Shaolin Warriors, Blaisdell Concert Hall

I just got back from the opening night of the Shaolin Warriors performance at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. The show started at 7:30 p.m. and ran till about 9:30 p.m. There was a 15 minute intermission at about the halfway point.

Overall, I thought the show as interesting but not terribly original. If you've seen a kung fu-like performance by Chinese acrobats before, it'll probably be okay if you skip this show. While there were moments that were extremely jaw-dropping, those moments were few and far between. There was a lot of focus on the technical elements and not enough tricks.

I realize that the form and function of their martial art is a very important aspect of learning the artform. However, as a layperson, I found it to be quite boring. Give me the showmanship and the "wow" factor. It could just be that I'm from the YouTube generation, but I found myself thinking that I could be at home and have watched this entire performance condensed to a nine minute video and be perfectly happy. All the good stuff would've been captured in a video clip and the acrobatics would've been just as good . . . or maybe even better. Oh well, it was a good experience anyway.