TeenzTen An action-packed slog

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Chung Mo An unusual film from Ringo Lam and one that's strangely under-appreciated. The mix of fantasy kung-fu with a more realistic depiction of swords and spears being driven thru bodies is startling especially during the first ten minutes. A horseback rider get chopped in two and his waist and legs keep riding the horse. Several horses get chopped up. It's very unexpected.The story is very simple, Fong and his Shaolin brothers are captured by a crazed maniac general and imprisoned in the Red Lotus temple which seems to be more of a torture chamber then a temple. The General has a similarity to Kurtz in Apocalypse Now as he spouts warped philosophy and makes frightening paintings with human blood. The production is very impressive and the setting is bleak. Blood is everywhere. The action is very well done and mostly coherent unlike many HK action scenes from the time. Sometimes the movie veers into absurdity or the effects are cheesy but it's never bad enough to ruin the film. Find this one, it's one of the best HK kung fu films from the early nineties. Just remember it's not child friendly.

RedcouchCorrespondent Hello Dave Burning Paradise is a film for anyone who likes Jackie Chan and Indiana Jones. The films main protagonist is most definitely the bastard son of these two strange fathers. As for the other characters well they are familiar transformations of similar action film stereotypes. Where this film is original is in the blending of the traditional Hong Kong movie style with the Hollywood action adventure. Sadly this has not been true of the films he has made in Hollywood.

Robin Bougie (mindseye100) Having seen most of Ringo Lam's films, I can say that this is his best film to date, and the most unusual. It's a ancient china period piece cranked full of kick-ass martial arts, where the location of an underground lair full of traps and dungeons plays as big a part as any of the characters. The action is fantastic, the story is tense and entertaining, and the set design is truely memorable. Sadly, Burning Paradise has not been made available on DVD and vhs is next-to-impossible to get your mitts on, even if you near the second biggest china-town in North America (like I do). If you can find it, don't pass it up.

gerrytwo The Red Lotus Temple, where most of Ringo Lam's "Burning Paradise" takes place, is a real house of horrors. The temple prison is where followers of Shaolin are taken, mostly to be killed in various gruesome ways. The lead character, Fong Sai Yuk, is a Chinese hero who has appeared in other movies, such as the two starring Jet Li. Here, Fong Sai Yuk's opponent is the insane military man who controls the temple. This guy is impervious to weapons, as Fong finds out early in the picture. More than anything else, "Burning Paradise" is a horror movie. Instead of a haunted house where visitors die, you have prisoners in a temple in which there seems to be no escape. Still, the movie is well made. If this movie were released in the US, it would easily get an R-rating for violence.