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Load of rubbish!!

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Chinese compounded traditional martial arts is a fantastic and rather historic form of fighting, more commonly known as Wushu. This is a quite phenomenal mix of literally hundreds of forms and functional techniques in self defense. It of course is exceptionally popular in Asian cinema, and there is always that real sense of watching something unbelievably beautiful that has been passed down from generation to generation.'Shaolin' brings much of the same fighting styles from previous martial arts films of the last decade. It's hard to compare it to anything I have seen in recent years. I found the movie to be quite enjoyable, if a rather typical ride for most fans of Chinese Cinema. There is the typical overuse of wired stunts, which gives that somewhat graceful 'float' effect on their jumps and movements. When it's just left to the choreography of Jackie Chan and Andy Lao it is actually quite breathtaking to watch the seemingly effortless way they move their bodies in a whirlwind of fists and kicks.The story line is a rather serious topic for most films that come out of most successful communist country in the world. Most movies that come out of this part of the world are written, and re-written as to represent history in such a way that the government would approve of. This usually leads into a lot of fictionalization, just like any Hollywood drama. For example they leave out a lot of the history related to how many Shaolin Temples were destroyed over and over again in China's history, from the 16th century to even more modern times when rural warlords/generals set fire to monasteries throughout the country. The religious persecution during the communist cultural revolution still affects what can and cannot be shown in Chinese cinema, especially with religious themed films.Anyways, it is a beautiful movie to watch, some excellent dramatic moments through the whole thing, and very well acted. Most definitely one of my favorite movies out of China in the last decade.7/10

In the mid-30s China has broken up into warring factions of warlords attempting to carve out power and influence between themselves. Amongst them Hou Chieh (Andy Lau), powerful and remorseless, aiming to achieve domination even at the expense of his blood brothers death. He disregards not only loyalties for his quest for power, but also tradition - openly ridiculing the Shaolin Temple in the opening sequence of the movie. His only deeper affection is directed towards his wife (Bingbing Fan) and sole child. However, such immorality rarely remains unpunished, as karma is a dog and is intent on biting back, when his second in command Tsao Man (Nicholas Tse) betrays Hou, thus causing the death of his daughter. Initially conquered by anger Hou plans revenge, but soon finds sanctuary in the Shaolin Temple, finding a friend and comfort in the local cook Wudao (Jackie Chan). Slowly he accepts his fate and finds peace within himself. Tsao Man however does not intend to leave his former comrade of arms alive...Another blockbuster extravaganza from China with great settings, beautiful cinematography and some well researched, brilliantly crafted period reconstruction. However under Benny Chan's direction, visibly placing style and swashbuckling melodrama over substance, even the great Andy Lau delivers a sobbing and disappointing performance. Only Jackie Chan seems somewhat comfortable in his goofish guise, as the somewhat aloof super-cook. This stylistic over-reliance on soapish dramaturgy lacks the same required restraint showed by directors such as Ang Lee, Xiaogang Feng or even John Woo, thus making the effort at times a cringe-worthy lesson in bad filmmaking. The best moments come during fight sequences, but even here a severe overuse of slow-motion in order to 'imbue' the tragedy or drama just tingles all the wrong receptors. Instead of dramatic the multitude of such scenes make the movie a yawn-inducing watch, which could obviously use drastic editing to cut down run time with no harm to story or substance.

The story line is really good and presented very well. The actors make the movie believable and entertaining: Five Stars to the cast. I am not sure of the historical context but it appears to have been based loosely on actual events...need to do some research. Violence was, in my opinion excessive...and was not needed to the degree presented to get the story across. While the movies disclaimers state that no animals were injured during filming, I have severe doubts of that claim. There are three scenes in which horses are tripped - one down a flight of stairs - and having raised horses, I know there is no way the animals could have survived those falls uninjured. Rating a 4 because of the violence.

I give this movie 5 stars, but that is just because of the action and the beautifully choreographed scenes. The Buddhist wisdoms are thrown at you as if it were by a TV reverend on coke. I am not at all against healthy morals in a movie, but the way this movie tries to stuff you with them is getting irritating. This movie is more religious than the Vatican. The music is also very annoying, not because it's Chinese, but because it sounds cheesy (and often sounds very western). The Chinese government can be proud. This is excellent stuff to feed your masses. It will keep them docile and loyal and hey, if we can feed them a healthy portion of distrust to western society... couldn't hurt either. Americans and westerners in general are all after our precious Chinese riches. However, Jackie Chan was refreshing as a not-martial-arts-man and the bad guy isn't bad either. The film definitely has its moments and if the above doesn't scare you off, you might very well enjoy it.