Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 01/15/2006 Summary: 6.5/10 - decent mainland wushu film A young monk and his sifu are on an ascetic mission to help break the youngster's earthly ties when they come across a village being raped and pillaged by the invading Jins. The monk can't stand by and watch so he leaps in and fights off the soldiers with his impressive wushu skills. Back at the monastery his good deed is not appreciated, and the elder monks sentence him to their typically harsh punishment. The film explores the contradiction between the ideals of pacificism, detaching oneself from worldy concerns, mercy and protecting the weak. How they can be reconciled? With a big fight at the end, it turns out :p The film must necessarily be compared to SHAOLIN TEMPLE (the Jet Li one), and unfortunately it comes up as a weaker film in pretty much every respect. The story is OK, the visuals gorgeous (mainland films have much more to work with for outside scenes than HK productions), the acting passable and the fight scenes pretty good. It's just that the 3 Jet Li Shaolin films did all these things better - as did many Shaw Brothers films, for that matter. Still, it is nice to see a martial arts film from the mainland once in a while as there is definitely a different "vibe" from the Hong Kong products, and the wushu fighters do put on a good display. The fights are quite fast and rough, but there's plenty of acrobatics and 'forms'. The lead actor seems to have good skills, if not quite at the level of young Jet Li. I wonder if he made any more films? Summary: worth a watch. Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: pjshimmer Date: 01/25/2003 Summary: Mainland wushu spectacle The action in the best Mainland martial arts movie I've ever seen is a balanced combination of wushu and wuxia styles. In the late Sung dynasty, the Bao Guo [Serving Country] monastery on the Emei mountain (which I had the pleasure of touring last summer) has established the most strict disciplines. Unlucky fellows are to either descend down unstable cliffs, or they can always choose to have their tendons slit. The Muslims are taking advantage by extending control to the monastery, but as long as true Buddhists exist, such as the abbot and the protagonist, the evil Muslims won't triumph for long. Very nice choreography for the most part (although fights with uneven timing is obvious) [8/10]

Reviewed by: STSH Date: 01/25/2002 Summary: Unusual Wow, this movies uses bits and pieces from everywhere. It borrows the format of many historical mainland epics of the mid 1980s about monks and spiritualism mixed with fu and swordfighting. And pinches shamelessly from Hitchcock's The Birds ! There are several scenes where crows, eagles and even monkeys amass and attack. The opening scene features people shaking in terror at the punishment meted out to misbehaving villagers. "You are sentenced to pick herbs" they are told. Herbs ? Yep. And they'd rather break rocks, as the herbs are picked along the cliff of a dangerous rockface which is prone to rocks breaking off. Ouch ! And we are given something serious to think about. One of the senior monks tells us that "Notting Comes From Nothing". Apart from this weirdness, things are a bit dull and confusing for the first 25 minutes. But then the first big set-piece battle starts, and the film begins to gel. The story rambles between several sets of characters, but doesn't lose focus, partly because the goodies and the baddies are clearly denoted, despite being mixed up amongst the three distinct groups (monks, invaders and loyalists). As you'd expect from a historical epic, there are a number of pretty good big fights, mainly with swords and a bit of fu, and of course plenty of blood and gore. There are occasional hints of romance, but nothing more than that. There are a few familiar-looking faces in the cast. Odd, because the cast is of unknowns, most of whom I can trace to one other film at the most. Odd and at times surreal. Certainly different. Despite this, I found the second half, in particular, mesmerising, and was surprised it passed so quickly. Worth a look. Reviewer Score: 7