Dragons of the Orient

Rating:
Summary: Real Kung Fu
Review: This is a must for anyone tired of seeing "Crouching Tiger" flying routines. This is a documentary and not a movie, but the martial arts are real but sometimes the film is sped up a bit during the techniques but tolerable. I don't see the need to do this as the techniques are excellently performed. If you are a fan of "real" martial arts, this DVD shouldn't disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: Real Kung Fu
Review: This is a must for anyone tired of seeing "Crouching Tiger" flying routines. This is a documentary and not a movie, but the martial arts are real but sometimes the film is sped up a bit during the techniques but tolerable. I don't see the need to do this as the techniques are excellently performed. If you are a fan of "real" martial arts, this DVD shouldn't disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: Very dissapointing
Review: Unlike some of the other reviewers, I carefully looked at the box before purchasing it and realized that it was a documentary. Which was what I thought I was getting. Truth be told though, this is more of a propoganda film than a documentary. It was produced by the PRC (people's republic of china) and displays kung fu much as one would expect them to display their latest military technological advances: in a manner to inspire pride in the Chinese people and fear in everyone else. The end result is a little absurd to anyone with much in the way of intelligence. Most of the forms sequences in it are sped up a great deal. They also make little distinction between the mediocre and the astounding. Personally, I was hoping for a documentary that showed some real kung fu (as opposed to modern sport wu shu), which while it does this, most of it is sped up, destroying the beauty of it and making it impossible to see the details of movement. The sound on it is truly atrocious as well, the original music being cut off abruptly every time someone speaks, showing an immense ineptitude on the part of the sound engineers. For the fanatics, yes, there are several scenes of a young Jet Li, ages 8 to 18. Not that this is a huge plus. I truly cannot understand how the man became to be the great wushu champion that he supposedly was. I have seen dozens of practitioners who show more skill and talent than he does. He's not bad, but I simply do not see the world class athlete that his publicists make him out to be. Which brings me to one of the few pluses for this film: Terry Fan. Seeing him right after Jet Li only emphasizes the disparity. For the five minutes or so that we see him, he truly shines (of course it helps that his section wasn't sped up like the others). There are a few other places that were good: duck kung fu, the 100 year old practitioners and several of the sword katas were good in spite of their speed. On the whole, I would not pick this one up unless you found it for under ...

Rating:
Summary: A Must!
Review: While this seems to be mostly a patched together psuedo Jet Li biography, seemingly made from whatever Jet Li footage wasn't owned by some studio, the video's real worth lies in the large amount of stationary camera footage of style demonstrations. The video is only about 40% Jet Li footage but the other 60% is full of some of the best chinese martial arts routines I have ever seen performed by both men and women. There are at least a dozen mind-blowing demonstrations performed on a mat...like an Olympic exposition sport. If you hate wire work and want the real thing then you need to watch this.

Rating:
Summary: English audio track only?!?
Review: Why has this to be such a cheap job, with an english track only?? I only watch eastern movies wich include the original soundtrack with english subtitles. The english overdubs are so poorly done, that they totally destroy my suspension of disbelief (needed to enjoy such movies). I certainly will buy no DVDs with no original language soundtrack...