18 Golden Destroyers (1985) Poster

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4/10
Not the kind of whistleblowing I wanted to watch...
Leofwine_draca5 October 2016
Something of a cut and paste bodge job from those guys at IFD, 18 GOLDEN DESTROYERS is a late-stage cash in on the success of 18 BRONZEMEN. It has certainly been packaged as such. As is usual for an IFD film, the opening historical battle sequence has been ripped off from elsewhere and plonked into an entirely different film.

It's very difficult to work out this movie's country of origin, but at a guess I would say Thailand because a lot of the names in the cast list look Thai. It's a typical kung fu adventure in which the young hero and his buddy go up against an evil wizard who has raised an army of gold-skinned robots to work in the local mine. Shades of Hammer's THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES you might think, and you'd be right, but sadly 18 GOLDEN DESTROYERS is more annoying than fun.

The evil wizard has zero presence and uses the most irritating shrill whistle ever to control his troops. There's plenty of action to be had, that's for sure, but the clunky gold-skinned warriors are goofy rather than threatening, despite the best efforts of the director to make them so. The hero is as wooden as a board and the film, although colourful, is entirely cheap, and lacks the fun and wacky factor from other fantasy-themed Hong Kong movies from the 1980s.
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3/10
Any Lover Of Bad Movies Should Watch This!!
Movie-Misfit5 October 2019
Where do I start?!? 18 Golden Destroyers is just pure 'bad cinema' gold. Opening with a scene from one movie set in traditional China with the great Casanova Wong taking on about 40 men (I think taken from the film Rivals Of The Silver Fox), the film would have you think you think you're in for a treat before quickly switching to another film - a Thai movie called, The Hunt For The Golden Man. And this is where the fun begins...

The plot involves a temple in Hong Kong that can reincarnate Shaolin monks into gold "robots" that do the temples dirty work. An evil monk steals the Golden Destroyers and takes them to Thailand where he plans on using them to extract gold from a mine and then take over the country!

It's mental!!

With silly acting, panto costumes, and a temple master who has white carpet stuck on his face for eyebrows and a moustache, you can't help but constantly laugh. But for me, it is the ridiculously uninspired and badly choreographed fight scenes that make this such a fun watch. While some of the actors can move, the timing and editing are horrendous which only makes for some hilarious scenes.

And while I'm on hilarious scenes - the one where our hero helps a girl down from the rocks and waterfalls is laugh-out-loud funny as their real falls are just left in but the dubbing ignores what actually is happening.

Another scene involves the Golden Destroyers attacking a village in a zombie-like fashion, killing off the locals for no reason with one little girl being able to escape through the legs of one. Angered, the golden zombie climbs into the nearest pig sty and grabs a piglet - for no reason!

And it just gets more mental from there...

The film claims to be have been directed by a Gordon Chan. Now if we were to believe that, and it was the same Gordon Chan who gave us HK hits such as Fight Back To School; Fist of Legend; Thunderbolt and many more - then this would be his first as a director. But I don't believe it was..This has Godfrey Ho all over it!

Overall: 18 Golden Destroyers is just plain bad, but if you need a laugh and love bad films then this is for you!
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2/10
another worthless hodgepodge from IFD films
winner5526 October 2006
The title-credit sequence offers a knockdown-drag-out kung fu film about Shaolin Temple, set in the ming dynasty.

Unfortunately, this sequence has absolutely NOTHING to do with the rest of the film, which is a mid-'70s Phillipino adventure film set in the 20th Century.

Does anybody smell Joseph Lai and his directorial better half Godfrey Ho (here listed as "Gordon Chan"- no relation to Gordan "Fist of Legend" Chan of the later '80s)? Yep - it's another worthless hodgepodge from IFD films.

Actually - I should admit that some of the IFD material is really very amusing - some of these films are almost well-made.

However, this is not well-made, and is only infrequently amusing.

See if you can find a copy of "Raiders of Buddhist Kungfu" to watch, instead - another badly made Ho film, but at least it's amusing.
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