Shao Lin xiong di

When the fists fly, Shaolin Brothers is a fairly entertaining, if unremarkable old school kung fu flick. Unfortunately, the action scenes are few and far between.

When the characters aren't exchanging blows or swinging swords (and that is for a large percentage of the time), the film becomes pretty unbearable. I defy anyone to try and follow the plot, or even care what is happening.

A large part of the story centres around some Taoist priests whose job it is to transport corpses using magic (they make the bodies hop in the same fashion as vampires do in HK horror films), except it turns out that the bodies are not all dead - some are actually escaped fugitives (from who I am not sure - I did say this was a hard film to follow!). This part is tedious in the extreme and had me struggling to keep my eyes open.

Shaolin Brothers is for martial arts completists only. You have been warned.