hagakure-3 Review of The New Legend of Shaolin

The New Legend of Shaolin (1994)

I thought this was sub-par, even for the genre

[2/10 · 25 March 2008]

I liked the "Once Upon a Time in China" series, but I hated this dubbed version of Legend of the New Shaolin. The script is dull, silly (as opposed to humorous) and has a lot of inconsistencies and illogical actions. The thin plot is not particularly interesting, the dialog is incredibly campy and made worse by perhaps the worst dub voice acting I've ever heard (Jet Li's monotone dub actor actually... pauses to... let his Chinese... lips... catch up... to his English... words). The fight scenes -- hello, the whole POINT -- are not particularly good. Jet Li restricts himself to using a "magic" spear through the whole film, does too much wire work and not enough actual demonstration of his awesome talent, and the constant quick camera cuts make it hard to really follow and admire the action. There's a lot more blood than I'm used to in this genre, too. Also, Li spends virtually the whole movie fighting an "invincible" guy, who looks like Pinhead minus the pins, smeared with peanut butter, and who drives around in a ridiculous-looking armadillo version of the Batmobile. These fights are pointless and boring because you already know the "immortal" bad guy can't be beaten by Li's kung fu, and you eventually see his cause of death coming from ten minutes away -- and even that is implausible. I won't spoil the ending, but hey, early in the film the guy lies on a big cartoonish bundle of dynamite straight out of a Roadrunner cartoon and isn't killed by the explosion, so the way they eventually kill him shouldn't work, either (I don't consider that a spoiler, you know darn well the #1 bad guy must die horribly at the end of every action film). So, anyway... bad script, bad dialog, HORRIBLE dubbing (and no option for original Chinese with subtitles), less than enthralling fight scenes, and more blood and guts than usual. What's to like?