“The New Legend of Shaolin” Chinese Theatrical Poster
Director: Wong Jing
Cast: Jet Li, Chingmy Yau, Tse Miu, Deannie Yip, Yeung Wai, Johnny Wang, Chan Chung Yung, Adam Cheng, Damian Lau, Chu Ko, Ji Chun Hua, Jacqueline Ng, Corey Yuen, Chiu Gwok, Wong Jing
Running Time: 94 min.
By JJ Hatfield
I watched this film a few years back and recalled thinking it would be a long time before I watched it again. So I checked some notes and put it on my trusty Oppo. That old feeling came back to me… It really doesn’t start off too bad. The plot though is extremely convoluted and the pacing is like riding in a car with a first time user of a standard transmission. There were some actually funny moments but mostly Wong Jing moments.
Jet on the other hand is almost too serious or maybe he was depressed from being in the movie. Jet is really the only good thing about this movie. He seems to think it is real(as a character). Watching Jet is the best thing about this flick so watch him while he is the focus. I confess to being annoyed with the tattooed kids and by the time the wtf? car arrives on the scene I just don’t care anymore. Jet has made so many great films you wonder how he ended up in this Wong Jing silliness.
JJ Hatfield’s Rating: 4/10
By Woody
Ahhh, the summer of 1997, I will never forget that one. I was ten years old, and, fueled by Hong Kong chopsocky flicks and the musical stylings of The Wu Tang Clan, determined to become a certified kung fu master. Unlike others, who would simply sign up for karate at the local Junior College, I was determined to do it on my own, laughing at them for working so hard for material possessions like belts and trophies. I, of course, was not laughing when they beat the holy hell out of me, but that’s another story all together.
Anyways, I worked hard at becoming a kung fu master. I watched every badly dubbed old school chopsocky and every badly subbed bootleg I could get my hands on. I read the “Tao of Jeet Kune Do” twelve times, front to back (without understanding a single word). I broke fingers, toes, and knuckles countless times practicing forms on my mother’s coat racks. I ate enough ramen to feed North Korea ten times over. I was determined.
It was during this summer that I discovered Jet Li. It was during this summer that I gave up on kung fu.
It was a typical summer day. I was in my room, clad in in my Chinese slippers and orange tracksuit (they didn’t have any yellow ones at the store). Having just finished watching a rented copy of “Police Force”, my favorite Jackie Chan moment at the time, I decided to return it and rent another movie, so I hopped onto my modified lowrider Huffy and pedaled away.
Looking through the aisles of movies in the action section, I was confronted with the same titles as usual…”Rambo”, “Hard Death”, “Alien Predator”, and “Angel Cops.” But two titles in particular caught my eye, new arrivals entitled “The Shaolin Temple” and “The New Legend of Shaolin.” Both starred “Jet Lee, world wushu champion.” They looked like quality fare. I grabbed them up, payed my two bucks, raced home, took a piss, got my dick got in the zipper, got my dick out of my zipper, ran into my room, and popped in “The Shaolin Temple.”
My jaw was wide open in disbelief for days afterward. I was beyond stunned, and my belief in my martial skills were a bit dashed. These guys could do flips onto their heads! I decided, none to wisely I might add, that doing flips onto my head was the answer to martial success.
Long story short, I was covered in blood and had to get stitches. Laying in bed, I noticed a tape lying next to the VCR. Shit, I had forgotten to watch and return “New Legend of Shaolin.” I yelled for my mother, and she fed it into my VCR.
It was a pretty painful experience. The first words out of my mouth were “RIP-OFF”, as Wong Jing lifted the entire opening from a favorite movie of mine, “Shogun Assassin.” From there, it only got worse. Terribly-done wire-fu, scatological “humour”, and no suspension of disbelief made it one of the worst films I had ever seen. Not accustomed to the filmic achievements of Wong Jing, I was ill prepared for the daunting task of watching one of his movies. Besides some cool kiddie kung-fu, it was unendurable. And the villain! This dude belonged in a Ninja Turtles video game, not in a Jet Li flick! He drove around in some ancient car and had a pizza face from getting burnt and it was horrendously bad.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and had a serious talking-to with myself.
“Jonathan, you’ve been ‘in training’ for over a year and you still get beat up by eight-year olds in their first year of karate class. ‘The Tao of Jeet Kune Do’ makes no fucking sense, case closed! Your refusal to watch anything but martial arts movies has resulted in you watching shit like “New Legend of Shaolin.” Your head is aching after you did a backflip onto a concrete sidewalk. You will never attain the level of skill that this Jet Lee guy apparently has. Give it a rest, man.”
I was pretty depressed for quite the long while, until my friend Betty got me a present. A compact disc. Raekwon “Only Built 4 Cuban Links.” I put it on the song “Incarcerated Scarfaces”, which I had heard on the radio and really liked. There was a sample at the beginning, something apparently from a crime flick, and it had a definite “dubbed” feeling to it. I soon learned it belonged to a John Woo flick, “The Killer”, and I immediately rented it. The bad taste left in my mouth by “New Legend” soon washed away, replaced by the mouth-watering ultra-violence of John Woo.
All in all, I have regained my love of chopsocky flicks, but my youthful innocence is no more. I no longer aspire to be an ass-kicking celibate world-walking dubbed-talking kung fu master. My only aspirations as of now are to land a hot girlfriend who can cook, get a job, and get into college.
Woody’s Rating: “New Legend of Shaolin” drained the joy out of kung-fu movies for me, and for that, I can only see fit to award it a rating of 1.5/10
By Numskull
To keep my review of this shitty movie from being too one-sided, I’d like to introduce my new sidekick, Otto the Fuckwit Newbie.
NUMSKULL: This is the first of Jet Li’s HK films that I’ve seen, and if I didn’t know that he was capable of better than this, it would also be my last.
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: Jet Li in movie! hong Kong movie. Hong Kong in CHina, so Jet Li in China Jet Li chinese.
NUMSKULL: Jet Li’s character disqualifies himself for the Father of the Year award by telling his two-year old son in the beginning of the film that he must choose between a knife and a wooden horse. If he chooses the knife, they will become traveling warriors together. If he chooses the horse, Jet will send the boy to Hell (in his own words). To no one’s great surprise, the kid grabs the knife.
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: Knife or horse? horse or knife? It is life or death. knife
NUMSKULL: Jet Li and his boy (who ages a few years after Jet kills some guy) find themselves hungry and penniless. So Jet starts working for a rich guy who says “Bullying others is the origin of joy.” Jet decides that bullying people isn’t a noble thing to do (unlike threatening to kill his own son) so he tells the guy that he will only serve as a bodyguard.
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: Jet lI work for rich man. rich man money
NUMSKULL: Meanwhile, a mother-and-daughter con artist team move in with the rich guy. The daughter convinces him that her mom is dead and so they arrange to get married so that Mom can have a proper burial. However, Mom is not really dead, and she has secret meetings with her daughter where they both fart and share stolen food and jewelry. When Mom is on her own, she reaps the benefits of her daughter’s subterfuge, saying: “Wow! So big! My daughter is so nice, she knows I love eating chicken ass. She is great to get the giant one for me.”
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: 2 ladys live with rich guy. mom is died but not realy. I try to eat chicken ass because this movie. next time i will make sure the chicken is dead first.
NUMSKULL: Jet Li and his boy have a heartwarming father-son talk in which they sit right next to each other and Jet mentions that he is not wearing any underwear. His son has bigger problems, though…five kids from the Shaolin temple with portions of a treasure map tattooed on their backs keep bullying him. He says “I won’t fight” and then fights them all about 30 seconds later. But when the Shaolin kids are found by the government, all hell breaks loose and almost everyone in town is slaughtered. Jet then must take the two women and all six kids out of harm’s way.
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: kids figh t
NUMSKULL: The government troops are aided by a renegade former Shaolin student who has perpetually melting skin and drives around in a car that looks like the Batmobile in “shield” mode from the first Tim Burton movie, but with sharper angles, and wrapped in aluminum foil. And yes, this IS supposed to be a period film.
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: Bad Guy in shiny car. I like to drive car
NUMSKULL: Everyone involved…well, Jet mostly…must fight for their life in the climactic battle, in which Molten Men tracks down our heroes. The fight scenes in the film are not the least bit exciting, and they are shameless in their use of wires and other stupid little tricks.
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: WOW! jet li can FLY! he is superman
NUMSKULL: Not recommended, not one little bit. Stupid, boring, pointless, pathetic. Lines like “My ass stinks, it’s horrible, don’t eat mine” fail to help matters. Surely one of Jet Li’s lesser efforts.
OTTO THE FUCKWIT NEWBIE: Jet LI movie! Me like movie. movie good! movie good!
Numskull’s Rating: 3/10
I liked it a little more than most, because of Jet Li and Chingmy Yau. This was a pretty bizzare film, but it entertained me after I stopped taking it seriously.
I tried funny, serious, camp and a few other ways to take this film and they all failed. It wasn’t even the bizarre things…If the plot had been coherent and cohesive that would have been a big plus. It was too much Wong Jing and too little Jet for me.
I’m glad someone enjoyed it!
I know sometimes bad films are entertaining to me. Hey, I’m a cop and a bad Wong Jing film makes me laugh for stress relief! Whoops, the XslaveX virus has infected me!