Wrath of Vajra

[Drunk Monk]

Xing Yu is an old friend from Shaolin. Wrath of Vajra is his first lead role. Haven't seen it yet as it hasn't been released, but we're doing a major promo for it at KFM (paid) and I'm pushing it just because Xing Yu is an old friend. I should have a review copy by next week.

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[Drunk Monk]

It's a simple plot - a Japanese death cult kidnaps kids and trains them to be assassins through fighting death matches. Xingyu (billed as Shi Yanneng here) was a product of the cult who grows up, reforms and becomes a disciple of the Southern Shaolin Temple, only to get drawn back into hell...or Hades in this case. The cult is called Hades, pronounce Hah-dis in Chinese. The rest is a lot of blood-spittin fights, which is really all we want to see in a Kung Fu flick. Good stuff overall. Nice scenery. Decent atmosphere. Fights, fights, fights. Lots of slo-mos of people getting their face smashed so hard that their flesh wobbles like jello. There are some good villains to oppose Xingyu: a huge giant played by Jiang Baocheng (height 7" 6 1/2') and Poppin Hyun-Joon, a Korean hip hop dancer, playing Crazy Monkey, which is sort of a Butoh villain. And there's a lot of random assassins to kill. There's also some annoying subplots involving a cute but clueless Japanese reporter (daughter of the cult leader) and a really annoying shami (child monk) who just cries all the time and needs his face smashed so hard that his flesh wobbles like jello. Xingyu does his best to channel Bruce Lee from Fist of Fury with his Mandarin-collared suit and his emotionally-content-full demeanor as he dispatches hordes of Japanese katana-wielding assassins, so yeah, lots of sword-fighting action which always makes me happy.