Martial Arts of Shaolin

Jet Li stars in this Shaw Brothers film from 1986. Li is a monk who's diligently studying his craft only causing a fuss on occasion (he secretly kills a snake, cooks it & stuffs the meat into his brothers' hot buns to eat) but when he hears the new ruler, who killed his family, is about to have a lavish, public gala as a celebration, he jumps (backflips?) at the chance to get his revenge even disguising himself as the head of a ceremonial parade animal. What he doesn't count on is a couple of freedom fighters, a man & a woman, have gotten the same idea & also attack. They fail & in the ensuing melee they scurry into the wilderness donning guises as they stay afoul of soldiers to hopefully get another chance at vengeance (which they do on an imperial barge) at film's end. Great to see an early Li performance as directed by Lau Kar-Leung who uses Li's physical dexterity & speed to great effect w/the gorgeous vistas of the countryside & even the Forbidden City to bolster the production value. A little too much hilarity mars an otherwise solid actioner but if that's your cup of tea, sip it.

I saw this movie on the big screen here in boston a few weeks ago. I loved it. this was the jet back then, before he was lassoed down by the hong kong choreographers who are still wondering, 'til today, what to do with a five-time wushu champion of China. Jet got to show off his staff work, his broadsword, mantis fist, bagua zhang (the same kungfu the Evil Jet used in The One), his made up shaolin lohan fist, not to mention the kicks that he'd hardly perform anymore.

Lau Karleung had a lot to do with the fights looking so good as well, the fight scenes in first and second shaolin temple looked too much like live wushu sparring sets, too demo-like, but in this film Lau KarLeung really worked hard on intensifying the fight scenes and stylizing the hand-to-hand combat scenes. There were so many fight scenes, and each one of them looked different, emphasized on a different style/ technique...etc. There was even a fight scene with Jet dressed like a girl, pretending that he didn't know kungfu, and somehow defeating a bunch of soldiers. this was also the charming boyish, charismatic jet li that we hardly get to see anymore (not since Fong Sai Yuk anyways)--he was in drag, he was killing snakes for dinner, he had a crush...etc., and it was cute. The hoaky plot and music only added to it. The sentimental crap in this film wasn't too unbearable, kinda helped the film with its charms in fact.

So yeah, it was a good movie, and the fight scenes were incredible.

There were some really nice fight sequences, and some really colourful spectacle. I really enjoyed the visuals.

I watched this on amazon prime and they only seemed to have a dubbed copy available, which is unfortunate, cause the English dubbing on martial arts film is always dreadful. Everyone talked like 1930s actors, which made it very difficult to take anyone seriously.

It was pretty draggy at times. I thought at one point, wow, this is a really long movie, only to discover that it is 90 minutes, (The right length!) and that I was 1 hour and 22 minutes in. This could have been an hour instead.

There were some theological inconsistancies that I think were supposed to be a large part of the plot, but fell a bit flat. We can put some of that blame on the dubbing I'm sure.

A good film by Shaw brothers, humor and action are center stage. I would have to say that the writing could've been better, but, it does not kill the movie.

hoping that Jonas Svensson doesn't mind my sarcastic echo to his comment. This is a really entertaining flick where you'll see exciting and competent kung-fu action and some funny moments. It is not hard to me to agree with Jonas about the lack of amazing acting skills and a solid screenplay but, you know, Al Pacino is a bad kung-fu performer and have been fired by the production and Federico Fellini was shooting "Ginger and Fred" that year. Jokes apart kung-fu enthusiasts know very well what is the spot in martian art films and this whole series do not ever miss it. Therefore if you like the good ol' Chinese martian art film style no fear and enjoy this really funny flick.