Honestly, the trailer looked cool so i rented this movie of Xbox Live. So the first thing to get in your face is the wooden and terrible acting. The main protagonist is a Shaolin Monk, so that is excusable, i was not expecting him to be a chatter box, but the rest of the cast are so awful in there line deliveries minus maybe the actress who play Sarah that is half decent, but the rest are bad... like really bad. So thats already a strike against the movie. Also there is quite a lot of character development in the first 30 minutes so a good acting would had really help and the excuse of "you don't watch a kung fu movie for acting" kinda felt flat.

What about the action? The action is very good. I dunno if this is made to be an homage to the old kung fu movies, but the sound effects really reminded me of this. The moves at time seem to not hurt hard as i would expect (Thais are really good at this) but the choreography's are very good and enjoyable.

What about the plot? That is one major question mark... If the beginning is actually pretty straight forward and easy to follow, it then become kinda weird, i want this review to remain spoiler free but you never really get to know who is the bad guy and why he is bad. Its kinda like having that generic guy in a suit for the purpose of having one.

All and all... well i enjoyed the fights, the lead "actor" showed potential and could do something pretty good under a better direction and with a better script.

If your one of those huge fans of Kung Fu movies, i would say give it a shot, but thats as far as i would recommend. Show potential... but thats it.

The action choreography is pretty good. Not get out of here fantastic or exceptional or whatever, but it is more than solid. And I wanted to start with this, because when the movie starts (and you haven't read what it is about), you could be excused by thinking this is a documentary. It might have worked better as one actually.

But it isn't, it is a fictional story with actors who have issues with their lines and acting in general at times. Our main hero is good at what he does action wise, but when it comes to delivering lines, you might feel weird watching this happen ... If you skip to the action scenes, you'll be good and they are the only reason I rated this that "high" ...

Another cheap Hong Kong/American co-production. Set in New York, this one openly copies the likes of WARRIOR KING and ONG BAK in the tale of a Shaolin trained monk battling the bad guys. It has supremely awful acting and a lot of stylised action which fails to impress; the low budget is just too apparent here.