Didn't expect this movie to be pretty emotional...


Wikipedia did a good job in summarizing the entire movie as a matter of factly but I personally find certain parts really extremely touching... I guess you can say it's about a Warlord turning over a new leaf and... kinda karma/retribution coming at him.

Trailer here

In my own words below...

Andy Lau is a ruthless Warlord - I'm not really sure what kinda war/revolution is happening during that time but he wears some kind of uniform like a General? In the beginning of the scene, he kills an enemy at Shaolin Temple despite being asked by the monks to spare the enemy's life but Andy Lau went ahead with it anyway.

Nicholas Tse is Andy Lau's second in command, like a Deputy. Nic is sick of Andy's dictative ways and decided to betray him one night leading to Andy being separated from his family. In the pursuit by other Andy's enemies, he fell off a cliff with his daughter. Only when faced in the death of your love one would one repent.

Such a coincidence that the place near where the cliff was, was at Shaolin. Andy begged the monks to save her daughter but to no avail. He cried his heart out and I guess he felt lost and restless after losing his dead daughter and fell into a pit that was set by Jackie Chan to hunt for animal. Jackie Chan plays a cook for the Shaolin monks. Supposedly a cook wouldn't know martial arts but his character provided all the minimal comic relief in the show. Jackie fed Andy but Andy stopped talking (because he was grieving).

I guess one day he decided to shave his hair and decided to move on/let go and be at peace by himself. He decided to help Jackie in the daily preparation of food for the whole temple of monks by fetching water, preparing ingredients etc and had to walk pass the daily martial arts training. One of the head of the martial arts teachers asked Andy to join in their training. He rejected at first then decided to join and realised he likes it... he trained with little monks not more than the ages of 10. He began to smile and have fun with the little monks.


But such stories are tragic because there's no happily ever after. Nicholas Tse took over the position of Andy Lau after the latter was assumed dead. However, Andy discovered Nicholas' shady works while hearing people talk in the market. One of Andy's men discovered that Andy was still alive and reported to Nicholas who, of course, needed to plot his revenge from 'being bullied' by Andy back then.

Nicholas brought his arm to Shaolin demanding for Andy or everyone in Shaolin dies. People were evacuated from Shaolin, resulting some deaths of the martial arts teachers :(

The final fight resulted in the death of our hero tragically....(ending scene below)