First and last directorial attempt by Yuen Biao, ‘The Kid From Tibet’ shares a lot of similarities with other Yuen Biao films. ‘Iceman Cometh’ and ‘The Peacock King’, which was co-directed by Biao, are without a doubt big influence on this movie. Mixing old legend, brutal traditional kung fu fight sequences, magical power and light humor, The Kid From Tibet has a lot of interesting elements but never really impresses us as we have already seen these kind of ideas before, and sometimes done better.

The premise is interesting, as it shows a bit about the nature of the monks, with great shots inside the old temple and also the natural scenery around the Tibet Mountain. However, the story starts to drag a bit when Yuen Biao’s character finally arrives in Hong Kong. You have the typical reaction of the character unfamiliar with modern civilization. It is pretty funny at time but you get tired of it very fast, as it is something that we have seen numerous times already. It’s a very average story in general as it never really develops to his full potential, but al least there’s always something happening to entertain.

The characters are also vague as there’s no real development for them. The movie really focuses on the setting and action sequences. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, as there are countless movies that we can name who use the formula of brainless action and some of them even became real classics, but it is not the case for this movie.

Yuen Biao and Michelle Reis did a decent job in general at portraying the good guys, but they’re not the type of character that you will remember for a long time. On the other side, the bad guys are pretty nifty. As usual, Yuen Wah, famous for his evil character performances, is great to watch. His martial art ability is as excellent as usual, as is his evil laugh. Nina Li Chi, also makes her presence felt in the role of the evil sister. Her fight against Biao is the most impressive fight of the whole movie, too! She didn’t do it all herself but still, it is impressive and fun to watch.

As for the fighting, unfortunately there’s not that much. You get one big chasing/fighting sequence at the beginning, then the fight with Yuen vs. Nina and finally the big final match between Biao and Wah. You have a couple of kicks and punches here and there during the film but I was excepting much more fighting than that. The final fight is not that impressive either. It is far from the work that Wah and Biao did in the Iceman Cometh, which was more superior in general.

I’m not really surprised that The kid From Tibet never became a classic of the genre as most of the elements present in the movie can be found better represented in other Hong Kong productions. Fans of Yuen Biao and kung fu movie fanatics will probably enjoy the flick, but for the rest, it might be just a simple distraction.