The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Hands down, the best martial arts film ever to come out of the Shaw Brothers studios. Granted, I haven't seen them all, but The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is so good, I can't imagine anything else that I haven't heard of is better than this. The training sequences are of course the highlight of the film, but the story also works rather well. I can't recommend this one enough.

"I should have learned Kung-fu instead of ethics."

This is why I love Kung Fu movies. Our hero has no chance at the beginning to even begin to fight the bad guy, proceeds with training and in the end is strong enough to beat the bad guy. It's simple, it's entertaining, it is what I enjoy.

The Shaw Brothers's 36th Chamber of Shaolin is the perfect example of these movies. It has all the best parts. Great fights, epic training montage along 35 chambers, but not the "Top Chamber". A great hero in Gordon Liu who plays San Te the Shaolin Monk. Lo Lieh plays the bad guy as General Tien Ta and has an epic mustache. We also get a lot of weapons and the best one is the three-section staff and we get a satisfying ending.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is a movie to recommend people who haven't seen a lot of Kung-Fu movies and want to begin somewhere. I had high expectations and it blew them away. It is up there with the best of them; Once Upon a Time in China, Enter the Dragon, Drunken Master to name a few.

So if you haven't seen this classic yet, what are you waiting for?

Rating: 4.25* / 5* or 8.5 / 10

I think it's one of the best Kung Fu movies I've seen.

My review contains spoilers, so read with caution.

I'd say what I like most is the realism, if you can put it that way. Normally, in movies where the protagonist has to train, they include a short montage of what the training is like, but here the vast majority of the movie revolves around his years of training. Another thing I like is that they talk about the time he spent training. At the end of the 35 chambers, they tell him he did it in a record time of 5 years. If I remember correctly, he spent a total of 7 years living in the temple. 35 chambers in 5 years may seem like a lot of time to some people, but let's remember that Shaolin monks devote their entire lives to training, so completing the 35 chambers with 7 years living in the temple is a considerable achievement. I can combine this with what I mentioned about realism. I think anyone who has practiced martial arts or exercises appreciates the protagonist's process even more. When it was his turn to do the bell exercise, he carried a super-long bamboo weight with it, I said, "No, my brother, this one's going to ruin his wrists in half a minute," and that's what happened, lol. It's worth saying that the fight choreography is good.

Now for something that left me a little stiff, a little anticlimactic.
The film begins with the protagonist living in a place occupied by a foreign force. After certain events, he decides to go to the Shaolin Temple because he knows they practice Kung Fu there and has the idea that he could learn how to defend himself against the invaders. So far, so good. The thing is that the protagonist is in the temple training for 7 years and after a certain conversation he is "expelled from the temple" until he fulfills a certain penance and there he returns to the place where he came from and fulfills a certain revenge like in the last 20 minutes of the film, that's where the anticlimax for me is, the protagonist left and in 7 years everything remains the same (which is not impossible) but the thing is that he would not have gone to complete his "revenge" if he hadn't been sent to do penance outside the temple. Apart from the fact that the resolution of everything was like in 20 minutes it was also a bit anticlimactic, if you think about it, ok, the protagonist completed the 35 chambers in 5 years so you could say that he is some kind of prodigy in martial arts so it would not be strange if he was able to defeat the invaders relatively easily. It still leave me with a feeling of "Already...? That's all?"

First saw this movie when I was just a kid didn't understand much but liked it
Now being an adult still like it but for different reasons
Also training montage goes brrrrrrrrr

This is a kung fu classic and up there with Enter The Dragon for me, the story is incredibly creative and also the chambers are all unique and actually makes you think. I'm glad this film is getting more respect with age because it deserves it and needs to be seen by more people.

Also, we need to give Gordon Liu Chia-Hui (Lin Yu-De) his flowers now because he changed the Kung Fu film game forever with this film because he really is great in this film and deserves a lot more respect than he gets.

Just remember SUBS OVER DUBS!!!!!!!!!

As a kid I loved this movie. Watched it countless times. Good ol' VHS tapes magic.

I was positively surprised that after rewatching in 2018 it is still very solid kung-fu flick. One might say even... legendary.

The original title of the film is Shao Lin san shi liu fang. Also known as The Master Killer and Shaolin Master Killer.

Craving retribution against the murderous Manchu army, an orphaned student seeks guidance and, more importantly, martial arts training at a secluded mountaintop monastery. There, he faces the thirty-five challenges that separate novice from master, devotes himself to an intensive training ritual and learns to soothe his troubled spirit.

This one took a while to get moving. The plot-heavy first act is a real chore to push through, loaded as it is with difficult names and unnecessary political exposition. That’s all cast aside when the wayward student, San Te, escapes his pursuers and staggers, wounded, into the Shaolin temple. The ensuing training sequence, which stretches to encompass seven years of his life (and a majority of the film’s running time), is pure dynamite. We don’t see all thirty-odd stations, but the ones we do are riveting; clever puzzles and challenges of more than just the physical variety. These monks practice an excruciatingly strict regimen that demands mastery of body and mind alike. Philosophically-charged kung fu at its very best.

Showcased in the leading role, Gordon Liu carries the film. His action cred is undeniable - lightning-fast and tightly disciplined - but those skills weren’t entirely uncommon in 1970s Hong Kong. Liu’s ability to convey complicated emotions, wordlessly, with grace and subtlety, is rarer stuff. The movie’s much better off when it embraces its role as a simple, introspective action flick and forgets its aspirations to be a meandering historical epic. So is Liu. Released from the wordy tangles of the film’s initial half-hour, he blossoms as a quiet, conflicted Buddhist with a special talent for violence.

Not without its flaws, _The 36th Chamber of Shaolin_ is magical when it finally gets cooking. Its prologue is far too long and its climax is thin and lazy, but those crazy chamber trials, like a string of meditative _Double Dare_ challenges, should be seen by all fans of the genre.