.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

Dragon Tiger Gate is a martial arts academy established by three youngsters, Tiger Huang , Little Dragon Huang and Black Dragon Shi. Adopted as children by kung fu master Huang Jianglong, they aspire to impart the spirit of Chinese martial arts to the world. The final showdown between good and evil is a spectacular battle that makes the walls of Dragon Tiger Gate quake.

Yeah I've managed to catch up with quite a lot of movies lately!

This is a typical hong-kong style action kung-fu movie starring Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yu.

The action was also directed by Donnie Yen himself, which shows as he is now experienced and mature in his style, the action elements and choreography was very good through-out the film with some pretty unique and exciting displays of fighting and interesting use of weapons.

Honestly speaking though, he still has a long way to go to catch Yuen Wo Ping.

Apart from that, I love any movie that has nunchukas in it!

The movie itself was adapted from some very famous Hong Kong manga (comic books) so the story and plot is already laid out, even though you don't really need a phd to understand it, it's the same old basic good vs evil thing with very little deviation.

As you can probably guess, the story itself is nothing special...the romantic elements are actually quite pukeworthy and the rest you can guess as it goes along.

Basically I only suggest you watch this movie if you really enjoy good well crafted fight scenes, as I do, so I did enjoy this movie.

Donnie Yen once again manages to appear eternally youthful and carries out his role very well, not that any of the three leads have tough jobs as apart from Shawn Yue they both play fairly silent reflective types.

I found Nicholas Tse was a little soft and girly for the role he was supposed to be playing, I would have preferred someone else.

Shawn Yue was adequate as the more bubbly and confident Turbo.

You don't really feel for the characters and the flashbacks are a bit annoying with upright 'moral' overtones.

The final villain is a bit of a joke too, the fight scene is quite good though.

Overall the movie is a nice piece of comic book escapism which could really use a good producer/director.

I'd say watch it for the fight scenes (especially the first big one) and give it a fairly mediocre head kick of 4.5/10.

A young fighter named Kham must go to Australia to retrieve his stolen elephant. With the help of a Thai-born Australian detective, Kham must take on all comers, including a gang led by an evil woman and her two deadly bodyguards.

Ah yes, much like the one before it, the legendary Ong Bak! Ong Bak was a low budget martial arts flick that everyone fell in love with, why? It's super brutal realistic fighting and stunt sequences, like a blend of Jackie Chan in his early days for the crazy stunts, Bruce Lee for his rawness and energy and Jet Li for his finess and fighting accuracy.

Ong Bak remains one of my favourite martial arts movies of all time, I can watch it over and over and over.

Tom Yum Goong is similar but has the feel of a much higher budget, some CG some expensive toys and explosions, Bondesque boat chase sequence and some helicopter action.

Much like Ong Bak the script and plot is something you wouldn't even wipe your ass with, but that doesn't stop it from being an awesome film!

The acting is so-so, but once again the fight sequences will blow you away.

This was my favourite, with a wu-shu style swordsman, a huge scary white guy as seen above (Nathan Jones, he's been in some Jackie Chan flicks, Fearless, Troy etc) and some guy that could do Capoeira with such style, really really amazing.

The scene was filled with water and had a perfectly lit flaming backdrop with a buddha watching over it all, really really good.

Another good one is the fight all the way up the stairs, taken in 1 shot, unbelievable filmwork really.

The first 10-15 minutes of the movie are quite slow, very arty, nicely filmed, nice shots of Thailand etc..but really you are like OMFG KICK SOME ASS PLEASE.

The subtitles are non-existent, they only show up when people say something really obvious, or they speak in Chinese or English, at which point if they are speaking English, I really don't need the bad English subtitles ok?

Not that you need them, the movie is about some dude trying to find his elephant and kicking 72 kinds of ass along the way, that's it, end of plot summary.

Petchtai Wongkamlao was funny as expected, him being one of Thailands most prolific comedians. Bongkoj Khongmalai was very very sexy *pant* as the lost girl in the wrong place.

This is a really great martial arts movie, I loved it and will watch it again shortly (the ass kicking parts anyway, perhaps not the soft focus shots of Elephants).

If you are pretentious about movies, are looking for a plot, don't enjoy action..don't watch this movie.

However if you love to see some dude demonstrate 101 ways to break someones arm, do watch this movie!

I give it a well worth it 8/10