Shi da zhang men chuang Shao Lin (Shi, The Founder and Grandmaster of Shaolin) came to America under a bunch of titles: Fight for Survival, Fight for Shaolin Tamo Mystique, Lady Wu Tang, and Don’t Bleed on Me. And oh yes, the best title of all, Kung Fu Halloween.

Directed and written by Cheng Hou, this begins with ten martial arts masters stealing the books of Shaolin to learn all its secrets. At the same time, Shi Fu Chun (Polly Jean Kwan) has been demanding to be taught at the school and has been refused because she is a woman. A former teacher, Lin Chiu, shows them their lessons and tasks them with getting all ten books back. Along the way, she gets to throw her legs and arms out all stretch-style as if she were Dhalsim. Throw in an all gold monk, goofball helpers, a ton of animal kung fu styles and Shi Fu Chun becoming a man thanks to a style that must be negated with Negative Kung-Fu. The master has forgotten this style, so he fakes his own death, leaving our heroine stuck with a mustache for some of the movie. She also does the “pick up the blazing pot and get the dragon tattoo,” as if she were Caine on Kung-Fu. 

There are some negative reviews on this, as it takes some time to get going. Ignore those reviews. This has a tiger man, a happy-laughter ending that turns tragic, and, of course, Polly Jean Kwan being an ass-kicking instrument of martial violence. I really wish that this were ten movies, one for each book, and not just this one movie. If I were a kid, I’d be drawing comic books of this all day in school instead of paying attention. As it is, I’ll be doing the same thing except at work.

You can watch this on Tubi.