Kids from Shaolin
June 18, 2001
Review
Format: VCD No Subs
Stars: Jet Li, Yu Hai, many wushu players from the other Shaolin movies

The Shaolin temple people return, this time Jet is leading a bunch of little annoying kids alongside Yu Hai, and meanwhile they're competing with the WuDang family and trying to destroy some evil.

VERY BORING. I couldn't sit through this one, I had to watch it in 5 minute chunks. Nice scenery, but damn it's boring, guess that's how mainland films are done. LOTS of outdoor scenery, which starts to all look the same. Action: lacking this time, especially compared to Shaolin Temple 1 and 3. All of the action is wushu except from a few people (Yu Hai and a couple other older folks, Jet does wushu), which is fine but actual Shaolin would have been nicer. And there are these kids, even without dubbing they're terribly annoying. I can't say many nice things about the first half of this movie, very little, but I'll go into more detail.

The best action that comes out of the first cd is a flashback told by Yu Hai. Yu Hai does some nice staffwork in the beginning, and then there are some nice little battles (in the dark, not well filmed). One of the guys from the third Shaolin Temple fights and he just floats at times, it's all in how he jumps. Nice stuff. All weaponwork.



Jet encounters a daughter of the WuDang master and fights her. Jet of course gets awesome height but seems to be doubled for some things like backfalls, etc. Good wushu weaponwork, can't complain about that, but this is a token fight. Still Jet's skills are obvious, and the girl is good too.



Jet and his kids get into a bunch of fights, this is ridiculous. The kids aren't very good, really, they can do moves but don't do the rhythm well, some are better than others too. Jet fights another guy his age and they're good, the other one does very impressive jump kicks, and if that was Jet doing an airtrack 5 feet high then I'm impressed. Looked like a double though. Good stuff, nice choreography but not much hand to hand stuff. The older kids are soso.



One kid shows off some very nice monkey style. Good acrobatics, decent fighting, he fights against a girl who is a bit slower and who is totally overshadowed. Again though, these are just token fights with kids laughing in the background most of the time, nothing exciting, maybe for families but not here.



Man this is a boring movie, again.

Jet and the WuDang master get in a fight over the guy's daughter, it's a sword fight and it's kind of short, taking place in a cave. With how this movie is filmed you can't see the action very well, it's far away and small, a little bothersome. Jet uses the environment, jumping off walls, but it's a sword fight and didn't really hit me. Nothing has actually.



Jet and his friend fight an Arab (??!) in the same cave, with some nice moves again, but it's all wushu. Again incredible height on some things, the Arab does one move where he jumps over Jet, standing, and kicks his head with the back of his foot. Nice one. Kind of short and not too dramatic though.



I was told by a friend that I had to wait until the end fight of this movie to appreciate it, well it paid off. I finally got there and I was very impressed, everyone made a nice showing. It's well filmed too, in the daylight. The old wudang master performs very well with the sword, doing a lot of wushu moves all over the place, seems in great shape for his old age. He's fast too and does good choreography, taking on 5 men at once sometimes. The women in this scene are great as well, always moving around and doing fast choreography that lots of modern women fighters (Sibelle Hu, Cynthia Khan) can only dream of. But I really like how the old man moves, he just flows from one side of the screen to the other, unique in his own respects. It's really pleasing to watch him, he even breaks through walls, does falls, climbs, etc. The villian whips out a 3-section and Jet comes with a regular staff. Jet does good choreography, luckily it's filmed perfectly now instead of from 30 feet away. Yu Hai comes in and fights the bald villian (another villian, lots of them here) and fights with a staff and so does Jet's friend. All of them are great, the bald man is surprisingly agile (he's in the other Shaolin movies as well). He and Jet's friend seem to get into real Shaolin style with the hand movements (extended arms, swinging motions), also the baldie is a great kicker. Then we see Yu Hai's handwork against villains just for a second (he's great), and then Jet using his 3 section against 2 other 3 sections, performing greatly. One guy pulls out a rope dart after losing his section, nails Jet, Jet does some CRAZY 3 section tangling with the villian, and beats him with a blade. Awesome, one of the most enthusiastic fights I've seen in a while. It goes on for over 10 minutes too!



So I was highly impressed by the ending, very nice indeed. Everyone was a part of it but I would have liked to see Yu Hai in it more. The old man was great though. But the rest of the movie was incredibly lackluster, not exciting at all. Plus it's a Shaolin movie, which is tough to do correctly in my eyes, only Martial Arts of Shaolin did it right. This one seems bland, which tends to come with Shaolin films. Scenery could have used some work too, it didn't grab me until the end. A cave? Come on. But really the end scene is worth the movie altogether, trust me. You just have to wait until that point. Also wushu fans will love this film, some demos here and there too that I didn't mention.

4/5

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