The basic problem with the entire film is that it tries to outdo "shaolin soccer." in this, it fails. the reason it fails is one simple reason: originality. most American films fail miserably because they try to copy a successful formula from before. what you end up with is a copy, and an inferior one at that. some scenes i felt were copied from:

1. gangs of new york 2. warner brothers cartoons, most notably road runner 3. the mask 4. "it happened one night" 5. the matrix reloaded and the matrix 6. spiderman probably more, but i didn't watch the originals. i am fairly certain some of the jokes came out of charlie chaplin, harold lloyd, and the three stooges.

The affect this had on me was deep disappointment and disgust. the funniest parts in "shaolin soccer" were original and (I felt) actually outtakes that made it into the final film. they took chances with original situations and, even though not 100% successful, were interesting nonetheless in their daring.

This feeling was made even stronger because of the great fight sequences. this is one of those movies, to me, where i will probably memorize the time counter for the fight scenes and ignore everything else. there are 4 fight sequences: the first is fairly traditional, the 2nd is more CGI yet effective, the third is a good balance between cgi and action, but the fourth is almost total cgi which features one of the most powerful (in kung fu film history) fighting styles in the most boring way, i.e. the mighty toad style.

If they had added a few minutes to the film, they could have had a much better product simply by making more characters three dimensional rather than flat. In the small village, many great fighters chose to live in anonimity, trying to retire from kung fu. Why? Out of the 5 "great" masters in the village, only 2 refer to a specific event in the past (although no details surrounding the event) and another can be guessed at. otherwise, there is no information at all about why each person chose to live in hiding.

But, going back to the fight sequences: I hate fighting styles where the move is very dumb yet supposedly powerful. This movie features many of these, including: The Lion's Roar, Buddha Palm from Heaven, the Amplified Lion's Roar, Toad Head Butt, etc. etc. etc., although I will say this is marginally better than having them announce the move before attacking as in old run run shaw films, this film became a crappy cgi fest.

However, several of the fight scenes were very well done. I really enjoy the many-vs-few fight when the few enter the fight one-by-one after making a moral decision, e.g. the first fighter is almost swarmed, and the next guy jumps in just in time, etc. etc.

Other than the fights and the unoriginality, the underlying story was pretty good. basically, it's about a guy who wanted to be a hero, but in his first time out, gets beaten badly and is convinced that being bad is the only way to win, but a girl makes him see the truth. Plus, he's a miserable failure as a bad guy.

I think, overall, that this film was sabotaged by the incredible 'shaolin soccer.' Shaolin soccer set the bar too high on CGI-support in fight scenes, and original comedy. hopefully, stephen chow will realize that the best way to make good comedy is character and situation, not formulae.