The beautiful mainland locations really add authenticity, and creates a different atmosphere than movies shot in HK or Taiwan.

The story is pretty standard Shaolin movie stuff. But it has a more epic feel to it, due to the excellent locations.

It also has pretty imressive production value for a mainland movie (perhaps because it was the first movie to be funded by the red Chinese goverment, or so I've read).

Most of the fighters in the film are real life martial arts champions and display some amazing skills. Sadly, the camerawork and editing of the fight scenes are not on par with HK productions. But it's not terrible either.

All in all, a decent Shaolin movie. Didn't care for the two sequels though.

The story's pretty decent, especially compare to most HK kung fu films. The action scenes are fantastic, if a little too much like wushu demonstrations at times.

Animal lovers may wish to avoid this though. I'm not sure the dog and sheep deaths were faked. Early '80s China for you.

I have seen many martial arts films, but none have ever demonstrated the dedication needed to become an expert in Kung Fu like "The Shaolin Temple".

The film demonstrates Kung Fu techniques in the Shaolin training ground them transforms them into breathtaking fight scenes.

The story line is weak. However this puts more emphasis into the action scenes which are virtually unrivalled unless matched against "The Shaolin Temple 3" or Jet Li's latest offering "The One".

"The Shaolin Temple" is definitely my all time favorite martial arts film.