The Shaolin Temple (1982)

A teenage Jet Li made his acting debut in Shaolin Temple. Though young, his on-screen charisma was already coming through.

The plot is typical of a lot of kung fu movies. The father was killed by an evil warlord. The wounded son ended up at the Shaolin temple. He learned martial arts so that he could enact revenge. Killing was against the Shaolin way leading to conflict with the warlord and the monks. Anyone who watches old kung fu movies already knows this plot by heart.

If you are looking for a captivating story or character development you won't find it here. What you will find is a movie filled with real martial artists, including some champions instead of actors, meaning the fights were fast and used real moves with almost no wire work.

Disappointingly the martial artists did their own choreography with mixed results. Some of it was very good, other times it was awkward with people in the background jumping up and down with spears, interacting with no one. Jet Li was fast and furious and light on his feet, no complaints about his skills. Yu Hai, a real life Master, showed off a little of his Mantis form. The dialogue was kept to a minimum for the most part. With the exception of Jet Li's and Yu Hai's characters I wasn't emotionally invested in any of the rest as none of them were differentiated.

Fair warning there were several instances of animals being killed on screen and in another a family pet was "hilariously" accidentally killed and eaten. China could really use PETA.

The real temple and scenery around it were beautiful. The story was loosely based on an event in the temple's history. The movie started and ended with shots of the temple and surrounding area and bits about it's history from a narrator. At first I thought I was watching the wrong movie until the story obviously began. Though nice to hear about the history it was a strange way to begin a movie.

Shaolin Temple was enjoyable for me just to watch Jet Li when he was young. One particular set up of him training through the seasons sealed my score for this movie because I liked it so much. Most of the fights were engaging and creative if in need of an overlying guiding hand. If nothing else, Shaolin Temple is worth it for martial arts movie enthusiasts to seek out to see Jet Li launch his movie career.

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