The action combines real kung fu with unfortunately a good dose of wire work, which I tend to find ridiculously annoying. You can even clearly see the wires attached to the actors as they leap and "fly." There are also elements of slapstick comedy, which in the interviews it's explained that the creators tried to borrow a few elements of Jackie Chan's brand of kung-fu comedy, but I found the humor quite lacking.

Nonetheless, it's a straightforward tale of two young monks who grow up as friends but ultimately become enemies as each follows a different path in life. Jet plays Jun Bao, the younger monk, when the story opens in the legendary Shaolin Temple. He meets Tien Bao, played by Chin Siu Ho (who also co-starred with Jet in "Fist of Legend"), an older boy with an ambitious, headstrong streak. We see a flash of Tien's will to dominate when he pressures Jun Bao into calling him the "senior brother," even though their master intended it the other way around because Jun Bao came first to the monastery.

As young men, they get expelled from the temple when Tien Bao offends the master of an unscrupulous student and Jun Bao comes to his brother's defense. There's a great action sequence where the monks get into their "Lohan" formation, that is, multiple monks stand on their comrades' shoulders to form a daunting array of men with spinning sticks. The duo only manage to escape when they break the oil lamps in the hall to make the floors slippery, and their master also makes a timely intervention.

Anyway, once in the secular "real" world, Tien Bao's obsessive ambition draws him into the service of a corrupt eunuch who serves as the local governor, whereas the still innocent and idealistic Jun Bao is content with a simple, peaceful life and winds up in the company of rebel fighters.

An inevitable collision course is thus set, and Tien Bao's treachery temporarily drives Jun Bao into pyschological paralysis, but the latter eventually finds enlightenment in the Way of Tao, and becomes a Master of "Tai Chi."

It leads to a furious climax as Tien Bao, now a general, squares off against his one time brother, and is defeated because he has never learned to tame his impulsive instincts. However, it is not Jun Bao who kills him, but his mutinous soldiers who have become fed up with his tyrannical, ruthless ways. Jun Bao rides off and becomes the famous Cheung San Fung, the great Taoist master.

Overall, it's a good story with pretty good action, and despite a few quibbles here and there I'd definitely recommend it to any matial arts fan.

Sammo admits that in order to keep the movie's running time under control he had to cut out a lot of material and risk upsetting many of his peers, so it could be interesting for a real Hong Kong movie aficianado to keep a running list of who's who among the big names that DON'T get to appear in cameo role (Jackie Chan is one of them who comes to my mind).

Fortunately, with the comedy sequences and the efficient editing, watching a bevy of characters constantly come and go didn't bother me much. The plot was very simple, involving a special train called the Millionaire's Express. A gang of bandits want to rob it, while a petty crook named Chen (played by Sammo himself) wishes to blow up a section of track used by that train, a segment which passes near his hometown of Hanshui. His goal is to compel the wealthy rail patrons to come to his sleepy village and spend money there. A brief flashback scene reveals he was mischeviously attracted to explosives as a kid, and he had blown up the town's dikes. Hence, this diversion of rail traffic is his scheme to pay back his town (and also line his own pockets in the process).

Along with the various characters in the town itself, and the government agent pursuing Chen, the stage is thus set for all sorts of people to converge on little Hanshui, ultimately resulting in a massive showdown pitting Chen and his friends against the nefarious bandits and even some Japanese agents (all in anachronistic samurai outfits).

Anyway, I highly recommend this film because it's unlikely anything like it will ever be made again. Before the advent of CGI, Hong Kong's top martial artists and stuntment dared to perform outrageous actions scenes. For example, watch at the beginning of movie how Yuen Biao jumps off a burning FOUR STORY building and lands unhurt, and then runs to speak some dialogue in a single take. Simply awesome!

Sammo also built a full scale town to use a set in a then undeveloped part of Hong Kong's New Territories, utilized a vintage locomotive in Thailand, and brought together an impressive array of Hong Kong's top entertainment names, so it's difficult to calculate the staggering cost of making sanything like it in similar fashion today.

It's a mix of the Old West and old China, with bits of silliness and bone crunching action, in short, the Shanghai Express is one fun ride.