Thanks for the memories!

Simply Perfect

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

In the mid-30s China has broken up into warring factions of warlords attempting to carve out power and influence between themselves. Amongst them Hou Chieh (Andy Lau), powerful and remorseless, aiming to achieve domination even at the expense of his blood brothers death. He disregards not only loyalties for his quest for power, but also tradition - openly ridiculing the Shaolin Temple in the opening sequence of the movie. His only deeper affection is directed towards his wife (Bingbing Fan) and sole child. However, such immorality rarely remains unpunished, as karma is a dog and is intent on biting back, when his second in command Tsao Man (Nicholas Tse) betrays Hou, thus causing the death of his daughter. Initially conquered by anger Hou plans revenge, but soon finds sanctuary in the Shaolin Temple, finding a friend and comfort in the local cook Wudao (Jackie Chan). Slowly he accepts his fate and finds peace within himself. Tsao Man however does not intend to leave his former comrade of arms alive...Another blockbuster extravaganza from China with great settings, beautiful cinematography and some well researched, brilliantly crafted period reconstruction. However under Benny Chan's direction, visibly placing style and swashbuckling melodrama over substance, even the great Andy Lau delivers a sobbing and disappointing performance. Only Jackie Chan seems somewhat comfortable in his goofish guise, as the somewhat aloof super-cook. This stylistic over-reliance on soapish dramaturgy lacks the same required restraint showed by directors such as Ang Lee, Xiaogang Feng or even John Woo, thus making the effort at times a cringe-worthy lesson in bad filmmaking. The best moments come during fight sequences, but even here a severe overuse of slow-motion in order to 'imbue' the tragedy or drama just tingles all the wrong receptors. Instead of dramatic the multitude of such scenes make the movie a yawn-inducing watch, which could obviously use drastic editing to cut down run time with no harm to story or substance.

Once again I hadn't read anything about the movie going in to watch it. Though I knew that Andy Lau was in it and with a title like that ... well what can one expect? A movie about Shaoling of course and one with quite a few stunts and fight scenes. And the movie delivers in that regard. It also had a "surprise" star (though again he is named here and can be seen on the poster and everywhere else) for me.On the other hand someone like Tse seems to almost bring the movie down. His character is laughable and there does not seem to be a big motivation behind some of his doings. But sometimes you need characters like that I guess. Overall, a decent movie that might entertain you, if you are into that sort of movies.

It's a martial arts movie with impressive special effects but the plot and dialog of a cartoon, which is just fine so long as you remember this is a Jackie Chan movie and suspend your disbelief. You will be invited to believe this film has depth but that's just window dressing played up by convincing actors. I felt like I was watching a grammar school production of King Lear since the directing kept on insisting it be taken seriously.Relax it's just a flick so eat your popcorn and have fun. I had to give it a 5 because of its inability to decide what kind of movie it wanted to be, a Kurosawa or a Jackie Chan with high production values.

SPOILERS!!! Andy Lau (Hou Jie) plays a blood thirsty tyrant who thinks nothing of eliminating all his opponents in cold blood - even if they happen to be his sworn brothers. Eventually the cruel and cunning Hou gets ambushed in a double-cross perpetrated by his trusted aide. Hou loses everything he cherishes and is forced to take refuge in Shaolin temple, one of the places he had desecrated in his search for an enemy.You can probably guess the rest. The movie's plot is not its strongest point but rather the characters and the acting. The fight scenes are excellent as well without going overboard on the wire-fu. The scenery and cinematography are excellent, looking very realistic.8/10