The opening credit sequence of Shaolin Ex-Monk is a series of flickering still cutouts of various figures from the film fighting each other on a blue background while a swinging 60's spy movie soundtrack jazzes along. Truly the stuff of old school kung fu wonder.

The Film: The movie opens and we are introduced to the scruffy Chow Li Chin, who is being soundly trounced by some thugs. You see, Chin has been fooling around with the local kung fu masters daughter, and well, the master and his students don't take very kindly to the poor orphan, so they actually decide to hang him for his lovelorn crime. Luckily, a passerby (and excellent martial artist), Lin Shou Fei, saves him from this fate. Chin and Shou Fei eventually form a partnership. In exchange for lessons in martial arts, Chin searches the town and tries to find a deadly ex-monk, who went bad, formed a gang, killed and robbed, and has now gone into hiding.

Shou Fei was sheriff of one of the towns the bad monk raided and has been tracking the ex-monk for a few years. The ex-monk is hiding town, and deciding that he needs to deal with the two, sets up traps- including ambushing Shou Fei with the Ting Bros, a duo who fight with triangular crane head shaped weapons on their hands. When that fails, confronting Shou Fei himself, severely injuring the heavy kicking sheriff. The monk also manages to point the finger and manipulate the townspeople, attempting to frame Shou Fei for the local kung fu masters murder, and so forth. Eventually though, the trail leads to the evil monk, and its up to Shou Fei and Chin to take him out in a solid ten minute long fight finale.

This is a well made old school kung fu film, a nice b-production, full of all that one expects in story and some pretty good fight work. John Lui, who plays Shou Fei, best known for his proficient kicking talents (and not that he looks sort of like a skinny Asian Mickey Dolenz) smoothly grins and kicks his way through the film. The action is pretty good, some wires here and there, and missing frames to speed it up, but overall the fighters natural abilities and charisma make the scenes work. Having the film split between two leads, Shou Fei and Chin, you get many opportunities for the kung fu standards- You get the teacher-student relationship, with Chin learning how to fight (standing on one leg while the other is tied up, propped on a pile of bricks, hitting plates on poles, doing splits on two pedestals). You get two chances for revenge with Chin using his new skills against the bullies who humiliated and beat on him, and Shou Fei against the ex-monk who attacked his town. In addition to Chin's training sequence, after the ex-monk injures him, Shou Fei has his own training scene as he tries to develop a way to beat the monks 6 Hand Style. Two leads also means, two different kung fu characterizations, Chin the bumbling comic relief, and Shao Fei, the confidently swaggering hero. There is also a great spear Vs. sword fight between the ex-monk and the local kung fu master, and the finale is satisfying. The film isn't out to break any new ground, like say Drunken Master did, but instead it is just a nice chop-socky effort that should leave fans pleasantly entertained.

DVD Quality: As far as old school kung fu goes.The World Video DVD is a good, cheapie, but clearly vhs-to-dvd presentation.

Picture- Despite being fullscreen, the action is framed quite nicely and one doesn't get the sense very often that one is losing out on the action. The print is very dirty, no surprise there, spotty, and soft in spots, but overall it shows vivid color and sharpness for an old kung fu film. Until better prints of older kung fu start surfacing, I'll give it a C for picture quality.

Sound- The mono English dub is strong, well, as strong as mono can be really. The usual cruddy tape-sourced bits of hiss here and there, but once again, for an older kung fu film, it is the unfortunate norm.

Extras- The extras include a one really long trailer for Jackie Chan Invincilbe Fighter and thats it really.

***It should be noted that the film has a severe chapter and layer change pause, very noticeably dropping out for a full second between chapters and during the layer change.

Conclusion- Cruddy transfer, okay old school kung fu b-film. If you are a fan and dont mind the lacking quality (not like anyones rushing out to remaster these kinds of titles), it should be an okay casual purchase.