Fantastic!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

10 BROTHERS OF SHAOLIN is an enjoyable Hong Kong kung fu story based around the Shaolin Temple. The titular characters are a bunch of monks and their students who team up to battle evil Qing forces desperate to get their hands on the deposed Ming emperor, now being cared for by the monks. The goal of the protagonists is to transport the emperor south to safety while eluding Qing forces along the way.Although the narrative is simplistic in the extreme, I liked the way that 10 BROTHERS OF SHAOLIN has plenty of momentum to keep it moving along nicely. The plentiful action scenes also help with rarely a slow moment in the whole thing and there's a ton of hand-to-hand combat in the woods. In addition, the viewer is treated to an ensemble cast of familiar faces, all of whom supply solid performances. Don Wong is the erstwhile heroic lead while kung fu-fighting heroine Judy Lee is a valuable ally. Phillip Ko kicks plenty of backside in his role as a Shaolin monk, one of the good guys for a change. The villain duties are left to old hands Chang Yi and Beardy, the latter being suitably imposing as always.

The Chings are after a Ming leader and Don Wong Tao and his 9 Shaolin brothers must help escort him to safety. This leads to fight after fight. There is a match with Chia Kai, Wong Tao and Steve Tung Wei that you will not want to miss. And the 3 on 1 finale with Chang Yi taking on Wong Tao, Phillip Ko fei and another guy is also a good scene. Leung Kar Yan and Judy Lee round out the cast and both have good fight scenes. The action is done by Tommy Lee and all of the fights are good. This is a dream kung fu movie. Just look at that !*^#^%@^ cast!!!! The picture quality on the Crash DVD is full screen and faded, but still more than watchable.

Very cheap production, mostly costumes in the woods. The saving grace is the plentiful fights and a large number of characters to prevent boredom.Typical ho-hum about Chings oppressing innocent Hans and the Shaolin running about. What I found notable was the different number of actual Kung Fu styles being represented here. Many of the characters fight with a specific style that actually contains moves from the style. You can even see some relatively accurate Eagle Claw (briefly), Preying Mantis and Hung Ga during the film. That said the choreographers frequently revert to movie style kung fu. Unfortunately the martial art fighting is just OK with a lot of slow fighting and unrehearsed moves. The film available is a horrid TV print with screwy English dubbing. Not only is there no pan and scan on the original widescreen, the image is set dead center, it's also zoomed in to avoid the original subtitles. I might have liked this better if I saw an original print.

It has been a while since I've seen it, but I remember it was badly dubbed, and there was hardly any story. There were a lot of fights though from which none was worth watching for more then one time. Because I like classic kung fu movies I rated it a 6. If you want a great kung fu movie don't watch this one.