Film Review: Shaolin vs. Evil Dead: Ultimate Power 少林僵尸天极 (2006) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 5/10
Rating: ★ ★ 1/2
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There is a moment about the final moments into "Shaolin vs. Evil Dead: Ultimate Power" when Gordon Liu, one of the great living legends of martial arts cinema, kicks a hopping vampire so hard that the vampire actually pauses, looks down at its own chest, and seems to be considering whether the laws of physics still apply. That small, almost improvisational beat is more alive than anything the digital effects team has conjured. And that, in a nutshell, is the tragedy of this movie.
The film brings together Liu and Louis Fan — two men who could choreograph a fight in their sleep and make it worth watching while awake. They have the kind of easy, weathered chemistry that comes from decades of trading blows on screen. You believe they like each other. You believe they could kill you with a tea cup. But the script keeps them standing around in dusty temples, listening to people explain the "Ultimate Power" mythology like they're cramming for a final exam. The first hour moves with the urgency of a scholar's robe drying on a line.
Director Douglas Kung clearly loves the jiangshi tradition — those stiff, hopping Chinese vampires that made movies like "Mr. Vampire" so deliriously fun. The practical sets are gorgeous: fog rolling over grave markers, candlelight flickering across Taoist talismans, wooden floorboards that creak with authentic menace. When the film commits to wire-fu and hand-to-hand combat, you feel the old Hong Kong magic spark back to life. Liu, now in his 50s during production, still moves like a man who has forgotten more about martial arts than most of us will ever learn.
But then — and there is always a "but then" with mid-2000s digital effects — a CGI fireball explodes. Or a ghost rendered in PlayStation 2-quality graphics floats through a wall. The physicality drains out of the frame. The actors, who clearly threw themselves into dangerous, beautiful practical stunts, suddenly look like they're reacting to nothing. The green-screen work is so poorly integrated that you can practically see the weather report behind them.
The final act, to its credit, delivers the chaos fans have been promised. Liu unleashes his signature pole-arm techniques against hordes of the undead, and Fan matches him beat for beat. But by the time we get there, I had been lulled into a state of mild resignation. The film doesn't so much conclude as collapse under the weight of its own backstory.
"Shaolin vs. Evil Dead: Ultimate Power" is for completists only. It wants to be a love letter to a glorious, grimy era of Hong Kong cinema. Instead, it's a reminder that you cannot resurrect a genre with exposition and bad pixels. What you need is the thing this movie has in frustratingly short supply: the unteachable, irreplaceable spark of people actually doing something dangerous in front of a real camera. Give me Gordon Liu's left eyebrow over a thousand digital fireballs. And give me back my 105 minutes. (Neo, 2026)