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Master of Kung Fu (Choose Your Own Adventure) by Rick Brightfield
Excellent Book
Library Binding
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 4, 2019
I got Master of Kung Fu, and its followup Master of Tae Kwon Do, from library discards for a quarter apiece. I'm reviewing them both at once. You can read them individually; TKD has you playing the same character and trying to meet up with a Chinese friend who helped you in KF -- but other than a reference or two to having visited a city before, or your other friend from KF saying to count him out of this adventure, it doesn't make continued reference to the past. They're both "you are caught up with international secret-agent/ninja intrigue."
Tae Kwon Do is definitely the better of the two. Kung Fu is the more "product of its time, yikes" -- Scene of not wanting to eat the food because it's monkey brains and live eels and roast beetles, magic Chinese hypnosis/ancient Chinese mysticism, cringey non-native English dialogue. Tae Kwon Do is a bit "all South Korean people would do anything for Americans" and uses the word Oriental, but scores points for allusions to Korean/Japanese/Chinese intertwined history.
I know these are silly fiction books for 10-year-olds, I'm not asking for whole history lessons -- just looking to not have to remediate a kid's view of a country after a book set there.
KF, 16 choices, 16 endings. TKD, 21 choices, 19 endings. KF has one ending you can reach a few different ways; TKD has a few options that will send you down the same branches -- not forcing you into a loop, just that if you do X now or X later it will lead down the same road.
In general TKD felt like it might be aimed a little older and that it was better mapped.
Tae Kwon Do is definitely the better of the two. Kung Fu is the more "product of its time, yikes" -- Scene of not wanting to eat the food because it's monkey brains and live eels and roast beetles, magic Chinese hypnosis/ancient Chinese mysticism, cringey non-native English dialogue. Tae Kwon Do is a bit "all South Korean people would do anything for Americans" and uses the word Oriental, but scores points for allusions to Korean/Japanese/Chinese intertwined history.
I know these are silly fiction books for 10-year-olds, I'm not asking for whole history lessons -- just looking to not have to remediate a kid's view of a country after a book set there.
KF, 16 choices, 16 endings. TKD, 21 choices, 19 endings. KF has one ending you can reach a few different ways; TKD has a few options that will send you down the same branches -- not forcing you into a loop, just that if you do X now or X later it will lead down the same road.
In general TKD felt like it might be aimed a little older and that it was better mapped.
August 26, 2019
One has to be creative to use this kind of style. It really is interesting. The fact that the reader has to decide what to do at some point makes it quite unique. I loved it.
September 6, 2024
It was staggering how little sense this made, even for a ‘choose your own adventure book’. And every other ending seemed to be ‘and it was all a dream!’ which was just sloppy.
Not sure what I saw in this when I was ten and I see even less in it now. Just a bizarre and dated read to kill an hour or two.
Not sure what I saw in this when I was ten and I see even less in it now. Just a bizarre and dated read to kill an hour or two.
March 8, 2017
Kickin' it old school with this. Lee and I read it together and chose our own paths as a married couple. Awesome 80's flashbacks.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews