Kung Fu Ghost (2022)

I was actually spoiled for choice for FTW week this week! I mean, there is an absolute... well not gold mine... shit mine... of movies out there on the internet that you can basically stream for absolutely free and that not be any form of digital piracy, but there was genuinely 3 or 4 that I agonised over covering to round out April and I eventually settled on 2022's: Kung Fu Ghost a movie which genuinely sounds pretty interesting! "When a charming but naïve young woman inherits her late-Grandfather’s estate, she soon discovers the house’s ghostly inhabitants who have taken a pledge to protect her family’s century-old secrets and powerful artifacts. Now, to guard the future, she teams up with spirits of the past to fight treasure-hunting criminals and discovers the power of life itself." I mean, it honestly sounds pretty good right? I actually have reasonably high expectations for this one!

Daisy (Jennifer N. Linch), a slightly adorable Vietnamese lady, learns about her grandpa passing away and is 100% not sad about that, but also learns that she inherited his house in America! After arriving at the suitably spooky and suitably intimidating almost definitely haunted house, Daisy learns she has to stay there for 7 whole days before she fully inherits the house and naturally has her reservations. Despite being a little bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, Daisy spends the first night there anyway, there is a genuinely piece of outstanding dialogue here where, whilst on the phone to her friend who says it's a "fresh start" for her, Daisy says "there's nothing fresh about this place." which I honestly thought was hilarious... anyway the following morning, she awakes and starts tidying and cleaning the place up until she is rudely interrupted by some strange men wandering around looking for an 'artifact' the 'the old man' left behind. After Daisy tries, and fails miserably to attack them with a frying pan, Marv (Mark Atkinson) and Harry (Eddie Lain) tie her up but are spooked by noises in the house which Daisy calls ghosts to the point they end up running away when the noises intensify. Appearing from the rapidly developing mist is a handsome looking chap called William (Noah Sargent) and her grandfather... Grandpa... (David S. Dawson) who apologies for not spending more time with her growing up but Daisy although she is initially angry at him apologises before saying she his very tired and would like to sleep (?). As Daisy naps, Grandpa and William opine that more thieves will likely come for the artifacts and that they must protect them, and Daisy, who is now a part of it. The following morning, Daisy is awoken by Grandpa practising kung-fu and says "what kind of psychopath is up this early?! It's 10.30!" which is... kind of hilarious... (she blames it on jetlag later) and in the following scene it appears she has spent some time cleaning up the house as she opines about how clean and less scary it looks now, before William interrupts her by appearing out of thin air, I... I think Daisy has a thing for him... and with Grandpa they offer to help her clean up the rest of the house. Even William calls him Grandpa... With Daisy now feeling much less scared about the whole thing than she did before, she is having a little dance on the porch when some very stereotypical looking burglars creep up and force their way into the house. Daisy gets knocked out and tied up almost immediately, and when Grandpa appears spooking the others out of the room he asks Daisy to fight back using her martial arts training, which amuses Daisy and she replies with "I don't know any martial arts." so Grandpa decides to take matters into his own hands, possesses Daisy's body and proceeds to absolutely obliterate all 7 of the would-be burglars in a single fight. Honestly, up until this moment, some... half hour in... this movie has been a total goof-fest, but like, in a good way, and then this fight scene is just straight up bad-ass. It's properly choreographed and everything! Daisy decks all 7 of them whilst in her pyjama bottoms! After letting her go, Grandpa is angry at Daisy's lack of flexibility and suggests she starts getting in shape as he will need her body to defend the house. Daisy calls him "fat Jackie Chan" and then tells him she's going to bed! Presumably the following day, William appears whilst Daisy is dancing and starts playing the piano for her which leads to the pair of them having a little dance together themselves before William leans in to kiss her but that is potentially all just a dream as Grandpa wakes Daisy up at 4.30 in the morning and demands she starts working out. Daisy isn't in agreement. But Grandpa is unrelenting and eventually Daisy caves in but he is far from impressed with her technique and proceeds to push her and literally manipulate her into trying harder. Later Daisy confesses to her Aunty during a video call that she's interested in a guy and her Aunty explains to her what she should do to get his attention but despite her best efforts at trying to be "sexy", Daisy fails to get the message across. After protesting against working out some more, Grandpa reveals to Daisy that he and William have remained behind in "the earthly realm" to guard an incredibly powerful and special Bell & Scepter; a Buddhist religious artifact, that holds the balance between life and death however Daisy is less obliging, explaining that she still hasn't forgiven Grandpa for leaving them and that she plans to sell the house and use the money to buy Grandma's restaurant back in Vietnam. She says she isn't strong enough to help Grandpa and that she can't help him. After exploring the attic and having a bit of a heart to heart with William, Daisy explains to William how Grandma raised her when her parents died and that they were very close. She then discovers William's paintings in a box and he promises to show her how she too can make something! And they proceed to try and make a clay version of "the bell that rules the world". After getting bored and exploring the house, Daisy decides to hang the Bell & Scepter on the wall "because it's pretty"...! And naturally that very same night some very acrobatic ninja burglars break in and are moments away from escaping before a sleepy Daisy interrupts them. When throwing her bunny slippers at them aren't enough to get the better of them Grandpa appears again and has to use Daisy to take care of business! But after some more pretty impressive martial arts, one of the ninjas gets the better of Daisy / Grandpa when he knocks her out with an ornamental cushion... and makes it away with the Scepter but not the Bell. Deciding she doesn't want to get "stabbed by a ninja" again, Daisy is suddenly alot more enthusiastic about Grandpa's training. After a bit of a training montage, a guy called Warren (Rene Fernandez) appears who has the Scepter but before much of, well anything, is explained, William appears and uses the Bell to banish Warren from the house. William then explains, by way of a flashback that over 40 years ago, him, Grandpa and Warren - as doctors - took on the responsibility of protecting the Bell and Scepter after a dying monk bestowed it upon them when his monastery was burned to the ground. And that Warren abused the power by giving himself eternal life, but by doing so the artifacts took William's life to balance the scale. The pair explain that Daisy has to be the new guardian of the artifacts now that they are both dead but she must take on the responsibility willingly, but Daisy refuses, believing that she isn't capable. After a bit of a... odd scene... where Daisy finds a bunch of love letters written to William from his Vietnamese fiancée, Warren is back with the Scepter and wants the Bell. He disables William easily enough with the Scepter giving Grandpa time to possess Daisy again and put up a fight. After she/he handily dispatches of Warren's henchmen, Daisy  Grandpa is about to take on Warren but he just uses the Scepter again to separate them. Pleading with Warren not to hurt Grandpa, Daisy agrees to an exchange; the Bell for the Scepter, but instead gives Warren a fake that she made herself! Warren demands she give him the real bell but when Daisy refuses he tries to bargain with her instead, explaining he feels remorse for what he did to William and that he wants to use the Bell to bring him back. Convinced by the story, Daisy hands it over but when using it, the artifact takes Daisy's life in exchange for William's, with Daisy dying almost instantly. But with William distraught Warren decides he must put things right and uses the artifact once more to transfer his eternal life to Daisy, killing him and with it putting things back to the way they were, with Grandpa still dead and William also dead. But he hangs around just long enough for the pair to confess their undying love for each other before moving on and Daisy taking on the responsibility of protecting the artifacts.

Well this was... 100% not what I expected! Not really alot of fighting going on, but when there was it was pretty top notch stuff. Around that there was this kind of really goofy comedy going on and then the last 15 minutes got crazy heavy and crazy emotional! It was certainly... different! I mean there were moments the movie moved at about 100 miles per hour... and it was so unmistakenly low budget. But I can't deny that Jennifer N. Linch was amusing and it did make me laugh... even if the entire movie did sort of feel like a 1 hour 30 YouTube Vlog about a girl finding a weird antique...

It is pretty impossible not to feel even the slightest bit of compassion for Daisy. She is just 100% so goofy and clumsy and really difficult not to like. And the fact that she is full on decking ninja's and robbers in her bunny slippers and cat pyjamas just makes her even more likeable. Jennifer N. Linch has an incredibly thick Vietnamese accent so there are a couple of moments were it's a little bit more of a struggle to understand what's she saying but I think that just makes her even more likeable to be honest! She's a trier and I can appreciate that! I thought she did a really good job here. It's obvious she poured her absolute heart and soul into this project and you can tell she's really making an effort with it.

To be honest the others in it are not so bad either, it's clear they are a certain calibre of actor and I don't think it'll be taking home any Oscars any time soon. But both Noah Sargent as William and David S. Dawson as Grandpa put enough into their role to at least stand out as distinguishable characters. There are moments where William is a bit vanilla but I genuinely think that was supposed to be part of his character...! So I wouldn't say anybody necessarily acted poorly in this, there was a degree of cheesyness with it, but not necessarily bad acting.

The positives notwithstanding though, it was very much a low budget, indie production. And much of the entire movie around the brief fighting scenes was just Daisy being really silly and naïve for comedic value. Which was fine, she was amusing, but that padded out a good 3/4's of the movie and it often felt like the movie was meandering around rather than developing the story. And when it did develop the story, things moved so quickly that they are barely explained and fleshed out and assumptions have to be kind of made in order to connect certain bits of the plot. So it got a bit difficult and bit confusing at times and the rushed nature of it felt unprofessional. In contrast to that though, the fight scenes were expertly choreographed and it's clear that that is where this movie shines. I think if that had been a bit more of the movie's content and less about Daisy's personality it might have pushed the movie up a notch.

In terms of production, there was very heavy Youtube video vibe to this. I'm trying to sort of unravel it in my brain but I think it was a combination of the music choices combined with the montage shots scene development and just the general approach, with Daisy doing all goofy stuff and talking to herself like she is talking to a camera. It was kind of like a much more elaborate spooky house exploration vlog with a storyline woven into it! Combining the classical music with the stock footage of skies and space e.t.c also gave it a very strong spiritualist montage kind of feel and made it so plainly obvious that what you were watching was an indie production. I'll be honest though, I didn't hate it. It just didn't feel like a professional movie production and in a way that's kind of just fine? It was a bit refreshing actually to see someone just do it the way they wanted to do it and not follow the rules of convention.

I'm not sure I can really say that this was a good movie. But I mean that in like, the nicest possible way! Jennifer N. Linch, as well as staring in this, also directed it, and I can't deny that she was interesting and enjoyable to watch. It was certainly a different movie experience to one I've seen before now, and I also can't deny that I would genuinely be up for watching another Jennifer N. Linch movie! It was also clear and obvious that alot of effort, alot of attention and alot of love went into making this the absolute best version of what it could be. I won't question that for a moment. But I did feel like a lot of it was just Daisy being silly and funny because of who she was as a person, and in terms of a storyline it was a little thin on the ground, and not really a great amount of action. It was certainly different though and a nod of respect from me for that. Very strong 2 out of 5.