The main plot of this movie, you seen many times before. Group of hard to deal with misfit students get a new teacher with out of the box methods to try to bring them back in the right path. You could even say that doing this trough karate/martial arts has also be done before, so its nothing new. But having a guy like Donnie Yen could really make it fun and if lacking in originality, it could be just entertaining.
But the reality is ... it turn out not to be really about this. Donnie's character Mister Chen does teach to these kids and help them solve their problems and everything, but the martial art parts seem to be completely on the side. What i mean is that yes there is some VERY well done martial arts choreography like you would expect from Donnie Yen, but not only they happen not that often but they also seem to be added on the side to justify having Donnie in the movie.
He never actually teach martial arts to the kids. What you got is a movie about students with problems and Donnie helping them fix them and making them better students. And in some ocasions an action scenes occur. The problem is the fighting seem completely disjoincted from the rest of the movie, and the "vilains" are completely underdeveloped and appear as an aftertaught.
Yet despite this critics i can't say i was bored or disliked the movie. There is a few parts that are the product of where the movie happen and seem a bit strange for us North Americans, but in general i still found some interest in these kids and Mr Chen. And the action scenes/fights there was were a lot of fun. So i would say i had decent fun with the movie.
Be warned tough that unless i am unaware of it, this movie is only available in chinese language with subtitles. Couldn't find a french dubbed version or even an english dub. Chinese speak fast and the movie is heavy on plot, so prepare yourself to read a lot.
