Starring: Andy Lau Tak-wah, Nicholas Tse Ting-fung, Jackie Chan, Fan Bingbing Directed by: Benny Chan Muk-sing Category: IIB
Even a Shaolin monk may find his equilibrium seriously tested by the inanity of this super-spectacular saga. Buddhist truisms are hurled nearly as furiously as bullets in director Benny Chan Muk-sing's lavishly produced but vacuous epic, the film's impressive technical achievements all but nullified by that low-tech commodity: the script. Not that the martial arts subgenre of Shaolin has ever been known for its intricate plotting.
Jet Li's breakthrough hit, The Shaolin Temple (1982), was simplistic but effective for its utilisation of the temple's aura to showcase the screen chemistry of a genuine kung fu talent. The new Shaolin (whose Chinese title translates as The New Shaolin Temple) adopts a fresh approach with a huge budget and stellar cast, but does little to engage the viewer on a personal level.
Warlords dominated the political landscape during the pre-1928 years of the Chinese Republic, a potentially fascinating milieu rendered generic in the script by Alan Yuen Kam-lun and a team of four scriptwriters.
Their story centres on the Henan province power base of warlord Hou Jie (Andy Lau Tak-wah, right), a tyrant whose territory surrounds the Shaolin temple but whose personal code is the antithesis of the bland philosophies espoused by the altruistic fighting monks.
But don't let Hou's snarling attitude fool you - he is soft-hearted when it comes to his little daughter, just one of many saccharine tots on view in this excessively long, 131-minute film.