Sholin vs lama5/21/2023 Every second that he’s in motion (which feels like three-quarters of the film) he’s absolutely on fire, well-aided in the endeavor by a physique that Bruce Lee would’ve tipped his hat to. If he tried, Alexander Lo Rei couldn’t have been more convincing as a kung fu practitioner eager to expand his skills to their highest level. The latter accounts for our hero’s arduous trudge up a series of steps with weights on his arms and legs that appear to be made of solid gold, while the former is exhibited in the simple act of throwing bare-knuckle punches at a tree. There’s also a decent amount of weapons work, mostly in the form of bo staffs and swords, along with training sequences that range from painful to bizarre, and sometimes both. There’s plenty of variety in the fighting techniques employed by the cast, ranging from grappling maneuvers from chin-na to masterful kicking techniques and plenty of good old kung fu fist fencing. Once the film itself gets going, the action is about as close to literally non-stop as you can get. It’s a cliché that doesn’t feel clichéd, and “Shaolin vs Lama” includes the addition of a brief overview of Shaolin history courtesy of the narrator. It all kicks off, literally so, with that most beloved staple of countless martial arts films of the era, a stand-alone sequence in which the cast all demonstrate their skills before a black curtain during the opening credits. It’s simply got everything – rigorous training montages, blindingly fast fight sequences, silly comic relief, wise old sages with impossibly long eyebrows, and treacherous villains who throw back their heads and cackle with abandon. Eventually, however, Yu-ting persuades the old man into taking him on as a student and he’ll need all the training he can get when Feng-lin returns with his band of followers to declare war on the Shaolin Temple.Īs classic kung fu flicks from the 70’s and 80’s go, “Shaolin vs Lama” belongs in the upper one percent. Yu-ting knows instantly that he’s found the teacher he’s been looking for after losing their initial duel, and begs to be accepted as his student, but Chi-eh refuses to accept any more followers after his previous disciple, a Tibetan Lama named Yao Feng-lin posing as a Shaolin student, betrayed the temple and stole a priceless manual of Shaolin martial arts. That is, until he comes across the eager Shaolin disciple Hsu Shi, who regularly ventures into the nearby town to fetch meat and wine for his eccentric master Pu Chi-eh. Unfortunately, Yu-ting keeps winning one fight after another and fears that he may never find the teacher who can elevate him to his highest potential. He spends his days traveling throughout China challenging any well-respected master he can find to a duel, vowing to bow down to the one who manages to defeat him as his new master. Sun Yu-ting is a highly skilled kung fu student, already well-versed in numerous styles, but the time has come to take his training to the next level.
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