Someone breaks into the Shaolin Temple and steals their precious fighting manual which contains the Killer Fist technique. Unfortunately the only fighting form that can combat this technique, The 5 Animal Fists, has been lost over the years. Yi-Lang (Jackie Chan) is a lowly student, but when the Temple becomes haunted, it is only Yi-Lang that tames/befriends the ghosts. Luckily these apparitions are the 5 Animal Style spirits. Soon Yi-Lang is learning the secret style, which will come in handy since, Luk (James Tien), the man who stole the Killer Fists book, is running around killing martial masters and souring Shaolin's name.

See Jackie put a fish down his pants!

See Jackie writing with a comically oversized pen!

See ghosts farting!

Well, there is a reason Jackie wasn't really a huge breakout star until he took matters into his own hands and started directing himself and inventing new scenarios for martial films. While he did become a star courtesy of Yuen Woo Ping, who let Jackie's acrobatic and comedic talent shine through in Drunkenmaster, by then it was the late 70's and the old school martial film was already dying and audiences were wanting something new. So, Jackie became a star and then languished again until he brought about the new wave of martial/comic/stunt films with Project A and Police Story. Spiritual Kung Fu comes from that "famous but languishing" period and attempts to mix some fantasy along with comedic Jackie shenanigans.

Basically, Spiritual Kung Fu, thanks to a few good fights and a decent finale, is not horrible, but it is below slightly superior supernatural martial films like Miracle Fighters, is nowhere near as fun as Kung Fu Zombie, and is not a masterpiece like Mr. Vampire and Encounters of the Spooky Kind. The fx is fair enough for a HK film of its era, but it is nothing revolutionary, all wires, superimposed images, and general tricks used seven decades earlier by film pioneers like Georges Méliès. The ghosts are all white with clown makeup on their faces and wear tattered tutus, which makes them look like Daryl Hannah as Pris in Blade Runner, except for the fact that they also have big red Raggedy Andy wigs on their heads.

With another star the movie may be more impressive, but the sad fact is director Lo Wei just doesn't use Jackie to his full abilities. This was a crime Lo Wei committed with most of his Jackie movies. The film is bogged down by a lot of lame comedy with the ghosts and back stabbing mystery regarding who let someone into the temple to steal the book and the subsequent frame-up of the Shaolin masters. The end features some nice fighting, including Jackie Vs. a bunch of Shaolin pole fighters and, of course, the long finale fight with the baddies. But, when you look at the film under the scope of Jackie's career, it is just a reminder of the time when he wasn't being allowed to truly cut loose.

The DVD: Columbia TriStar

Picture: Well, ones face will light up when you read the sticker on the shrikwrap, which boasts- "Includes New Digitally Remastered Letterbox Version!" Then you'll flip the DVD over and see "FULL SCREEN" listed on the back. Then your fears will subside when you look at the Chapter Selections and see that the images are all letterboxed! Then you'll start the film and see that it is actually a horribly aged and washed out Full-Screen tape source transfer. Ugh.

Columbia's past releases of Jackie's older films were great, certainly better than Dimensions hacked edit/dub jobs on their Jackie titles. But with this and Killer Meteors, Columbia has fallen into the lesser martial film DVD companies and presented a poor transfer. I can understand (and even forgive) the smaller companies laziness in not breaking their backs and seeking out better sources, but Columbia certainly has the clout to do much better than using and old Aquarius releasing/Alpha Films cruddy tape master.

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 mono English or Cantonese tracks with optional English, Spanish, or Portuguese subtitles. Both tracks are thankfully free of the usual age wear one finds on older kung fu. A bit of dub muffle on the voices, and this is a case where both of Jackie's dubbers, the English guy and the Cantonese guy, are extremely annoying. But, overall the tracks are more than serviceable.

Extras: 28 Chapters--- Trailers for The One, Spider-Man and Panic Room.

Conclusion: Columbia soils their reputation by going for a poor full-screen transfer instead of their usual anamorphic letterbox presentation. A real disappointment. Combine that with the film being a fairly lackluster entry into Jackie's older resume, I say, why bother? If you are curious, just go rent the only slightly more cruddy vhs.