If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

This lesser known piece of Shaw Brothers history doesn't really sizzle that much. The martial arts is kept to a bare minimum making it rely more on the story of which there isn't really any to speak of. A man possesses a deadly secret which everybody wants to know. The secret would tell you where riches lie. So being thin on plot and martial arts all that is left is the actors and there isn't very much star power.The love story involved is a sort of twisted Romeo and Juliet. Avoid this one unless you're a hardcore Shaw Brothers fan. You do get to see the mystical martial arts where bending steel is not a problem. I guess for having over 900 films in their library you're bound to run into a clunker. This is one of those that's for Shaw.

A young kung fu student is thrown into jail on a false charge. He shares a cell with a shaggy convict, Ting, who is repeated tortured by the magistrate to reveal "the deadly secret". A progression of bad guys show up (including evil Shaolin monks) to pry the deadly secret out of Ting. Ting it turns out has just mastered a form of powerful internal kung fu and he kills anyone who enters the cell. Meanwhile across the courtyard is the woman Ting loves and her father, the magistrate, is not above using her to get the deadly secret. Also there are three conniving kung fu masters after the secret as well. And so it goes.Anyone interested in the short but intense gross out film career of Tun Fei Mou will not have much to revel in here. Aside from a torture scene in the beginning that is quite disturbing and unusual for a standard Wu Xia film, this is business as usual. Perhaps someone saw this scene and said to the director, "Perhaps your talents may be with other types of films" and thus "Lost Souls" was born. Regardless the film here isn't anything special. The story is typical, the acting OK, and the martial arts just OK. Nothing really terrible, nothing special. Only available on VCD as far as I can tell. Celestial probably didn't think it was worth the expense of a DVD master. I tend to agree.