Director Godfrey Ho made a living from producing terrible films. This comes as no surprise when you learn that much of his work is the result of glueing together exerts from other people’s unfinished movies, and box office flops that nobody saw the first time round. Often filming short sequences to abridge these random chunks of kung fu, they were usually released onto the American market during the home video boom of the early 80’s.

Five Pattern Dragon Claws, however, appears to have actually originated from Korea, and a collaboration of sorts between Tommy Kim and Godfrey Ho. It doesn’t seem to be one of Ho’s usual clumsy mish-mash of unfinished movies, but it isn’t entirely clear in how the work was shared between the two directors, but needless to say, Godfrey pulls proceedings down to his level.

The dubbed dialogue is predictably awful. Most exchanges are repetitive and empty, as the voice actor’s struggle to apply meaning to the events on screen and fill the Chinese actor’s mouths with meaningless nonsense. In one insightful and revealing dialogue, the star begs his girlfriend, “Will you come with me? Come on you must come with me”. She doesn’t want to go anywhere, and he cleverly replies “You must come with me right away. Please, right away. Come on lets go. Please. Come”. Award winning? Probably not, but one of the Buddhist monks sounds a lot like Sean Connery, which raises a laugh or two.

Sure, the generous scenes of martial arts occasionally impress, especially some of the perfectly executed kicks, but this is an ultimately forgettable movie, which even Hwang Jang Lee cannot save, as his talents are tragically under used. 5 Pattern Dragon Claws is one of hundreds of uninspiring and faceless old school kung fu films that fog the mind and obscure the view of the genuinely enthralling retro movies that are out there for those willing to seek them out.