Yet another movie about a martial artist who has mastered the art of the Iron Shirt/Iron Vest/Golden Bell cover (NOT Tai Chi Chuan at least no school I was ever familiar with - even in Chen style, TCC emphasizes fluidity and softness, yielding before attacks and not getting hit, not just having stuff bounce off you!), but it's a good one.What's especially interesting to me about "Born Invincible" is the way the "hero fights to avenge his slain master" theme is carried out. Usually in these flicks, it's just one protagonist who trains and trains and trains, suffering multiple defeats until finally he (or he and a couple of his allies) manage to overcome the villain in a furious showdown. But this time around, it's an entire school trying to avenge their fallen teacher, and it takes three different male students plus a female student helping the last two male students, plus a Taoist nun's cryptic advice, to overcome the bad guy. It was really different, watching three different kung fu guys investing all that time and energy with various styles, tricks and gimmicks...only to get mowed down anyway. (The first gets killed, the 2nd is so badly injured he can't fight again, and the third needs all the help he can get PLUS a dirty trick to win!) \Carter Wong and Lo Lieh make fine villains. They are so interesting, in fact, that the good guys look a bit bland and boring in comparison. The camera work, editing and choreography make them look very ferocious and unstoppable when they get rolling, especially CW as the white haired "invincible" bad guy. Although, as villains go, you have to wonder, how bad are they really? Yes, they kill a guy who offended them years ago, plus a couple other trained martial artists in pitched duels, but it's not like they go around terrorizing the countryside or whatever, at least not that we see. If fact when CW's character isn't whaling on someone, he's mostly seen simply sitting on his meditation cusion in front of the Pa Kua symbol.This one was a lot of fun. The usual terrible dubbing doesn't really matter too much. Good costumes, good choreography, nice handling of the "find the villain's weak spot" trope, and a nice variation of the usual clichés by having multiple heros face the bad guys over time.

In the late 70s and early 80s as a kung fu fan you were sure of onething, lots of kung fu movies - most of them were bad, but some held thesame mythology that if you trained hard enough and knew every secretthere was you'd become invincible. This idea sporned the White Hairedsupervillians that would become to showcase kung fu movies. Impossibleto beat, super-tough villians that would sometimes steal the show. Themore white hair, the more powerful they were.In this movie the real star is the bad guy as we see him kill all thosewho stand in his way. Excellent kung fu duels are plenty in this film,though the ending is a bit silly.I'd love a redux of this movie for the 21st century - but it'll neverhappen - instead enjoy kung fu mastery of the white haired kind in thismovie.Ove

Born Invincible was the first martial arts film I have ever seen. It has been 16 years ago since I saw it. When I was browsing a DVD sellpoint I noticed they had Born Invincible on DVD. Needless to say that I immediately ordered it because I was curious to see whether it's still good. And yes, it's still that good. The dubbing of the movie is very bad if I look at it realistically but it is very funny. Carter Hwang and his bad guy partner in crime really have ridiculous voices that don't fit with the persons they are portraying. Very cool. The action in the movie is really great. Carter Hwang is really good as the bad guy. He kicks some serious you know what. Sometimes I wonder whether the makers of Terminator looked at Carter Hwang because Carter Hwang really reminds me of the Terminator in the sense that he is nearly unstoppable. If you want a classic Hong Kong movie with great action then Born Invincible is the movie for you. As far as I am concerned the movie stands out among a lot of Hong Kong movies released between 1974 and 1984.

Supervillains in Kung Fu movies are invaribly the coolest parts of the genre, because they are nearly always impervious and superior, both in intelligence and fighting ability, to anyone else. Their power is generated through sheer force and will, and only the hero(es) preternatural lust for revenge usually defeats these awesome Kung Fu menaces.In BORN INVINCIBLE, you get probably the most bizarre, yet realistic, supervillain in the whole of the genre. Carter Wong's Tai Chi training (a style developed by a woman), starting from a small child, results in iron skin, snow-white hair, and a high, feminine voice. This Tai Chi master becomes an unstoppable thug-chieftain who can fight a deadly duel and, simultaneously, carve a Chinese yin-yang symbol in the earth with his feet. This powerful supervillain operates from a source of disipline that is downright scary; Wong is entirely invincible but for his one weak point. When you see how relentless Wong's killer-master is, you can't help but relate to the terror in the heroes' faces when they have to take him on. Fact is, if not for the honor of their school, which is paramount to the students trying to take revenge for Wong's murder of their teacher, nobody would mess with the Tai Chi master, since it is considered by the most learned monks to be certain death.What separates Joe Kuo film villains, characters like Wong's and the great Ghost-Faced Killer from MYSTERY OF CHESS BOXING, is that Kuo puts one scene in there to show us the supervillain is also human. Wong's character is stopped from a killing rampage at one point by a white-haired nun, and there's a moment when Wong seems to reflect on what he IS, a killer, as opposed to what he trained to become, an otherworldly kind of priest attuned to nature and the inner forces like the nun. The fact that Wong won't, or can't, stem his bloodlust and sadism is his undoing. There's a lot going on in BORN INVINCIBLE aside from the superior fighting skill of the actors. One of the best Kung Fu films based merely on this unusual depth of character, and a knock-out all the way.