Billed as Malaysia's first-ever martial arts movie, Kinta 1881 would seem to have the goods. With a cast that includes several real-life kung fu champions and Hong Kong veteran Chin Kar-Lok helming the action scenes, all of the ingredients are certainly here. However, the film ultimately falls prey to a schizophrenic style and heavy-handed editing that manage to almost totally subvert everything the movie actually does right.

As the title suggests, the film takes place in 1881, when the discovery of valuable minerals in Malaysia leads to an exodus of Chinese people looking to make a decent life for themselves via the rough-and-tumble lives of miners. The movie revolves around four young orphans, who have been taken in by the kindly foreman. Things seem to be going fine for the men, until the mine's boss decides to align with gangsters, and "liquidates" the personnel so that cheaper labor can be brought in. Seeking revenge, the four "brothers" decide to enter a tournament so that they can get control of the mine.

The plot is admittedly by-the-books. Supposedly, the story was going to be more in-depth, but the film-makers had to drastically cut things down in order to satisfy foreign distributors. At any rate, director CL Hor went a little too over the top to give the workman plot a little more flavor than your run of the mill kung fu flick.

When a movie starts out with a sequence where characters named "Blaze" and "Ace" are introduced via a montage backed by nu-metal rapcore, it gets really hard to take it seriously. And then, when any sword slash or bone-crunching hit is accompanied by spurts of very obviously (and badly) animated blood, a movie might teeter off to fully going over the edge of ridiculousness.

What ultimately saves Kinta 1881 from going into that cinematic abyss is the gusto of the film's stars and the solid action direction of Chin Kar-Lok. It's not quite enough to totally elevate the movie into being an actual "good" movie, but if you're a fan of non-wire or computer-based martial arts, Kinta 1881 does just enough right so that a viewing of the picture won't come off as a total waste of your time.

RATING: 5