I should start off by saying I do not hate foreign movies. Subtitles can be annoying if they are barely in a movie (so if I am not watching fully, I might miss something) but if I know it is all subtitles, I should be fine. One of my favorite movies I’ve seen this year was over two hours and subtitled.
But I am soooo bad at Kung-Fu/Martial Art movies. Sure, sometimes the fight scenes are good. But I feel like half of them tell the same story. Especially a story like what Shaolin offers.
A lot of my Shaolin Monk knowledge comes from Mortal Kombat.
So Shaolin is a movie with China and Warlords. Some dude is bad, some bad things happen. Dude goes to a Shaolin Temple after losing everything, to redeam himself. Jackie Chan is in this movie as a smaller role, as the cook for the Monks. Training sequence, attack from gun people for main dude, but everyone wants to protect him still. Eventually finds redemption, a lot of people die, and somehow Jackie Chan is secretly still good at fighting.
But yeah. It all seems unoriginal. It had beautiful scenery, clothing, homes, etc. The fighting was usually interesting, especially the Jackie Chan fight (I guess because it was less serious? You know how he does it).
“What are you talking about? Jackie Chan only does serious fights!” – Response to Review
So yeah. This could be a fantastic martial arts movie. But to me it is just okay. I promise I won’t review these again, hah.