Without a doubt, Fong Sai-yuk is the most colorful personality to emerge from the legends and history of southern Shaolin Temple. The guy is the class clown of Shaolin, who is always portrayed as a youthful prankster full of life and personality. And so, any opportunity to see another filmic version of his life and exploits is welcome, usually. Young Hero of Shaolin begins a two-part movie series shot in Mainland China with wushu practitioners that chronicles the life of this kung fu wunderkind. It’s an uneven production that struggles to find its way through a limited series of average kung fu duels, unremarkable training sequences and a sluggish story.
Anyone familiar with the more popular film Fong Sai Yuk (AKA The Legend) and its sequel, both starring Jet Li, should be able to easily plug into this film. The story begins earlier with Sai-yuk as an infant, in the care of his father and martial arts-trained mother. His parents’ encounter with a thuggish priest who threatens the child causes them to condition the youth’s body to withstand blows as he grows. This is done through the use of medicinal herb baths, a process also depicted in Shaw Brothers’ Shaolin Avengers. After receiving all the training his mother can provide, a nearly grown Sai-yuk (Shut Bo-wa) enters Shaolin Temple’s 36th chamber for further conditioning and kung fu training. He emerges several years later to become a local celebrity after a famous fight atop plum blossom poles and goes on to duel the chief student of the priest who once threatened him.
By typical genre standards, this film is slow-moving with too many wushu exhibition displays, not enough plot-driven action and little conflict of any interest. Sai-yuk’s fight with the old priest is just a forgettable warm-up to the main story of Sai-yuk’s more engaging fight against Wu Dan representatives in Young Hero of Shaolin II.
As Fong Sai-yuk, Shut Bo-wa (whom I am completely unfamiliar with) gives a decent performance that falls somewhere between Alexander Fu Sheng and Jet Li in physical ability and charisma. That is to say, he’s a decent screen fighter and a decent lead, who manages to play the clowning Sai-yuk well enough. But like the whole movie, it’s not memorable.
Fight scenes are pretty bland. It seems that director Ngai Hoi-fung was saving all his best stuff for part two. Although real wushu artists are displayed onscreen, a lot of low budget visual tricks are planted into the action, including undercranking, fake walls, reverse camera shots, and goofy kaleidoscope vision effects. There is a slightly interesting formation kung fu fighting scene where Sai-yuk must battle his way through Shaolin monks seen from a crane shot forming a giant swastika and other Chinese symbols. This scenario is greatly expanded and improved upon in the sequel where Sai-yuk faces a band of Wu Dan fighters forming similar symbols.
The version reviewed is English-dubbed with awful voice acting and even worse translations. Character names are often reduced to idiotic titles like “Master Wisdom” and kung fu techniques bare invented names like the “Shaolin King Kong Palm.”
I’ll admit that the version I’m reviewing is of low visual and audio quality that wouldn’t be flattering to any film, but Young Hero of Shaolin itself is still a weak kung fu movie and hardly the grand telling of Fong Sai-yuk’s life that the poorly translated introduction suggests. I do appreciate that actors have real shaved heads to accurately represent the Qing era. Some of the outdoor scenery is nice and the leading stars show a lot of potential skill when it comes to screen fighting. Yet, there is little to distinguish this production from any other independent martial arts film. There have been far more distinctive Mainland Chinese kung fu movies and more entertaining portrayals of Fong Sai-yuk’s life. It is curious then, that Young Hero of Shaolin II, the sequel to this film, is actually a notable improvement and worth investigating.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Genre: Kung Fu
