Hong Kong Reviews Reviews

Andy Lau Is Ruthless in Benny Chan’s ‘Shaolin’, but Is It Any Good?

is set in Dengfeng, Henan, during the warlord era of early Republican China. The warlord Hou Jie () defeats a rival named Huo Long and seizes control of Dengfeng. Huo flees to Shaolin to hide but Hou appears and shoots him. Hou ridicules the Shaolin monks before leaving.

Song Hu, Hou sets a trap for Song in a restaurant, under the guise of agreeing to his daughter's engagement to Song's son.

This leads to a violent sequence of events ending with Hou having to flee to the Shaolin temple for help.

The Good

The first hour is very impressive stuff indeed. Very nicely paced;  the film flows beautifully between scenes. The first hour is very much carried by the developing relationship and interplay between Andy Lau and Nicholas Tse. Big credit needs to go to Tse , he expertly balances his role of villain perfectly.

shaolin-movie-image-4

I'll be honest I'm actually not the biggest Tse fan (I personally thought he was very weak in the lead of the Wing Chun Series – so I was actually pretty disappointed to hear of his casting in this all star ensemble). But really my worries were unfounded, Tse really was excellent and the interchange between him and Andy are real standouts.

Benny Chan has done a great job managing the talent; Sometimes when you have movies which put together all star casts of this nature there is always some disappointment at the screen time given to a particular star, but in all honesty the screen time for each of the stars in Shaolin is evenly spread given their roles.

Some may argue that there is very little screen time  given to Jackie Chan but bare in mind that his appearance in Shaolin is really just a ‘special appearance' . So alot of screen time should never have been expected. In saying that, Chan does have more screen time than even I was expecting. In fact Chan's role is vital to the development of Andy Lau's character.

The Bad

Action…
Okay I'm putting this down as a bad point but personally I don't believe it's all bad.

You see I'm taking into account the wider audience here , who on seeing the cast and the topic will most likely be expecting a martial arts action-fest, sadly those expecting this may leave disappointed.

Shaolin is very much a character/story driven movie first and the action really is more of a consequence of the actions of those involved refer than the party piece.

That's not to to say that we don't get a fair bet of action.

Wu Jing (as usual) provides some of the films best action moments. Tse and Lau also do their best but next to ,Chan,Hung YangYang and Xing Yu; Tse and Lau are nothing but the appetisers to the main course.

Shaolin … almost lives up to the hype… almost.

Its the first real big hitter of 2011 and to be honest its just about good enough.

The first half of the movie is excellent and well paced but once we get into the finale and the action pieces you can see that the movie starts to slowly fall down and feel a little disjointed which really is a shame.

Another issue is the plot..It just doesn't work, whilst the concept is great, everything just feels rushed.

Trailer

If more care was taken with the development of the plot then I think we could have been on for a classic, on the other hand the history of Shaolin is soo rich that could have picked any of the legendary attacks on Shaolin to base a movie on (or even some of the legends).

The cast do an excellent job with what they are given though. Each one of them plays their roles perfectly, special mention to the leads Andy Lau and Nicholas Tse, both of whom during the movie go through transitions which are both honest and believable.

One thing that really bothered me whilst watching Shaolin, was the overall sense of time.
It was very hard to believe that Andy Lau could go from a commander to a monk with great Shaolin skills in what seemed like such a short space of time.

It was very difficult to work out how long he had spent in the temple and at 's shelter;  honestly everything felt very rushed in this aspect.

Bottom Line

The movie starts off as a character development piece exploring how the principles and teachings of Shaolin help to bring humanity to the harse Command Hou, but 20 minutes from the end all this development is quickly rushed and the weak conclusion almost ruin the film.

Overall, Shaolin brings nothing new to the table but is still a joy to watch. But those looking for a pure action flick may be better served by ‘True Legend', whilst those looking for a movie with a bit more character should find Shaolin a pretty enjoyable film.

About the author

Tiger33

  • this is the worst movie about shaloin ever made. it’s all about blowing stuff in slow motion. this is not a movie for people who like movies – it’s for people who thought 300 was a masterpiece. total waste of time. wait for the dvd – or better yet just download it – but even then it’s hardl worth the disk space. I have over 400 kung fu movies in my collection – and this one won’t be a part of it. yuck. total disappointment.

    • why don’t you watch it again, analyze and understand the story before you say something not nice.

    • 300 was a great movie and so is Shaolin. U r a nut.  u dont try to understand the content in the movie

  • as a spectacular the film is fine.
    but as u mentioned and as the review suggests if you want to learn about Shaolin then you are watching the wrong film. Not a great movie but also not a bad movie – it sits nicely in the middle which for many is a dissappointment, whilst for others it will just about do.

    • it’s not about shaolin, it’s about their beliefs and principles, I love martial arts movies too, but not all martial arts movie always do fighting, it must have a story too and I think this new shaolin movie has a story about dignity, humanity, belief and principle. every individual has their own opinion but please don’t say its a big dissappoinment, watch it again and try to understand the story.

      • I wasnt dissappointed with the film. but I believe many will be due to the lack of action and at times disjointed action.

        Shaolin is a good film but its not a great film – this is my only dissappointment as it did have all the ingredients to be a ‘great’ film.
        I would still recommend the movie though.

        yeah to a degree it does have a story about belief and principle but the second half of the film seems to let go of those beliefs.

        Either way still a good film and worth a watch . good start to 2011

  • A big disappointment! I don’t feel Chan (Zen) in this movie. A Touch of Zen by King Hu has way way more than this movie. Feels like a HK TV soup. Enough with your comedic martial art Jackie. I like what you did with Jet Li in The Forbidden Kingdom. Ok this moive is not about martial art but the fighting has no finesse. The original Shaolin with Jet Li still the best til this day!

    • I thought Chan was really good in this to be honest and was a nice bridge character between Andy Lau and Shaolin. I do agree that this film is no as good as the original Shaolin movie (but I wouldnt call the original a Jet Li movie – he was not the start of the show – the monks where)

  • A big disappointment! I don’t feel Chan (Zen) in this movie. A Touch of Zen by King Hu has way way more than this movie. Feels like a HK TV soup. Enough with your comedic martial art Jackie. I like what you did with Jet Li in The Forbidden Kingdom. Ok this moive is not about martial art but the fighting has no finesse. The original Shaolin with Jet Li still the best til this day!

  • I’m a big fan of Benny Chan. He’s the HK equivalent of Michael Bay in that he’s the go-to guy for tentpole action movies. And that’s what he’s delivered here – a big name cast and big action set-pieces. I’m surprised everyone is centering on Jackie Chan’s role – anyone who’s seen the trailer would have realised that his role would be minimal.

    For me this film is about the movie legend version of shaolin rather than any authentic look . It’s the equivalent of a Hollywood summer movie and delivers the action in spades.

    • Yes without a doubt

      Sent from Kaiten Mail for Android. Please excuse my brevity.

  • “It seemed very hard to believe that Lau could go from a commander to a monk with great shaolin skills in what seemed a short space of time.”

    If you watched the movie, when Andy Lau was still a ruthless commander he was very well trained in Martial Arts prior to becoming a monk. What he lacked was the martial art Zen that would bring him to enlightment and the error of his ways. If you watch his fight scenes and compare to his last fight scene he only used shaolin style fights.

  • I loved the film, it was well done, and the action was great….I would watch it over and over again!. The movie held true to the times!

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