When a martial arts school gives refuge to a master swordsman and his daughter they become embroiled in a life or death battle against two seemingly unbeatable opponents. One who has a golden baton that can cut swords and stab opponents. The other a white haired Tai Chi master with seemingly no vulnerabilities.
This is not a Pai Mei movie but it is a worthy “not Pai Mei” movie in that it looks like Pai Mei, is as invulnerable as him and is as deadly as him. If you are any sort of fan of the real Pai Mei movies which I have previously reviewed here then you’d be doing yourself a disservice not to check out this film. It’s Pai Mei, only not in name.
While ‘Born Invincible’ doesn’t have the polish or fun as some of the better Pai Mei movies there is a certain satisfaction to it that it does give us more of what we want; a bunch of kung fu students trying to figure out how to defeat a near invincible opponent and the training they put themselves through in order to do it. To give the movie even more credit it has Lo Lieh in it. Unfortunately he is not playing the role of the white haired master, I guess that would be too close to his very memorable role as the real Pei Mei in the Shaw Brothers films. Instead Carter Wong takes on the role and does a very good job of being the villain.
As previously mentioned, there are many white haired kung fu villains out there. A lot of them don’t live up to their menacing looks but on some occasions like here, they do shine.
All of this has happened before 