Falsely accused for cheating in a martial arts competition, two boyhood friends are banished from their Shaolin Temple and go their separate ways. As adults, they join opposing sides in a civil war. When one betrays the other, they settle their differences mano-a-mano.
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This is one of the top 10 worst movies I've seen and probably in top 5 when it comes to fighting movies. The plot is really unoriginal and boring, most characters are pretty linear and dull. The fighting is so- so, very cheesy and you can see a lot of wires around. The movie starts somewhat nice, but it gets worse and worse. It's not worth more than 6/10, but I give it less in order to balance things since it was rated pretty high by a lot of people that clearly haven't seen too many good movies, especially from this category *sigh* Yes, Jet Li does play in this movie, but that doesn't mean it's a great one. I had plenty more fun watching Lone Wolf staring Chuck Norris to be honest :) This movie is a disappointment to the genre and it makes the Shaolin monks look pretty bad overall.
This is a classic, modern, kung fu movie which draws inspiration and improves upon all your old favourites from the 70's. Of course the distributors have done a bad job of packaging, so I don't blame people for not liking this because it doesn't meet their expectations. From the front cover it looks like a modern setting film with guns and car chases etc.. But what you do get is a cool story about two young shaolin monks who go their separate ways and discover hugely different styles of fighting. The first scenes; set in the temple, are the best seen in a long time and give a real sense of power for the style. yuen woo ping is up to his usual tricks so there is lots of imaginative fighting throughout, always demonstrating great skill whatever the characters are up to. My only minor grudge is that yeun Chuang Yang (daoist priest) doesn't have a fight scene (see drunken Tai Chi!!). I will definitely recommend, but then, any real kung fu flick fan will already have bought this and watch it 100 times!!.
Twin Warriors succeeds as a martial arts film because it keeps us entertained with almost a constant stream of highflying action sequences. However, due in part to poor dubbing; the drama scenes between the fights are laughable.The story follows that of two friends, Chin Bo and Juanbo (Siu-hou Chin and Jet Li), two monks that becomes friends at, and later get thrown out of a Shaolin Temple. After this, they meet up with the leader of a group of rebels (Michele Yeoh), and Juanbo joins them, while Chin Bo goes off to join the emperor's army. Naturally, they meet up again along the way and their friendship is basically the main plot point of the film. As I mentioned, though; the dubbing is awful, and the script is no better. The characters talk as if they're from an upmarket part of London, and when they're both of Asian origin; it makes it very hard to take seriously. It's hard to tell whether the script is bad, or if it's just that it has been lost in translation. Because some of the lines of dialogue are cringe worthy, but that could be due to English translation; I don't know. It's the same story with the acting; none of the cast excels in the drama sections of the film, but their performance is masked by awful dubbing. Everyone deserves credit for their martial arts, however. The action sequences are generally imaginative, well crafted and entertaining; although they do have a tendency to go over the top at times; the prime example of this being when two characters are fighting in a dining hall, and a table falls apart and somehow manages to become stilts for one of the characters to stand on while fighting. I admit that it's entertaining...but come on.Credit to the cinematography department; this film does look very nice. And it does keep the audience entertained for it's duration, but that's all this film is; a crowd pleaser. It's just too silly to really be taken seriously.
It's not Drunken Master, (not the Legend of Drunken Master, the original, noodge), but what is? It is a well made tale of an ousted Shaolin monk who through hardship and madness, learns the ultimately taoist T'ai Chi Chuan.The thing I love about this film, (and you'd have to be a geek to go with this} but I love the fact that he learns T'ai Chi through his own hardships, not from a sifu (teacher), and the typical sifu or friend who dies is his friend, who, instead of dying, turns evil with power.The entire movie is a great representation of Taosism (yin, yang, good and evil}. I don't agree that Michelle Yeoh (or Michelle Kahn at she time in the film) was not well used. She provided the idea of the easy path, drinking in this case, that is so lacking in gong fu movies. She and he both redeem themselves against the head bad guy (His character name escapes me at the time}, but there is no love interest between themselves. She's tough and troubled, he's tough and troubled and they actually help each other (read: she stops drinking to save him, he learns from her care and she helps cure his madness).By the way, the head bad guy, (again, sorry about the name} was still played brilliantly even in dubbing. My friends and I still say "Hmmmmm" in his fey evil voice when thinking bad thoughts. It can be said it's typical Hong Kong fare... Good guy gets defeated, learns a new style of Gong Fu and defeats the bad guy, but then again, isn't that what Star Wars took 3 films to accomplish?Anyway, my opinion of this film is tainted by the fact that I'm a taoist, but the action is top notch, nobody flies for no reason, all the characters (even the comic relief) are fleshed out. great film. not the greatest, but, it's a hell of a lot better than "Shaolin Drunken Monk" (aka, Plan 9 from the Shaolin Temple) lol.