Buddha’s Palm (Part 2)
aka 如來神掌(二集) aka The Young Swordsman Lung Kim Fei Part 2 aka 如來神掌(下集大結局)
1964
HKMDB Link
Written by Sze-To On
Story by Shangguan Hong
Directed by Ling Yun
Buddha’s Palm Part 2, the adventure continues! When last we left our intrepid travelers, Lung Kim-fei had helped recover dragonroot to restore the sight of Suen. The first thing she sees when she regains her sight is his uniform, the same uniform as his sifu, Master Ku Hon-wan the Wicked God of Fiery Cloud and enemy of Suen. So she blasts Lung in the chest!
This edition is unique in it is the only one of the Buddha’s Palm series that does not have the iconic opening credits sequence of Lung Kim-fei shooting palm blasts at a Buddha painting every ten seconds. But don’t fear, it will return for the next two parts of Buddha’s Palm. Part 2 finishes the story began in Part 1, while Parts 3 and 4 are their own story. Some of the monster costumes from the prior film return, along with a new surprise.
Burdened by the story, there is less quest adventuring going on, and more of running and fighting adventuring. The next two chapters will attempt to balance the questing and the fighting, but for now we got a stream of action sequences. The plot is largely propelled by Suen’s anger, while Master Ku is given a moment to act all cocky like his character’s back story is supposed to be. But oddly enough, that saves the day. So the lesson is to be cocky, but explain yourself? Sure, whatever Buddha’s Palm!
|
After a very quick recap of the prior film, we get to the Suen blasting Lung cliffhanger. One technical note is that they animated her blasting him this time, in Part 1 the effects weren’t drawn in.
Suen is very angry and tries to blast Lung more times, but she’s stopped by her whole family, especially Kau Yuk-wah, who has fallen for Lung. Yuk-kuen manages to convince Suen to let Lung live to lure out Master Ku.
Yuk-kuen and Luk Yu discuss what to do next. Suddenly a random goon attacks inside the house. He’s quickly killed by the guards, but not before delivering a flower to Yuk-kuen and Luk Yu, marking the family as the next target. But Ku then saves the family from the thieves.
Lung awakens locked in a room and prepares to escape. The door is far too powerful to blast through, and there are wall beams and net traps. This is a very high tech ancient China! The Kau sisters drop down to help his escape. There are traps, strong walls, dropping bars, and poison gas. A magic flower dispels the gas.
Lung palm blast through some doors…
ROBOTS?!?!?!?!
Hell yeah!! Cardboard box block robots! Is Buddha’s Palm not taking place in the distance past, but in a post-apocalyptic future? Thing to ponder a bit…
The cool robots have a lot of drawn on effects like circle rays constantly coming from them, and they wave their arms around like they’re floating in space. Lung fights them, but the robots are invincible to swords and can pinch really hard. The heroes just run away and are outside the building. Hey, that was easy…how did they just leave? They aren’t out of the compound, just out of the building Lung was being held in.
The sisters hide in another room to fix up Lung, who is still injured from being blasted. Kau Yuk-kuen dresses in his Fiery Cloud shirt to confuse the guards. But things get real when Suen knocks her off a cliff into the sea. Oops!
She’d be dead but Condor saves her and takes her to his boss, Master Ku. Yuk-kuen finds out her sister is probably dead, and begins to cry. Her family not happy she’s so upset, thinking she’s mourning Lung. Luk Yu and friends (But Ku and some other guys) arrive to rescue Lung, and Yuk-wah helps guide them where Lung is under guise of battling them.
Suen and But Ku battle, we get a rings vs circles animated fight by the ceiling as they use their magic powers. One of the reoccurring fighting effects in this series is magical rings flying through the air doing tricks. Someone really liked flying rings. But Ku and crew then leave when they rescue Lung.
Lung heals and Kau Yuk-wah sneaks off to join him. While the two lovers have a heart to heart over her lost sister, Luk Yu is nabbed by the Twin Talents of Kunlun! Luk just gets kidnapped all the time!
Master Ku has adopted Kau Yuk-kuen, and teaches her the Buddha’s Palm technique.
Lung and Kau Yuk-wah try to rescue Luk Yu again. This time they head to an old temple and pretend to be part of the Twin Talents’ group. They make Yuk-wah walk on fire and light a lamp, she does so, but a fight breaks out anyway. Kau Yuk-kuen shows up just in time to help save the day and Luk is rescued again!
Suen is alerted Lung is still being alive and gathers forces to hunt him down. She gathers a bunch of rogues, including the cult group that had the goiter wizard and the evil monkey! They confront Lung and his friends.
A literal line is drawn in the sand, and everyone swarms in. Lung brutally kills several people in reuse of footage of him burning multiple people from the prior film. Goiter wizard tosses out a Mutant Chicken Dog Lizard (similar to the burned one from the prior film) and it and the evil monkey fight Condor in an epic man in suit battle. Condor kicks both of their butts. The Mutant Chicken Dog Lizard and monkey are dead. DEAD!!! BOOOO!!!
Suen, Lung, and Yuk-kuen have a massive battle in the sky with animations. But the heroes lose to Suen. Is this the end of Lung? Of course not, we got two more films! Master Ku then appears and is laughing nonstop. Obviously still remembering a YouTube cat video he was watching right before finally coming down to fight. He easily shrugs off Suen’s attacks, then unleashes the ninth style of the Buddha’s Palm: Ten Thousand Buddhas Paying Court. Master Ku blasts off Suen’s mask revealing her deformed face.
After things cool down a bit, everyone makes up and is happy, and walk away from the field as friends. Hooray, I guess?
But evil monkey is still dead. Booo! I liked evil monkey! He was so…evil!
Don’t worry, the adventure will continue with another tale, in Buddha’s Palm (Part 3)!
Rated 7/10 (plant, thug, dying, gassing, Blast!, shock, they just leave the corpses lying there!)
Please give feedback below!
Email us and tell us how much we suck!
