The New Legend of Shaolin

I watched the dvd dubbed version of the movie. It was 80 minutes of fun and entertainment. I'm a big Jet Li fan and have seen many of his films and I must say this is on the top 5 list he is in. The casts were a great mix. The movie kept a fast action, high octane flow from the beginning to the end. I was either excited by the awesome action scenes, laughing out loud on the humorous scenes, or just enjoying the beautiful sceneries. The music to the movie was awesome too. It was shear enjoyment. I'll definitely watch it again and again in the future. Jet Li played a martial art master skilled in the magic spear and in this movie you get to see his skill with spears and the amazing things he can do with it from the opening action scene.

It's short enough to be watched on some idle evening but believe me you are in for a treat...especially if you are into martial art and period movies. A happy fan.

An entertaining Jet Li period vehicle, which Li co-produced. Li plays a Chinese folk hero, a rebel who battled a violent, repressive Manchu government. Li teams with 10 year old martial arts prodigy, Xie Miao, who effectively portrays Li's kung-fu fighting son. The duo have some similarities to the "Lone Wolf and Cub" team in numerous, more atmospheric, very gory Japanese movies of the 1970's. Li and son are joined by a sly mother/daughter con artist team to protect 5 young boys who each have a segment of a rebel map tattooed on their back.

Fine photography and inventive action sequences, especially the opener, and one with a clever Trojan horse variant. Li's fight scenes are wondrous, as usual, but his part seems too stiffly written for a fluffy, child-oriented action film with much comic relief. Deannie Yip and sensual Chingmy Yau are energetic and funny as the kung-fu mother/daughter scammers.

The English dubbed version, made in 2000, has excellent, witty dialogue and appropriate voices. Prolific Hong Kong writer/director Wong Jing cameos in the closing scene.

The American re-release of this film, "Legend of the Red Dragon", is a mess. Shows how important seven minutes can be to a film. Deannie Yip's part (Red Bean's mother) is ripped to shreds for no discernible reason whatsoever, which unfortunately makes an important plot twist seem trivial. Also, she has the best comic moments in the original film. Columbia-Tristar is the villain here. They must think 'Fu film fans are stupid - which only goes to show how stupid THEY are. A real insult.

The original film is by no means a great film; intentionally anachronistic and overly dependent on special effects, it is clearly a kind of throwaway for Jet Li and director Wong Jing (although certainly not as trashy as their Wong Fei Hung parody, "Great Hero/ Last Hero of China"). Still, it is entertaining to a surprising extent, largely thanks to Yip's comic performance. If you can find the original (I saw it on a Tai Seng tape), don't expect much, but you may find yourself enjoying it for the characters if not the martial arts.

I believe Jet Li to be a terrific martial artist. However, I thought this movie was probably the worst I have seen him do. Legend of Red Dragon is about a man whose family was murdered by people related to the government, because he was a bandit. His friend ratted out on him for money and it ended in a fight to the death for the friend. Little did Jet Li's character know that the man would come back as an evil creature on revenge. The only survivor was his own son, and now the two team journey on their own. Eight years after the tragic event, their past comes back to them.

On a side story, five little Shaolin monk children were tattooed a piece of a map that would lead to a valuable item: The Red Dragon. The "Friend" from eight years ago and the government team together to find the kids and get the map. As they try to get children, they stumble upon the father and son. Now them and the five children, along with a few other characters try to put a stop to the government from getting a hold of the Red Dragon.

What makes this a disappointment was how it was directed, as well as the storyline. You were able to see strings from most of the flying scenes, you could tell that most of the scenes were taken in a studio. Secondly, the Red Dragon was never found and it pretty much died out when Jet Li's character had a bounty on his head. Personally, I think it could have been better. Stick with the storyline, and work on the strings.

This movie is crazy, and i mean it!! The Martial Arts in this movie is awesome. It was a shame that Jet Li used his Spear in the whole movie, but he did a great job any way. I especially liked Tze Miu as Man-ting, his Martial Arts skills is incredible. The story is about Hung Hey-kwun and his son, who is escaping from an invincible evil Manchu(Nice Martial Arts). I give this movie 10/10