen. It’s your usual assortment — monk with bushy eyebrows, fey dude with fan, dirty old beggar — but this lot seems especially easy to dispatch, even without Carter Wong dropping by at random times to lend a fist.

Lei probably could have spent a little more time shopping around for exotic hired killers, as the king seems preoccupied with the latest additions to his court: a couple of capering gorillas that are, as was usually the case, played by a couple stuntmen in ratty costume store gorilla outfits, complete with loosely flapping pant legs and occasionally crooked masks. As if it that wasn’t enough, the gorillas’ wranglers are a couple of ghosts. I’m not entirely as up on my Chinese folklore as I should be, but I think these guys are supposed to either be Diao Si Gui — the spirit of someone who has died by hanging (thus the long, engorged tongue) — or Hei Bai Wu Chang — the black and white guardians of hell, recognizable for their tall hats, black and white robes, and the accouterments they usually carry (you can see Billy Chong beat a couple up in Kungfu from Beyond the Grave).

I think these dudes are a couple of Diao Si Gui who were spookin’ around one day and found a box of hell guard hats and robes and were like, “We can get free food if we wear these around town!” Otherwise, they’re a desultory couple of hell guards who obviously lucked into the job, and so incompetent were they that the king of hell made up the most ridiculous job he could and convinced them that it was super-important that they take these, uhh… I’m gonna say gorillas, and deliver ’em to this guy in the fancy robe. Yeah, that should keep ’em out of my hair for a couple weeks. Sort of like how Lucky the Leprechaun is such a shitty leprechaun that while all the other leprechauns get to guard pots of gold, he has to guard a bowl of cereal. Anyway, the gorillas are almost completely invulnerable except for the top of the head. If you such much as slightly brush against the top of their heads, it sends them into howling fits of agony and, if sustained, they will become totally loyal to you for some reason. I guess this sounded like a decent enough weakness, at least until they ended up in a movie where the heroes’ signature move is to leap up into the air and jam a sword into the top of your head.

While the king is farting around with the gorillas, the Lu sisters get jobs as maids so that they can infiltrate the palace and get their final revenge. Even though Lei was able to describe the women to every two-bit killer in the kingdom, and even though he and his men drew up a whole bunch of wanted posters with really detailed sketches of the sisters, no one — including Lei — seems to recognize them when they start skulking around the palace. Killing Lei and the king proves a tricky task, however, as the palace is kitted out with the usual assortment of secret passages, traps, and for some reason, a dude who has been in prison so long that he has turned into a monster. Luckily for Carter Wong and the girls, famed leg fighter Dorian Tan Tao-Liang will pop up out of nowhere, announce “It’s me, that one guy who you’ve all been waiting for even though I haven’t been in the movie until now,” and then he’ll kick a lot of people in the name of helping the Lu’s.

Shaolin Invincibles isn’t as crazy as I remembered, but it’s still a lot of fun. There’s a ton of action, pretty good fights, and there’s the gorillas and the ghost and the zombie guy just for the hell of it. A little, something for everybody, really. The best part has to be when the Lu’s are sneaking through the woods and spy the two gorillas from a distance. The gorillas are doing that usual capering and hopping about that bad actors do when they are trying to play gorillas, even though I don’t think a real gorilla has ever moved like that. Upon seeing the two galoots lumbering awkward down a hill, Lu Yu Liang instantly surmises “those beasts seem to know kungfu.” This is pretty sloppily made, and I could have used more Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, but as was often the case with Taiwanese martial art cinema from the 70s, the energy, frequent action, and flat out strangeness is more than enough to result in a fun film.

Release Year: 1977 | Country: Taiwan | Starring: Carter Wong, Chia Ling, Doris Lung Chun-Erh, Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, Chen Hung-Lieh, Yee Yuen, Jack Lung Sai-Ga, Blacky Ko Sau-Leung, Lee Keung, Lam Chung | Screenplay: Yeung Gat-Aau | Director: Hau Chang | Music: Eddie H. Wang Chi-Ren | Producer: Geung Chung-Ping | Original Title: Yong zheng ming zhang Shao Lin men