The Mystery of Chess Boxing (1979)

 "To play chess, one must be as calm as a mountain."

This film, let us be clear from the start, is utter pants. The pace and tone are all over the place, and the characterisation is weak. But, as I've only seen and blogged half a dozen or so martial arts films, it's interesting to look at why.

We have a decent premise here with a young man setting out to avenge his father's death by training in kung fu and using this to wreak his revenge, while engaging throughout in a martial arts philosophy of five elements and the use of chess (xiangqi, or Chinese chess, a broadly similar game) as some kind of vague metaphor for the right sort of kung fu. All with the addition of various hilarious-looking wigs.

And yet it all falls flat. Too much of the early part of the film is devoted to silly slapstick sequences rather than developing the Ghost Faced Killer or developing the characters; instead we get lots of fancy martial arts and acrobatics and lengthy sequences of hazing at the kung fu school, but very little in the way of character development in order to get us to know or like these people. Instead, the entire film has (in English translation at least) extraordinarily functional dialogue throughout, and a lot of the more dramatic scenes towards the end don't have the intended effect, as we simply aren't sufficiently invested in these characters.

Also, I'm no connoisseur of martial arts, but I'm told the fighting is awkwardly directed, with very little visual evidence of the five different element-based styles. And the chess angle, such as it is, is very superficial indeed. the overall effect is, well, rubbish. And it's a pity; the concept could have worked well with a dedent script and execution