filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Leofwine_draca I saw this kung fu movie under the title THUNDERING MANTIS and as other reviewers have mentioned, it has very poor picture quality and some appalling dubbing which doesn't make it a very easy film to sit through. Narrative-wise, it's a simple riff on the plot and ideas of DRUNKEN MASTER, with Beardy giving an energetic performance as a kung fu novice who gets into trouble with some bad guys led by screen veteran Eddy Ko.Beardy trains his physical strength by lugging giant fish around but is out of his depth in the fights until he befriends a precocious kid and the kid's wise old uncle who just so happens to be adept in the Mantis style. You can guess what happens next, and indeed THUNDERING MANTIS plays out exactly as you'd expect, at least up until the last twenty minutes. Beardy engages in horseplay and knockabout comedy (as in the previous year's KNOCKABOUT) while the Wong Fei Hung theme plays.The last twenty minutes is something else, however. A tragic chain of plot events sees Beardy's grasp of sanity finally snap and he goes completely berserk in the final fight scene, turning into a spitting, biting maniac with a performance that's completely off the wall. I know Jackie is sometimes pushed over the edge at the end of his movies (memorably in POLICE STORY) but Beardy's transformation here is something else entirely. A shame the rest of the film couldn't match it.

sarastro7 First of all, I doubt very much that this movie is from 1984 (Edit: Oh good! It's been corrected to 1980 now!), as the Kid in it is certainly not six years older than he was in the previous movie (Sleeping Fist, 1978). He's about 12 here, and couldn't have been much more than a year younger in the first.Anyway, Thundering Mantis was yet another disappointment to me. It starts out as unbearably terrible happy-go-lucky comedy, which however admittedly grows on you a bit as it proceeds. But it remains exaggerated and never reaches a truly entertaining level. Also, several passages in the movie are so dull and cliché that you have to fast-forward past them. The quality of the fighting is okay, but nothing particularly impressive.I love Eddy Ko, and was glad to see that he was in this movie as well. However, he once again plays some stupid evil guy (with silly lilac talcum powder on his face) with no motivation at all, and although he gets to put in some decent fighting here, his character remains nonsensical and undeveloped. The torture scenes, mercifully brief, are simply unpleasant.Beardy's mad and bitin' fightin' in the end is the only thing serving to recommend the movie, and it's not much of a recommendation. It's kinda funny and all, but it doesn't succeed in raising the movie to a level higher than mediocrity.I have to mention the horrid, disgusting English dubbing. Some of the accents are British, and others sound like 50-year-old cowboys. There's a lot of cringe-inducing shrill shrieking and some really idiotic sound effects. This was a digitally remastered DVD; where the hell is the sense in remastering the movie and then retaining the horrible original dubbing? Must be because anything else would be too expensive, but... one really wonders who the hell can find it in themselves to present us with this kind of crap dubbing in the age of the DVD. Un-Ac-Ceptable.5 out of 10. (The first movie, Sleeping Fist, received a 6 rating from me.)

hengir 'The Kung Fu Connection' videotape has hilariously bad dubbing, the picture quality is poor and the sound scratchy, so the film has to work hard to impress. It also has a range of mood from goofy comedy to slow motion tragedy. The plot is basic and almost unsurprising. Yet there is a lot to admire.The action is brisk and the actors perform it well. Eddie Ko is great as always. Leung Kar Yan as Ah Chi is in overdrive. He doesn't walk down the street, he leaps and his face and hands are always mobile. He is convincing when he goes from gurning clown to vengeful fighter. The last fifteen minutes of the film are a sting in the tail and you wonder how such a film that has such a silly start ends with such intense pain. A corker of a finish to a good solid fu film

rde As the movie starts, you rapidly become aware of the fact that it's supposed to be a comedy. Not from any perceived attempts a humour, but from the ridiculous faces that are pulled by our protagonist as he gets into 'wacky' situations. Plot? Well, not really. Our bearded hero goes through the traditional ritual of making friends, beating up some bad guys, watching his friends die horribly and revenging them in a long and tedious manner. The kung-fu, while not as stilted as it would be in, say, a Chang Cheh movie, is nonetheless unconvincing and unspectacular. Even by the lowest of standards this movie has nothing going for it, and it should be avoided at all costs.