There is unrest in the world of martial arts and the only peace can be brought by a chess game. The main characters of this movie are three beautiful maidens who have fallen out with each other but it is a bumbling monk who is the key to resolving everything. While the maidens squabble, the monk is sent from his temple in order to escape from certain death at the hands of an evil clan that is about to attack. The leader of this evil clan also wants to defeat the maidens.

The plot is more than a little confusing and it takes a viewing or two to get the gist of what is hap-pening. In the first few seconds of the movie the story is setup. Blink, and you miss it. The movie is taken from a much greater story so a lot is jammed into the hour and a half running time. Visually, the movie is pretty ambitious, even though some of the special effects are less than convincing such as laser bolts and the like. Brigitte Lin, Sharla Cheung Man, and Gong Li are good in their portrayal of the maidens and are up to the task of the fight scenes. Speaking of fight scenes, they are over pretty quick and usually involve special effects instead of swords and fists.

The picture quality is hindered by a film print that looks ten years older than it actually is. The colors aren't bad but the print sometimes looks dirty and there are specks on it. At one point, you can see a splice made on the film and there is a blank frame with writing on it. Transfer itself is about average. No major artifacts but the overall look on the 47 inch screen is closer to video tape than DVD. The picture looks a lot better on the 27 inch TV even with the flaws of the film print.

The sound is in stereo and it is adequate. The soundtrack is available in Cantonese and Mandarin. Much like the film print, the soundtrack sounds a little dirty at times. It's not distracting but it could have been done better.

The subtitles are burned in the print. They are easy to read and contain minimal spelling and syntax errors.

There are no extras on this DVD and the menus are incredibly basic.

Maidens of Heavenly Mountains is entertaining and if you are a fan of the movie or of one of its stars, this DVD is worth a purchase. There is a lot of wire work and fantasy elements so keep that in mind if you haven't seen this one before. I would definitely recommend seeing the movie before purchasing the DVD.