Combat at Heaven's Gate

It starts with an absurd scene. Some rich guy in bed has a 30 foot long cloth looped around his head and a dozen girls on each side tug it as he cries in pain. He has a headache. A doctor comes and cures his headache with extremely long acupuncture needles. He is cured but the doctor is sentenced to death. The doctor's books are also burned except for one. A bunch of archeologists then go off on a quest to find the doctor's other valuable secrets.

I attempted to watch this because it was labeled an action movie. A better label would be a poor rip off of Jackie Chan's "Armor of God" movies. There were a few fights and a lot of senseless flying around. I was not pleased.

I usually do not write a review unless I watched the entire movie. Even with fast forward I could not endure this mess. Consider this a warning rather than a review. Nothing to see here citizen, keep moving.

Do not expect anything as good as that of Shao Lin Temple made in 1979, starting with Jet Li.

The problem of this Taiwanese movie shot in China is same as those other Taiwanese or Hong Kong martial art flicks: movie stars were used instead of actual martial arts athletes and since these actors and actresses can only act but not able to fight, cables, wires, crane and other equipments must be used to help them in completing the moves and such help is obvious because these faked moves defies the law of physics.