Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple (1982)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079891/]

The Gist:
I'm noticing a trend: the more nonsense the story is, the stronger the kung fu. This doesn't make much sense, but is at least pretty accurate when considering Shaolin Temple and Chocolate. For this one, we see a really loose revenge plot, some Buddhist monks that don't even act close to being Buddhist, kind of like: "It is against our religion to kill... Oh what the heck". And then there's a rather disturbing bit where Jet Li accidentally kills this girl's dog, then tries to bury it, then decides to dig it up and roast it on a spit and eats it with a bunch of monks (who are not supposed to eat it because it's a sin, but once again they decide "fuck it"). Anyway, way to go old school kung fu movie for reinforcing bad Asian stereotypes. Oh and then there was a gratuitous shot of a bad guy strangling a sheep which is just weird. Anyway, the bad guys attack the temple, the buddhist monks kick some Shaolin ass and all is right with the world. And in terms of ass kicking, this movie is pretty incredible. This was Jet Li's first feature, and he is in top form here. However, he often doesn't steal the show, because his supporting cast is so damn good and the film thankfully focuses on their fights just as much as the young protagonist. Anyway, the story is thin but its one of those films that can get by on pure action alone which is rare. Besides the fact, with these old movies some aspect of their campy style actually seems to add to the experience...only the dog part still bugs me.