Shaolin Master Killer (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin/Shao Lin San Shin Lui Fang) (1978)

 

Shao Lin San Shih Liu Fang

Hong Kong is well represented in 1978 with two movies on the List and that is not one too many. Both are excellent representatives of the genre of Hong Kong kung fu movies.

We are somewhere in southern China. The Manchu has conquered China, replacing the Ming with the Qing rule, and are seen by the local population as oppressors. This would place the story in second half of the seventeenth or early eighteenth century. Liu Yude (Gordon Liu) is a student of a teacher with links to a resistance movement. This places both teacher and students in conflict with the local Manchu General Tien Ta (Lo Lieh) and his brutal and capable henchmen. In a crackdown, Liu Yude manages to escape. He decides to seek out the Shaolin temple to learn kung fu as a means of fighting the Manchu.   

The temple is (of course) a mystical, Buddhist place, in isolation from the rest of the world. Liu Yude becomes a monk under the new name San Te and undertakes training in kung fu as well as general Buddhist schooling. This is the bulk part of the movie. San Te must go through 35 different “chambers”, each teaching a different skill and we watch a surprising number of these chambers in detail. He learns balance by jumping on floating logs, arm strength by carrying buckets with daggers strapped to the arms, head strength by nodding sandbags and so on. San Te is skilled and fast and cause some friction in the temple. Not all are convinced San Te has pure intentions, but think he is driven by a desire for revenge. When San Te graduates and is offered to head any chamber he wants, he desires to open a 36^th chamber to teach kung fu to the outside world to fight the Manchu. This gets him kicked out of the temple.

This opens up the third chapter where San Te finds a handful of promising students and exacts his revenge on General Tien Ta.

This is the “Rocky” of kung fu movies and the ancestor of movies like “Karate Kid”. The three chapters of “The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin” are now, and has been for many years, also prior to this movie, a trope, bordering cliché. Yet, it is this training period that excites us and that we want to see. How this regular person transforms from a novice to an expert through a training program condensed into a montage. Except that in “The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin” this montage lasts an hour and far outshines the first and the third chapter. I do not know anything about martial arts but what I see in movies, so I have no idea if any of this training makes sense. It looks mystical and brutal and I suppose that is the point. San Te’s final skill in kung fu is so sublime it is magic.

The obvious reason for watching a kung fu movie is for the fighting sequences and there are a lot of those. It is the sort of fighting that look more like dancing and with surprisingly little wire work. Again, I am no expert in these things so I cannot say if it is great, but although there is a lot of it, it does not overstay its welcome. It stops short of getting tiresome.

The weakness of “The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin” may be in the (lack of) complexity of the story. There really is not much of a story going on here and the characters a sketchy to begin with. With only two major objectives to the movie, the fighting and the training, there is not room for much else. The Manchu is a generic oppressor, the town is a generic occupied town and the killed friends and family only serves the purpose of being that. In this respect, the other 1978 kung fu movie “Five Deadly Venoms” is a lot more complex and interesting with a convoluted plot. Yet, it is not really fair to compare the two. What “The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin” brings to the table is also significant and although we have seen training montages before, I have not in any earlier movie seen it this elaborate.

Gordon Liu had a breakthrough with this movie and has been starring in a ton of movies since, including the “Kill Bill” movies. The career Bruce Lee could have had had he not died early.

“The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin” is a fun and easy watch, also for an audience not into martial arts and it is a recommendation from me.