Monks at China's Shaolin Temple are vociferously demanding an apology from an anonymous Japanese internet user who suggested that a single ninja had once whupped the asses of the kung fu masters at the martial art's spiritual home.

Specifically, "Five Minutes Every Day" last week posted a comment in an online forum claiming that "a Japanese ninja came to Shaolin, asked for a fight and many monks failed to beat him". He added: "The facts that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named as kung fu masters in vain."

Well, this didn't go down too well at all. According to Reuters, the Shaolin monks rapidly engaged a lawyer, who issued a notice declaring: "The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the internet user to apologise to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did."

The monks further told the Beijing News: "It is not only extremely irresponsible behaviour with respect to the Shaolin temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation."

We'd like to suggest that before this gets out of hand the kung fu monks could settle the matter out of court by simply challenging Japan's top ninja to 15 rounds in a pay-per-view WWF-style "Battle of the Titans". The last Oriental standing could then go on to challenge aikido death machine Steven Seagal for the coveted "Hardest Man Alive" crown. ®