callanvass *Minor Spoilers*I love Jet Li and I love Martial Art films. The first Shaolin Temple is not one of my favorites, but at least it was proficient in its approach. I have no idea what they were going for here, but it's one of the stupidest martial art films I have ever seen, and I wasn't able to finish it all. What was with all the singing? This is not a musical, this is martial arts. It also was a little too weird for me. There are some traditions here that really raised my eyebrows. The kids encourage spankings from their Father, and a Mother gives birth continuously from what I saw. I realize that may be part of a tradition of sorts, but it didn't fly with me, and tuned me out even further. I'll continue. Jet Li's character is extremely silly. We do get some fight scenes, but I was so angry at what I was seeing, I wasn't able to enjoy them. Not everyone will feel the same way, but this is just too crazy for its own good.Final Thoughts: I'm not a big fan of the first one either, but it's at least proficiently done. I can't say the same for this one. One more sequel to go, and I'm not looking forward to it. Hopefully it's better than this crud3/10

jonspain Many of my friends who I have convinced to check this movie out are ready to chase me out the house after watching the opening scene and singing, but after watching the fight scenes they usually gain a little more respect for the movie. Although many of the same actors showed up from the original Shaolin Temple, the storyline is completely different, and the tone of part 2 is lighthearted, which may turn many off. This movie is one of my all-time favorite martial arts films because I haven't found many films that highlight young children sparring off (besides the "My Father is a Hero" boy who's name I forgot) and I personally love to see the women get in the action. The last fight scene is great, but what did it for me was the children's competition. Seeing them play fight in animal styles was magic. A good movie, my friends who hated on this movie just felt like a "kiddie" movie like this was an assault on their manhood

drngor This was Jet Li's second movie and was once again a Mainland Chinese production. The tone is on the opposite end of Shaolin Temple's: light-hearted and fun. The movie tells the story of two families on different sides of a river: Yu Hai's family of Shaolin martial arts'trained boys(one of whom is Jet Li) and another guy's family of Wudang (Wu Tang) swordsmanship-trained girls. There's been a rivalry between the families and that's interfering with the wedding between various members of the families who love each other. Also, there are some vicious bandits who want revenge after Yu Hai rescued the boys and injured their leader.The cast is made up of authentic wushu stylists, and it shows. Everyone knows how to fight in this movie. The little girls, the little boys, the men, the women, the thieves, etc. Therefore, all the action is pure, authentic Chinese martial arts (pole, sword, 3-sectional staff, etc). The choreography is a lot different than people today are used to. However, if you like your fighting w/o extensive use of wire and special FX, this is definitely worth checking out. My only gripe is that Jet Li has to compete with the rest of the cast in showing off his skills.The main flaw of this film is that although everyone in the cast are martial artists, the ensemble casting and numerous sub-plots take away from character development and not every subplot gets to be developed. The story jumps from one character's story to the next, and therefore not everyone gets to be fully developed.I must say that the story and the children made the film more endearing. Jet Li is probably at his most likable (he's up there with his performance in Fong Sai Yuk). The little children are pretty enjoyable little scamps, just don't go into the film expecting a dead-serious martial arts movie. It's light-hearted and fancy free.

Vegas-6 Sweet mother of pearl. This movie was quite awful. Slow early, slow in the middle, Great at the end. A bit of humor here and there, mostly related to buttocks and testicles. The final fight scene was sufficently over-the-top for my tastes, but I'd say it's not even worth renting. If you do rent, fast forward to 11 minutes before the end of the tape, and you get pretty much all the action right then and there. Of particular intrest is the guy with a spear being pushed into his neck until a slingshot comes in....