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.
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.