Sadae solimsa

Like one of the other posters, I found this movie (and several others) as a cheap Hong Kong Connection DVD, and didn't really expect the movie to be more than a third-rate rip-off of some Bruce Lee movie.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised. In terms of style, acting and production values, this Korean movie is in league with the serious martial arts movies of the Hong Kong tradition (compared to which Bruce Lee's westernized movies are mostly incredibly dull and poorly produced, except for some of Bruce Lee's actual fight scenes), and it features lots and lots of quality kung fu performances, both in terms of training and actual fighting. It's beautiful to behold, and just the kind of thing kung fu fans look for in such a movie.

The story is relatively weak, but the actors are pretty good. Never a dull moment here. The English dubbing is pretty terrible (even by the usual standards of English dubbing), but you get used to it.

The ending is *very* abrupt and kind of "uh...", but, ultimately that's all part of the charm!

A very good Shaolin effort from the Korean production team! If you're into kung fu movies, this is a movie you'll want to watch over and over for the beautiful moves.

Thus, for the top-notch quality fighting, this movie earns from me a rating of 8 out of 10.