The martial arts film Shaolin that premiered in Asia earlier this year is now available, with English subtitles, on Blu-Ray and pay-per-view and probably some other ways. I will give you my impressions to help you decide whether to watch or not.
As a film, irrespective of gentre, I'd give it about a B. The biggest flaw is that character development seems a tad abrupt sometimes. For example, the main character, Hou Jie (Andy Lau) goes from being a ruthless, scheming killer to a devout monk in about 12 seconds. I would say this is the fault of the scriptwriter and director rather than Andy Lau, who did a fine job in the part otherwise. I wish we western movie-goers could see Andy Lau a lot more.
It's also a very bloody film. I'm no judge of martial arts films, but if your exposure to martial arts films is limited to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Hero; and House of Flying Daggers -- um, this film ain't them. The fight scenes in Shaolin amounted to men bashing, stabbing, and shooting each other, and bleeding a lot. I fast-forwarded through some of them to get to the mushy stuff.
There was also a distressing scene in which a horse fell down a flight of temple stairs, and I don't know how it could have been filmed without grievous injury to the horse. Maybe it was faked, and the horse is a very good stunt horse, but I do worry about the horse.
I had originally understood that the film would be shot at the real Shaolin Temple, but it turns out that the film used a replica. This is just as well, since at the end of the movie there wasn't much left of it. The original press release said that the director, Benny Chan, planned to use real Shaolin monks as extras, and perhaps he did. They were certainly an athletic crew.
This is a very Buddhist film, sort of in the same way The Bells of Saint Mary's was a very Catholic film. The monks are very much the good guys, dedicated to selfless service to the poor and helpless, and to meditative wushu. After his conversion, Hou Jie devoutly reads sutras when he's not training with the other monks or helping the temple cook (Jackie Chan, in a minor but delightful role).
[SPOILER ALERT -- at the end, Hou Jie sacrifices himself to save the life of the villainous Cao Man (Nicholas Tse), who promptly repents of his villainy, and then Hou Jie dies in the hands of the temple's big Buddha. It's actually quite moving.]
As Cao Man, the very handsome Nicholas Tse becomes genuinely creepy and is quite the believable villain. I also want to also mention Wu Jing, who is billed as Jacky Wu and who plays senior monk Jingneng. Although perhaps a tad young to be a senior monk, he was the model of monkly virtue and authority and definitely a standout. I'd love to see this actor in other roles.
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