SYNOPSIS:
The
main character acted by Xiao Shen Yang is a shoemaker who
goes from a martial-arts newbie to the number one expert.
Zhao Benshan is a bandit, superior in martial arts but who
is defeated by Xiao Shen Yang. Cheng Ye plays one of Zhao
Benshan's subordinates whose successes are lacking and whose
failures are abundant and who is often burdening Zhao Benshan.
The other roles all revolve around Xiao Shen Yang. Kelly Lin
plays an ordinary martial who thinks she's a princess and
likes Xiao Shen Yang. Eric Tsang is a blind but an expert
fencer who is in charge of protecting the princess. Chen Zhipeng
is the rightful emperor as well as Kelly Lin's character's
fiancee and Xiao Shen Yang's character's rival-in-love. Xiao
Bin acts out little Xiao Shen Yang and Jacky Wu is an exceptional
expert who lives at the bottom of a valley.
MOVIE
REVIEW:
How far would producers go to influence you to watch a bad movie? Very far, apparently, judging by the faces that are splashed across the DVD of this very bad movie. We’ve got Kelly Lin, looking pretty in her ancient getup, Eric Tsang, looking goofy with his clueless expression, Jacky Wu, looking strangely ferocious in his shabby image, Little Bean, looking adorably cute with his chubby round face, Singapore’s very own Mark Lee, looking sinister in his “Invincible East” costume and a certain Xiaoshen Yang, looking hilariously contorted with one foot in the air.
If you haven’t already known, Xiaoshen Yang was the wimp in Zhang Yimou’s quirky "A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop". He is the only star to look out for in this 95 minute movie, but the poor guy just looks pathetically out of place most of the time. It doesn’t matter that he is backed up by other notable Asian names, which include Zhao Benshan, Tien Niu and Norman Tsui. It doesn’t matter that this action comedy features choreography by Tony Ching either. We are guessing that the mess that resulted from this is probably the work of one man – Kevin Chu.
Yes, this is the man who brought you the terribly lackluster Kung Fu Dunk (2008) and The Treasure Hunter (2009), incidentally star vehicles for a certain Jay Chou, who has since gone on to Hollywood to star in a 3D movie with Seth Rogen.
But we digress, back to this movie set in ancient China. The protagonist is a poor shoe repair man who lives with his mother and is obsessed with martial arts picture books. He repairs the shoes of a swordswoman and saves her in an unplanned series of events. That’s about it for the plot, really, because what happens next is a haphazardly patched job which really serves no purpose except for viewers (from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and even Singapore) to spot familiar faces before realising that these characters really serve no purpose in the bigger scheme of things.
There are some passable action scenes here, but we all know there are better kungfu movies out there. There are even some special effects in the movie, but you know you can only expect so much from a production as erratic as this. Laughs are not aplenty here, as the comedians try very hard to look silly and spout badly written lines. With the abovementioned elements, you can expect almost nothing spectacular from this slapdash hit and miss of a movie.
And if it interests you, local comedian Lee has a total screen time of, well, about two minutes.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
NIL.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
We do not have any complaints about visual transfer of the movie. It is presented in Mandarin.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
Posted on 6 February 2011
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