Before he became one of Shaw Brothers' foremost fight choreographers, Lau Kar Leung used to work as an extra besides choreographing the old black and white Wong Fei Hung series. Together with fellow choreographer Tang Chia, he would spend many years working for director Chang Cheh until they had a fallout while doing “Marco Polo”. So it was only natural that he would eventually evolve into a director during the early 70s when the martial arts films were in full swing. Furthermore, after Shaw Brothers Studio stopped making films, he would continue to choreograph, direct and even act in films like “Drunken Master II” with Jackie Chan and Tsui Hark's “Seven Swords” in 2005.
Filmed during the time when Chang Cheh was in Taiwan making films under his own Long Bow studio, “The Spiritual Boxer”, a comedy with kung fu and starring Wong Yu was also Lau's first time as a film director. The simple story is about a couple of traveling conmen, Master Chi Chiang (Chiang Yang) and his goofy apprentice Siu Chien (Wong Yu) who pretends to be spiritual boxers and makes a living by swindling the superstitious country folks.
One day, forced to do a scheduled ritual all by himself because his master had gotten too drunk, Chien has his turn to shine which also resulted in the film's funniest moments. Though the ceremony was a great success for the cocky hustler, he was quickly exposed by some locals and driven out of town while his master was put in jail. Nonetheless, he continues his trade alone in another small town and becomes really popular and thus makes a decent living for himself. Meanwhile, he meets a young village girl, Jin Lian (Lin Chen Chi) and the two take a shine to each other and eventually he partners up with her.
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Believing that Chien actually has some supernatural powers, the locals start to have faith in him which further helps his business to pick up. In the meantime, he slowly warms up to and take pity on the residents who trusted him. Touched and encouraged by what he experienced and seeing that the village's loan shark Liu (Chung Tien Shih) and his ruthless thugs are bullying some unfortunate folks, he decides to use his real fighting skills to good use by helping them out. Impressed by his unusual skills, Liu lets them be at first, but after his two bandit associates turn up and expose the tricks used by Chien, he teams up with them and goes after him.
Interestingly, this production starts off in the late Qing Dynasty with a demonstration of two practitioners, wonderfully portrayed by Ti Lung and Chen Kuan Tai showing off their skills as spiritual boxers. During the time of the Boxer Rebellion, the fighters believed that through religious belief or magic and strict kung fu training, they could become impervious to weapons and summon supernatural powers. Besides, they were able to summon gods or spirits into their bodies and thus become them. But that is only an introduction to what those boxers could achieve and we don't get to see both Ti Lung and Chan again, as the film switches to protagonist Siu Chien, the kung fu conman many years later. Nonetheless, this theme of different animal styles kung fu performed by the possessed boxer would become the backbone of the plot.
Generally regarded as the first kung fu film's comic jester, young actor Wong Yu, in his breakthrough performance, is fun to watch, well suited and impressive as the goofy conman. Besides, he is agile enough and good with his amazing comic flair though he lacks the strong physical presence as compared to other Shaw Brother kung fu stars. Still, he is able to further develop his own screen personality as a likable trickster. Furthermore, he shares good chemistry with Lin Chen Chi who is equally fun to watch with her tomboy look and short hair. A wonderful pairing that supplies both the film's fun and romantic moments.
The rest of the supporting cast is impressive too, apart from the amazing cameos from Ti Lung and Chen Kuan Tai in the opening sequence, the forever reliable Fung Hak On is as good as it gets playing the main henchman of the village loan shark. Lee Hoi Sang and Wu Hang Sheng turn up as a pair of bandits at the end to give Chien a hard time. Of course, the icing on the cake is the brief cameo of master Lau himself.
Seldom seen in kung fu films before, Lau's directorial debut is a great combination of comedy and wonderfully choreographed kung fu action, starring an equally likable though wacky lead. The clever inclusion of spiritual and ghost elements into the mix would later influence other films to follow. Even though there is a lack of the typical spectacular final showdown or any training sequence, the result is still very entertaining and the comedy is never over the top and well written. Also, Lau is definitely more interested in telling a story with passion and heart and with good characters instead of just all out mindless action.
