Hong yi la ma

Creaky plot concerning palace intrigues in the late Ming Dynasty. In a slight nod to Hamlet, an evil Lord has killed the king and consorts with the lovely queen. Queen's son, the Prince, is a braggard who seeks the truth, and also to be the leading martial artist in China before fully assuming the throne. The evil lord leads the Black faction, which seeks to unite all the martial arts schools under their sway. Shaolin resists. This causes one helluva lot of fighting. Keeping up with who's fighting who is impossible, but there are at least 12 superb martial artists flying around. Outstanding, fast-paced and very frequent fight scenes. Recommended.

After the narrator makes up some history our hero takes a scenic hike of Tibet. He is a ruler and has learned kung fu. His test is tomorrow. Enter the bad guys wearing super hero costumes and eye makeup. They want to destroy Shaolin, attack, and are driven off. They don't learn their lesson. A drunken monk fight throws some comedy into the mix. The prince keeps getting attacked for no apparent reason but it is good for the action. The bad guys fool the stupid prince to believe Shaolin is the bad guys. He goes there in person all arrogant and gets beat up. The monks seem to know the backstory of all these characters. The only girl in the movie gets betrayed but she didn't do anything anyway. The ending is set up for an attack on Shaolin.

This has high production values just looking at the glimmering costumes and mascara. The fights are good and sped up to appear faster. Overall there is nothing bad about the movie at all. Then there's Alexander Lo Rei.

Alexander Lo Rei came along as a Tae Kwan Do champion at a time when a high kick sold movie tickets. It was also a time when the martial arts movie industry was starting to become a caricature of itself in desperate need of reinvention. (Thank you Jackie Chan and the Yuen brothers!) Most of Alex's movies continued the downward spiral that almost turned the genre into Saturday morning cartoon shows. I don't blame him for this, he was just along for the ride, trying to make a living like anyone else. Still, I won't give him much credit either.