The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Dir: Liu Chia Liang
1978
*****
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is one of the finest kung fu movies ever made, the opening credits sequence alone is better than most martial arts films. All the great martial arts movies have one thing – a great relationship between the director and the leading actor and I don’t think you can beat the partnership of Liu Chia-liang and Gordon Liu (aka Liu Chia-Hui). Liu Chia-liang’s direction is utterly beautiful and Gordon Liu is by far the most hypnotic martial art expert in the genre. It was a turning point for both director and actor and is widely regarded as one of the greatest kung fu films of all time. The film follows a highly fictionalized version of San Te, a legendary Shaolin martial arts disciple who trained under the general Chi Shan. A young student named Liu Yude is drawn by his activist teacher into the local rebellion against the Manchu government. The government officials, headed by the brutal General Tien Ta, however, quickly discover and suppress the uprising, liquidating the school and killing the students' friends and family members. Yude decides to seek vengeance and liberation for the people, and heads for the Shaolin temple to learn kung fu. Wounded by Manchu henchmen during an escape, Yude reaches the temple and seeks sanctuary. Initially the monks reject him, since he is an outsider, but the chief abbot takes mercy on the young man and lets him stay. One year later, Yude - now known as San Te - begins his martial arts training in the temple's 35 chambers, in each of which the temple's novices are trained in one aspect of the kung fu fighting arts. San Te advances more rapidly than any previous student, reaching the rank of deputy overseer within the space of six years. Challenged by the monastery's Discipline Chief, who thinks him unfit for his role, San Te has several exhibition matches with him, only to be beaten each time. However, after inventing the three section staff, San Te finally prevails and gains the chief abbot's permission to become overseer of one of the chambers. When San Te professes that he wants to create a new chamber where he can train ordinary people in the basics of kung fu so they can defend themselves against their oppressors, the temple officially banishes him in a surreptitious way to allow him to carry out his mission. He returns to the outside world, namely to his hometown, and assists the people, gathering several young men who loyally follow him and become his first students. Before the political revolution he is inspiring reaches completion, he is forced into conflict with Tien Ta. A fierce duel ensues, where San Te is victorious. Eventually, he returns to the Shaolin temple, where he establishes the 36th chamber, a special martial arts class for laypeople to learn kung fu. What I love about it is the lack of montage. We see Liu Yude/San Te training over six year but we see him complete each task and chamber over time. We learn the lesson that each task teaches the pupil and we understand his development, rather than it just happening because he’s a chosen one or something. We only see ten of the chambers, which is a shame, but then if we saw all 35 chambers it would be a 20 hour long film – although I’d have no problem with that. It is also refreshing to see a kung-fu film without blood or much violence, indeed killing is against the rules of Buddisum and the monks would not partake in murder. This is authentic kung-fu of mind and spirit. The film is also a fascinating post colonial film. The story of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin refers to San Te who requested permission to teach Shaolin martial skills to Han Chinese from the Head Abbot of Shaolin to give them the tools needed to fight the occupying Manchus of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1910) who were seen as outsiders. Chinese today still generally hate the Qing and wish that dynasty never happened, as their corruption and shortsightedness in the 20th Century was perceived to have weakened the country leading to some regions being colonized by many foreign powers at the time. Hong Kong was a colony taken by the British after humiliating the Chinese in a resounding defeat in the Opium Wars. The fact that the Hong Kong film industry made films about rebellion should be understood within this context of Hong Kong as a British Colony. Master Lau is Cantonese (as was Wong Fei-hung), so has a particular closeness to the problematic colonial relationship with the occupying British. This background is essential to understanding the significance of the statement made by Master Lau in this film. It is not "just a simple revenge tale" but the revenge is the moral and ethical response for the brutal murder of his classmates, ethics teacher, and his family. In the first part of the film, Liu Yude is studying Confucian ethics. After all their friends and family are ruthlessly slaughtered for participating in a revolt against the occupying Qing (Manchu) forces, his friend laments that it was pointless to study ethics, as it was useless for them to save their loved ones and resist the Qings. "No," he replies, "ethics has taught us to be loyal (another Confucian term) to our loved ones, so we must get revenge. If either of us survive we MUST make it to Shaolin, learn martial arts, and get revenge!" This political message is what makes this film more than just an arbitrary action film. In the West, actioners typically don't embed violence in such a bitter context. Here, the violence holds deep meaning within the context of foreign invasion and occupation. Here it is seen as the ethical action, which is how San Te responds to his first victim of revenge (where he meets Hung Xiguan) when his victim demands, "You can't kill me you're a monk!" To which San Te replies, "Even Buddha punished evil!". Run Run Shaw had already received his CBE though and they don’t often take them away. It is probably the Shaw Brother’s greatest films and certainly my favorite as well as being, in my opinion, one the most important and influential. Indeed, all of the greatest martial art films of recent years have all got clear 36th Chamber of Shaolin DNA in them.