The good thing about this film (it was called The 36th Chamber of Shaolin on my cassette box) is that it makes kung fu look really hard -- rather than, as it so often does, like a couple of guys having an angry dance. I guess part of that comes down to talent, and part of it direction and editing.
The film is very slick, and despite the yawn factor of the 'secret mystical sect' schtick, I liked the fact that the training exercises where oblique, and that the only actual shaolin fighting that occurred in the temple came down to the contest scenes with the senior monk. In essence, the film caught, well, the essence of shaolin well. I guess, not having studied there...
The plot isn't particularly imaginative, it has to be said. It's like a five paragraph folk story stretched uncomfortably into 90 minutes of film. The concluding scenes are a bit perfunctory, though it's quite nice seeing a final fightscene where the good guy utterly trounces his foe from start to finish (unlike the endless toing and froing of final battles in films like Fist of Legend). It's refreshing, but it lacks drama, and the monk comes across, as Buddhist monks have to, like a passionless automaton. (The film is a bit humourless as well, it has to be said, leaving one longing for the merry hijinks of an early 90s kung fu fantasy.)
In all, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is an excellently gritty film, although if you want gritty revenge plots I think Tsui Hark's the Blade is a better bet (and a lot trippier).
If you want classical kung fu at its most elemental, this one does the job admirably.
The film is very slick, and despite the yawn factor of the 'secret mystical sect' schtick, I liked the fact that the training exercises where oblique, and that the only actual shaolin fighting that occurred in the temple came down to the contest scenes with the senior monk. In essence, the film caught, well, the essence of shaolin well. I guess, not having studied there...
The plot isn't particularly imaginative, it has to be said. It's like a five paragraph folk story stretched uncomfortably into 90 minutes of film. The concluding scenes are a bit perfunctory, though it's quite nice seeing a final fightscene where the good guy utterly trounces his foe from start to finish (unlike the endless toing and froing of final battles in films like Fist of Legend). It's refreshing, but it lacks drama, and the monk comes across, as Buddhist monks have to, like a passionless automaton. (The film is a bit humourless as well, it has to be said, leaving one longing for the merry hijinks of an early 90s kung fu fantasy.)
In all, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is an excellently gritty film, although if you want gritty revenge plots I think Tsui Hark's the Blade is a better bet (and a lot trippier).
If you want classical kung fu at its most elemental, this one does the job admirably.
