Leofwine_draca SHAOLIN PRINCE is a very fine Shaw Brothers martial arts film from 1982, featuring Ti Lung and Derek Yee in the leading roles and involved a plot with bizarre and fantastic touches. It does, however, generally remain grounded in reality without going completely over the top like some of the other Shaw fantasies from the era. The film has an electrifying opening in which the master bad guy (stock '80s Shaw actor Jason Pai Piao) attacks the loyalist king, kills him, and goes after his babies. There are two real ones and a ton of pretend ones and most of them get massacred in surprisingly bloody moments that you'd never see in a film made in the west. Thankfully the two real princes survive the massacre and the film cuts to a couple of decades later in which they team up to tackle the guy who had their dynasty all but wiped out.After the fantastic opening segment - which has to be one of the strongest openings I've seen in a Shaw film - the story just carries on entertaining. The main thrust of the narrative is quite straightforward, but there's always an outlandish sub-plot or two to keep you occupied; watch out for the random 'exorcism' scene which is hilariously portrayed. I found that Lung and Yee made a good double act as the heroes as their two styles complement each other nicely and they're great in the action stakes. The supporting cast is very well picked, including the likes of Ai Fei and Ku Feng as officials, and Yuen Wah in an excellent role which finally has him starting to get the recognition he well deserved. Best of all is the cross-eyed joker Tau Wan Yue, who along with his two brothers steals all of his scenes as the trio of 'Holy Fools'.As you might expect, there's plenty of comedy in this film which works really nicely and the surrealistic touches were much appreciated by this viewer. The pogo stick scene is hilarious. Lung is something of a straight man in this but I loved him all the same. Things build to an unusual and impressive fight climax that involves a kind of 'chair fu' that you'll never have seen done before; it's visually impressive and thoroughly intricate. Watch out for the guy with the flaming sword and the 'water man', two more great characters in a fantastic film (in both senses of the word).

Scott Watch this movie for the action sequences. The storyline and characters are simplistic but adequate for purpose in this type of shows. The background story is a palace intrigue in which the legitimate emperor was deposed by an evil prince. This sort of things doesn't need elaboration. It is enough that we know who the bad guy is and wait to watch his ass kicked. The costume and setting is probably based on the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD)... the kingdom of Western Hsia was referred to. What I normally do with this kind of movies is to simply scan through the plot in my first viewing and then re-visit the fight sequences. There were many great fights... like a Cirque du Soleil performance, some of the choreographed fights were fantastic - very imaginative. Fun.

bao It has been a while since I saw it. It's good, but nothing spectacular. I think it is a Shaw Bros. film, so the action was decent. Hoaky costumes and some crazy Shaolin monks in it. Not bad.

pnchdrnk This film is a perfect example of mistitling, which is too bad, considering that it's quite good. My local video store has about 100 to 150 tapes in it's "Martial Arts" section, and only about 4 or 5 are worth renting, including this one.Anyone looking 'only' for a ninja movie should steer clear as there are no ninjas in this film, nor any deathmasks. It actually looks like a Chinese epic, concerning two young princes who must fight an older prince to regain the throne that he cheated them out of when they were mere babes. Some might say this film has too much humor to be effective, but I wouldn't. For me, a "martial arts" film without humor is like a hot dog without mustard. For example, "Enter the Dragon" seemed very good 20 years ago, but now I can barely watch it.The alternate title "Shaolin Prince" seems perfect. I've watched this film about 6 times in about two months, and have not tired of it yet.