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MARTIAL ARTS OF SHAOLIN (aka NORTH AND SOUTH SHAOLIN) (1985)  Directed by: Lau Kar-leung Starring: Jet Li, Yu Hai | |
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Step aside, Clyde, and prepare yourself for an old school high with a
Jet Li twist featuring Northern style kicks and Southern fist. All movie
cycles have to end and old school martial arts went out with a bang in
Lau Kar-leung and Jet Li's gotterdammerung, MARTIAL ARTS OF SHAOLIN, the
first Chinese/Hong Kong co-production - a masterpiece of mutally assured
martial arts destruction. Baby, let me break it down for you: STEP - this is Jet Li's third flick, the kid's already a five time wu shu champ, 24 years old, and beating down audiences in one film after another. STEP - Lau Kar-leung directed this mess, he's called Pops and he's a cold kung fu cat who directed DRUNKEN MASTER 2 (wherein his 60 year old bad self beat Jackie Chan's young ass) and about thirty other flicks. And this dude's dad was the student of Wong Fei-hung's hippest student, Butcher Wing. This cat is where it's at! STEP - Hong Kong's tight technical crew came to China filming in the Shaolin Temple and up and down the Great Wall of China, filming these freaked out Shaolin mofos who spin on their heads, run up walls, screech like banshees and decimate their opponents with iron yo-yos.  Dig this: Jet Li's dad gets killed by the Man, Lord Suo, and Jet's sent to Shaolin Temple to forget about it and to transcend the material world. No can do. One word that his pops has been offed and he's a kung fu slinging suicide bomber on a mission of madness. He makes a play for Suo at his birthday party but is foiled by some other assassins. Up with people, everyone wants Lord Suo dead! A rolling beat-down rumbles across the countryside panoramic as Suo's crew chases the tails of Jet and company - a Southern Shaolin monk and a New Jack chick who knows a thing or two about grrrl-fu. You know what happens at the end (it's a movie, ya'll): Jet Li makes like a kung fu mechanic: he gets up under Lord Suo's hood and fixes him but good. But on the way to that conclusion this movie shows you sights that'll fry your eyes and serve 'em with grits. Ultra-rare, ultra-Jet, grrl-fu, wu shu - this here's the kitty's cream. Jetted out, and way up close, taste this kung fu overdose. |
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