Le Temple de Shaolin

If you want to see a non-stop action Kung Fu flic, this movie will be a good choice. More fighting than talking, and good fighting at that. The actors were taken from the chinese national wushu team, and these guys coordinated the fighting scenes themselves without a stunt coordinator. Many styles and weapons are used, such as drunken staff, mantis boxing, and such. The shaolin monks in the film don't seem to take their rules very seriously... they eat meat(dog meat!), drink wine and kill people...The movie was shot on location at the shaolin temple. Shaolin Temple was such a huge hit in Asia, that it made hundreds of chinese children go to the temple in hope of learning shaolin Kung Fu. Also Jet Li's first movie.

This join venture of Hong Kong and mainland China started the 1980's boom of martial arts flicks in China.

Jet Li is the protagonist in this movie and unlike his later works, there is no stunt, no cable, no crane, no other equipment, no special effect, no fake moves, and no artistic creations. Every move is real, and the Hong Kong producers & director ingeniously employed the Chinese martial arts athletes of provincial teams and one from the national team, Jet Li, instead of ordinary actors to perform, thus giving a very realistic view.

Jet Li's first movie, and it set the stage for his future success. Really good kung fu, really good action, and not too many slow points. Pretty typical storyline; evil warlord kills boys father, boy escapes to Shaolin temple, improves his skill and fights a lot of people. But for a movie this old, the fighting is really done well. I'm sure that this is a pretty hard movie to come across, but if you ever get the opportunity to see it, by all means take advantage of it.

My rating of early kung fu movies is probably 20% story and 80% fighting and choreography. I never rate them on acting because the acting is tertiary.

The fight choreography was decent. I thought some of the fights lasted too long. Usually every fight except those with bosses are over rather quickly. It seemed that even fights with the lower level henchmen dragged on longer than they should have.

Still, this was early Jet Li so it's always worth taking a gander.

No camera tricks. No high production value (even compared to the Hong Kong Kung Fu movies at that time). No stunt men/women. No wire. It is just pure Kung Fu. The location is real and so are the fighting. It belongs to the classic that we miss in today's Kung Fu movies. If you practice Kung Fu, you have to watch it repeatedly to learn a lot from the real masters. It is quite good for the first Kung Fu movie made in China (about 20 years ago).