sillybuddha Review of Ba bai luo han

Ba bai luo han (1985)

Lots of extras, lots of fast fights, chopped up story.

[6/10 · 5 December 2006]

A fairly high budget martial arts picture with some nice monastic locations and large numbers of extras. The action itself is pretty fast and acrobatic, though there's a fair bit of 'flailing arms' style. However there's some impressively speedy weapons fighting and jumping. The plot revolves around the 'harsh rules' of a Buddhist monastery that prevents the monks from fighting the baddies, although no spiritual / religious explanation is given for this pacifism and, as others have commented, seems like an overt criticism of Buddhism in general (although the monks suddenly come to their senses in time because of our hero's example). The bigger budget means the camera-work is more dynamic with some nice lens flare shots and interesting use of fades, but the cuts are sudden, as is the ending. For fans of bad dubbing, the voices are fairly poor but not particularly funny - although at one point an evil official sings an Irish folk song! There are no really interesting or dynamic characters, however, (what happened to our hero's master? he just disappears) and the film is crudely split into two halves - 'Buddhist rules oppression' and 'revenge'. There's also a bizarre bit with some birds attacking our heroes - it seemed to be crow corpses being thrown in their faces from off screen. Bit weird.