In the mood for a “Shaolin Soccer/Kung Fu Hustle” martial arts comedy, a Soviet era period piece reminding the world of the Bad Old Days when Russia was even more repressive than it is today?

Well, so was I. But “The Invisible Fight (Nähtamatu võitlus)” doesn’t really sate one’s “Hi-Yah” craving.

It’s a ponderous Estonian farce that takes swipes at Mother Russia, the early ’70s Soviet cars, fashions, politics and foreign policy. And those riffs are built around a wild-eyed Estonian survivor of a kung fu massacre on the Chinese border, a long-haired punk who comes home mad for kung fu and the music of Black Sabbath.

Can this comedy be saved? Not if it’s got one third the jokes of “Shaolin Soccer” spread out over a narrative nearly 30 minutes longer than that cult classic.

But there are enough funny elements in writer-director Rainer Sarnet’s (“November”) latest that it’s a pity he didn’t bring in an Estonian, Latvian or Finnish script doctor to joke this up and nag him into abandoning the many dead spaces between the laughs. Financiers from those three Baltic countries produced the picture., and they’d have been well-served badgering him over final cut.

The film opens on the tense 1973 border between the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Rafael (Ursel Tilk) is one of the Estonian “republic’s” contributions to this guard force, and the witness and sole survivor of an attack by wild-haired/boom-box wielding Chinese martial artists (Eddie Tsai, Johnny X. Wang and Kyle Wavebourne).

This trio of nascent metalheads leap walls, dance on the barrels of raised AK-47s and fend off bullets from those semi-automatic weapons with those flimsy, floppy swords common in Bruce Lee-era martial arts movies.

The wirework fights are as amusing as they are impressive. The swishing missed-blows and punches landing sound effects and quick-zoom close-ups of the leering masters of their craft adorably mimic the style of such movies back in the day.

Rafael is told “God saved you” for a higher calling. And when he comes home, long-haired and kung-fu and Black Sabbath-obsessed, life is nothing but frustration.

“Everything cool is banned in Soviet Union,” he bitches, in Estoninan with English subtitles.

But then he stumbles into some Eastern Orthodox monks who are anything but passive preachers of The Word. They take their martial arts seriously, so seriously that one and all bark at Mister “Tiger Style, Eagle Claw” and clucking “Chicken” style and his weak kung fu.

“Go home, you clown!”

But he doesn’t. And under the tutelage of Irinei (Kaarel Pogg) and Nafanail (Indrek Sammul), the metalhead monk just might learn humility, kung fu and how to Get the Girl (Ester Kuntu) whose fiance beat Rafeal to a pulp before the kid’s kung fu/kingdom of heaven conversion.

The action comedy bits here work, no matter how far-fetched the reasons for the fight. The objects of fun — Soviet repression, Soviet cars (a ZAZ, Zaporozhets is a supporting character), Eastern Orthodox icon-worship and monastic rites — are ripe for mockery.

But the middle acts of this, with Rafael studying (boring training and indoctrination sequences) and the rituals and sects within the monastery explained, are tedium itself.

Tilk is properly gonzo in the lead role. But too much of what surrounds him is static, dull and listless. A vigorous edit might have helped. A bit of joking up the screenplay before rolling camera would have helped more.

And everybody knows Blue Öyster Cult was always cooler than any band Ozzy Osbourne fronted.

Rating: unrated, violence

Cast: Ursel Tilk, Ester Kuntu, Kaarel Pogga and Indrek Sammul, with Eddie Tsai

Credit: Scripted and directed by Rainer Sarnet. A Kino Lorber release.

Running time: 1:55