Buddha’s Palm (Part 3)

aka 如來神掌(三集) aka The Young Swordsman Lung Kim Fei Part 3 aka 如來神掌(三集大結局)

1964HKMDB Link
Written by Sze-To On
Story by Shangguan Hong
Directed by Ling Yun

It’s a whole new chapter in the Buddha’s Palm saga as Part 3 takes us into new intrigue and adventures. A joyous celebration becomes a tragedy when murder is the special guest. Lung Kim-fei and his new bride Kau Yuk-wah must find out who killed Suen. The rest of the crew is also searching for answers, and we run across arrogant martial arts masters and evil jerks causing trouble. But most excitedly, there is a brand new monster!

Buddha’s Palm (Part 3) goes more into the details of the world we were introduced to in Part 1 and Part 2. We meet some new schools, and find out that part of the reason there are so many problems in the martial world is a mix of rash accusations and arrogant school heads. Of course, everyone stopping to chat around some tea doesn’t make good cinema. Unless you’re really good at writing dialogue…

Once again, the effects and monster costumes are what make the Buddha’s Palm films. Though we only get one new monster, there are a lot of new martial arts effects – waves, blasts, explosions, giant bells. The increase in effects in Parts 3 and 4 is very evident. Once again, there are not subtitles, but at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!

	Lung Kim-fei (Walter Tso Tat-Wah) – The Buddha’s Palm hero is set to be wed, but an untimely murder ruins everything, including his honeymoon! Now he has to hunt down murderers.
	Kau Yuk-wah (Yu So-Chau) – Kung fu sister whose marriage is marred by the murder of her matriarch. Spends her time with Lung hunting down clues. They are much more polite about accusing everyone they meet of murder than her sister’s group.
	Kau Yuk-kuen (Patricia Lam Fung) – Kau Yuk-wah’s younger sister who sets out to find out what happened to her matriarch. Is kidnapped twice during this film. Also finds the most best clues. And causes the most trouble with people who aren’t keen on being accused of killing people.
	Master Ku Hon-wan (Ling Mung) – Is gone for most of the film, but returns to Earth to find out about the murder and surmises who is responsible rather quickly. But it may be the death of him…
	Condor (Man in suit) – Master Ku Hon-wan’s magic condor is still giving rides and rescuing people!
	But Ku (Ko Lo-Chuen) – The helmsman of the Cheung Lei Sect doesn’t let a murder investigation stop him from loudly yelling before he enters a room.
	Luk Yu (Kwan Hoi-San) – Friend of the Kau sisters, a guy who gets captured a lot and Lung Kim-fei keeps saving. Does he get captured in this movie? Yes!
	Suen Bik-ling (Yung Yuk-Yi) – Matriarch of the Kau’s clan. No longer hides her disfigured face, which is beginning to heal. Is murdered by a mysterious weapon, and much of the film is spent trying to figure out who did it.
	Auyeung Ho (Siu Chung-Kwan) – A jerk guy who bullied Lung, and now pals around with the Three Devils. He’s graduated to being more evil than before!
	Ten Thousand-hand Lohan (???) – Just a guy who can identify rare weapons, which makes him a target of friends and foes. Gets foed. Despite having ten thousand hands, this is one Lohan who never goes to jail!
	Three Devils (Cheung Seng-Fai, Hoh Siu-Hung, Lee Sau-Kei) – Three evil dudes who conspire to cause trouble in the land of kung fu while solidifying their power.
	Lau Piu-piu (Chan Wai-Yue) – The helmswoman of Heavenly Fragrance Sect, she’s initially suspected of Suen Bik-ling’s murder, but is cleared when she claims to be a sworn sister of Suen.

It’s a wedding day! Everyone party and drink and make awkward statements to the guy taping the whole affair and then punch out that jerk on the groom’s side of the family who thinks he’s so cool with his new hair plugs. You work at a call center, why do you need hair plugs? Sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah.

It’s Lung Kim-fei and Kau Yuk-wah’s wedding day. Everyone is having a good time and doing what they always do in China when it’s time to celebrate – eat tons and tons of food. Suen’s face is healing nicely, it’s only 50% horribly scarred instead of 75%!

Master Ku flies home on Condor (Poor Condor wasn’t invited to the dinner, despite killing two monsters in the last movie??) One of the wedding gifts is a mystery package with an weird scroll drawing inside.

As the wedding begins…Suen is dead! She has some sort of triple bladed knife in her back!

No one knows what the weapon is. Kau Yuk-kuen goes in search of answers, which means she just wanders around. Luckily, she sees a kid practicing kung fu! He tells her his sifu, Ten Thousand-hand Lohan, knows all this stuff. So Yuk-kuen goes to talk with Ten Thousand-hand Lohan. But he doesn’t want to talk to strange ladies, until she starts blowing stuff up in the lobby.

Ten Thousand-hand Lohan agrees to look up the weapons, and it will take some time so she goes to the inn to spend the night. But first she encounters some of the idiots from the first movie that were harassing Lung. She palm blasts the heck out of them and they lick their wounds and plot.

That night they fill the room she’s in with knockout gas and carry her away, presumably to do very gross things. Thankfully, they’re too busy arguing about who goes first to get around to it. But Ku and Luk Yu are wandering by just then and kick a lot of idiot butt. At this point, Kau Yuk-kuen and Luk Yu are having a contest to see who can get abducted the most times!

Three evil dudes who are technically the Three Invincible Palms but are just called the Three Devils by everyone meditate in front of a rotating yin yang symbol set in an octagon. The rotation makes a woo-wooo-wooo-wooo-wooo sound that should make it impossible to meditate, but these guys can do it. They truly are the Three Devils! The ruffians who attacked Kau Yuk-kuen work for them, and when they come to report their failure, the Three Devils laugh at the idiots.

Ten Thousand-hand Lohan identifies the weapon as a silver thunderbolt shuttle. I guess he has the only copy of Jane’s Fighting Weapons in ancient China. Lohan gives Kau Yuk-kuen some suspects and she goes looking for them, along with But Ku and Luk Yu. Right after she leaves, the Three Devils immediately warp in and blast Lohan. I hope he put them as suspects number one!

Lung and Yuk-wah arrive at Ten Thousand-hand Lohan’s house and find everyone dead and Lohan dying.

Yuk-kuen, But Ku, and Luk Yu track down suspects, blasting their way into the first guy’s place. Suspect 1 is not impressed with their bumbling into his place and there is a brief scuffle as the trio is then trapped in a hidden room.

There are two exits to this room – Life Gate and Death Gate. Life Gate just leads into a circle back to the two exits. So now we’re in Saw. Interesting… Death Gate leads to Suspect 1, who sets off a bunch of fireworks to harass the heroes and teach them a lesson. A lesson about barging into people’s places.

Lung and Yuk-wah then arrive. Suspect 1 is cordial at first but gets angry when he figures out they are looking for the people he’s harassing. It turns out Suspect 1 is a jerk beyond being an insulted party. Does this make his insult less valid? No. Kau Yuk-wah uses floating chain to hurt him, and he shows them where their friends are, trapped in a field where they can’t move or a mine will blow them up.

Kau Yuk-wah then uses her chain to destroy all the mines so they can go free.

Auyeung Ho teams up with the Three Devils to kill some people and kidnap Yuk-kuen. Maybe I’m missing something, but wasn’t she just rescued, why is she suddenly by herself and captured again? And that’s three kidnaps for Kau Yuk-kuen.

Luk Yu wanders into another sifu’s throne room and ends up battling a Bird Bat Monster which is awesome. Hooray for another monster costume! This is the best movie ever.

A bunch of ladies come out to watch the fight. He’s at the home of Lau Piu-piu, the helmswoman of Heavenly Fragrance Sect. She knocks him out with bell power, basically ringing a bell and the sound waves hurt him. It’s an obvious metaphor of Ma Bell’s monopoly of the phone lines in America, something a 1964 Hong Kong flick needs to reference to stay legitimate.

Soon after, But Ku, Yuk-wah, and Lung then wander in and the same monster attacks and the same ladies come out. But Lung kills the monster and it slowly dies on the floor.

Lau Piu-piu comes over to yell at them for killing their pet! She attacks with the bell again and he blocks her bell weapon. So she turns the bell into a gigantic bell and drops it on him! Ding dong d’oh!

But Ku and Yuk-wah talk with Lau Piu-piu, and find out she’s an ally of Suen. She didn’t do it, but Lung’s brain is all fried!

Master Ku flies down and finds out about the murder, the investigation, gives a cure to Yuk-wah, and investigates the mysterious scroll. He goes to see the Three Devils, and finds they hold Yuk-kuen captive. The battle is on, palms pointed at each other and drawn on effects flying! Zip! Zap! Blast!

Finally Master Ku causes the clouds to darken and overpowers and scares the Three Devils, then he yells at them. Auyeung then throws the three-bladed knife into Master Ku’s back! Excuse me, Auyeung then throws the silver thunderbolt shuttle into Master Ku’s back!

Master Ku runs and the villains give chase. Condor arrives and fights some of the Three Devils’ goons to save Yuk-kuen.

The two then try to go save Master Ku. By this point, Master Ku has run a long distance and knows he’s in trouble. He runs into a temple and starts enchanting some tripod jars with Buddha’s Palm moves, which he uses in a desperate pitch against the Three Devils and Auyeung.

To be continued….