The Kung Fu Cult Master (1993)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Powerful

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A Brilliant Conflict

I've seen a lot of films in my time that don't make an awful lot of sense, but very few have left me quite as confused as The Evil Cult, a crazy wuxia martial arts flick starring Jet Li (plus a host of other genre stars). Part of the problem would undoubtedly be down to the awful subtitles on my DVD (it said they were English on the box, but I'm not so sure), but even if they had been perfect, I have no doubts that I still wouldn't have had a clue what was going on.Jet plays Mo Kei, a young man out to get revenge on those responsible for his parents' deaths. And that's about all I can tell you regarding the plot: there's so much waffle about different warring factions and powerful sects that it all becomes extremely difficult to follow, and even harder to try and recount. So I'm not going to bother.What I can tell you, however, is that this film features some pretty mad scenes that should please those who enjoy crazy Asian martial arts cinema: Mo Kei's father commits suicide by making his own heart explode from his chest; Mo Kei learns magical kung fu from a monk who is embedded in a huge, rotating, flying boulder; horses are skewered by drills that emerge from under the ground; there is a subterranean battle that results in severed body parts being strewn everywhere; and some of the characters battle with what looks like fire-extinguishers hidden up their sleeves!! And these are only the bits that I can remember.Also, there is the usual quota of flying kung fu (loads of wire work: some good, some lousy); lots of characters with silly hairstyles and huge eyebrows, and some cute women (including HK hotties Chingamy Yau and Gigi Lai).If incomprehensible wire-fu wuxia is your thing and you love films such as 'New Dragon Inn' and 'Swordsman', then you'll probably love this film, but as much as I appreciated the silliness of the whole thing, I just didn't find it that enjoyable overall.

Surely this is a confusing movie with the numerous characters to remember and nonetheless the over use of wires for fighting scenes, but that's what a typical old school chinese kung fu soap opera is. They are usually in the type of a series (ranging from 20 to 60 hours long) and they tried to squeeze it all into 100 min film roll. But enough of that.For those who complain about the dialogue or subtitles have to suit themselves. First off, this movie was made in China, its not here to satisfy everybody so if you are not familiar with cantonese then don't watch the movie in the first place, secondly the translations isn't always accurate so do not assume that the dialogue follows as the subtitles brings to you. In fact the language is an old fashioned, polite chinese language thus very sophisticated rather than the translation into english. The movie, I'd say is somewhere in between an 8 and a 7 considering its poor ending (why did they end it like that? doesn't make sense, should make a prequel, but that's not happening now after almost a decade) this isn't really a jet li kind of a movie so if you are into jet li's Fist of Legend, Twin Warriors, Once upon a time.., do NOT even bother watching this because the fighting style is definitly not the same, as mentioned this is one of those typical old fashion movies where they fly and shoot fireballs and jump 100 ft up in the air. Moreover the plot wasn't all too sophisticated considering they had to get to the point quick since its only 100 min to make it in such a movie. For other comments about the shaolin monks and stuff, how they are corrupted, well i dunno if its true but as in Iron Monkey the shaolin temple was corrupted by the government and this could be another case of itall in all this movie is a clash of modern and old school martial arts because of the wires used in fighting scenes but also have great modern fighting like the fight between Jet Li and the Monk (when jet li encounters his grandfather for the first time) the movie delivers a decent martial arts and plot line so i'd say this is a must see for those who enjoy both chinese soap opera fighting and modern martial arts of jet li

OK people, ever ride on a fast roller coaster and the g-forces pin you back to the seat?? Then, you know how watching this film: it's a non-stop, fast paced adventure!!Interestingly enough, Jet Li's character doesn't know kung fu, which is a big disadvantage for him. It's really cool (and strange) how he learns martial arts. Soon, Jet's shooting fireballs like Ryu and battling all the different clans. There are a lot of people and fight scenes sometimes have fifty or more people at once on screen! This movie also gets high marks for the beautiful ladies who do try to seduce Jet Li (love that awkward look!!). Man Cheung is visually appealing as the "cunning" Chao Min. Chingmy Yau plays Jet's love interest (lucky guy!!) and she can kick some butt!Whether it's Wu Tang, Shaolin, Green Bat, or the Jinxes, this was one kung fu fantasy that has to be seen to be believed. On a side note, I was saddened that no sequel was made since things get very interesting towards the end.

The plot of the movie is based on a popular Kongfu novel by Jin Yong, THE most famous Chinese writer of the last fifty years. This novel is one of my favorite of all his works, but in order to cram the story into movie-length, much has been changed and cut. And changed and cut in the typical style of Hong Kong kongfu TV soap operas.Hong Kong kongfu TV soaps are altogether bad. First, Cantonese is spoken and thus reduced the historical feel of the scenes - there's a reason why Ang Lee asked all the actors in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to speak Mandarin, even if they could speak fluent Cantonese. All characters from this movie are from Northern China, and Cantonese, a rather modern dialect, just don't fit here.Second, typical to kongfu soaps, there's a lot of overacting in this movie. It seems that Hong Kong TV series directors and actors think overacting is how ancient Chinese behaved or they believe without overacting the audience will not feel the history or something. Anyway, the acting is worse than most B movies of the 70's and 80's, and that says a lot.Third, too much makeup. And this is also typical of Hongkong kongfu soaps, big hairs, big eyebrows and eye shadows, wierd hairdoes and costumes. As if the makeup artists think without the hair and clothing, the audience cannot distinguish between the characters. The story happens during a time of extreme close-mindedness in Chinese history, wierd clothing and hairdoes were not tolerated at all. All that makeup is used just to please the lowest denominator of the audience which is rather a small portion.Last, typical to Hongkong kongfu soaps, the action scenes, THE MOST IMPORTANT PART FOR MANY, is of very low quality. Due to the fact not that many actual martial artist or Chinese opera performers (like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, etc.) will work for television, action scenes in kongfu soaps often over-use wires and explosives. When a person jumps 10 feet in the air and 20 feet across, when a master's "chi" causes an explosion 20 feet away, when you can see the "chi" as lightning coming out of someone's hands, the believability of the action is down to nill. And like typical kongfu soaps, this film uses camera closeups to mask the real fighting, you are only allowed to see hands, arms, legs and feet in most shots, not the entire body movements of the actors/stunt doubles.The production value of this very B movie is zero, acting is zero (Jet Li maybe a martial art superstar, but he can't handle a romantic lead role). This film is so bad, it isn't funny any more; it is so bad, it isn't even good, just worse. Avoid this thing at all time.