10-2-09: 36th CHAMBER REVISITED (part two)

The influences and the influence of a kung fu classic (continued) prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /

36 th Chamber of Shaolin was released in prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /Hong Kong on the 2 nd of February, 1978. It earned almost HK$3m at the local box office, and was the fifth most successful film of the year. (The top film was a Michael Hui comedy, The Contract, and in second place was Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master.)

The film was distributed in Japan by Toei, who spent big bucks to promote the movie there. They flew Gordon Liu to Tokyo, and staged a lavish press conference attended by 200 reporters. Yasuaki Kurata, Gordon’s co-star in Heroes of the East (also available on Dragon Dynasty) served as his translator. Gordon demonstrated the three-sectional staff and broke boards with his head, and also accompanied himself on guitar while singing a Japanese love song! A reporter asked him what presents he would like to receive from his fans, and Gordon said he needed a hat for his shaved head. As a result, the offices of Toei received dozens of pieces of headgear.

The film’s Asia wide success meant that ‘Shaolin’ became the new favourite word of every producer in the region. Film-makers outdid themselves to come up with new and ever more arduous training routines for on-screen novice monks. In a lackluster Lo Wei production, Jackie Chan mastered ‘Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin’. The redoubtable Carter Wong, a former Golden Harvest star, shot Shaolin Traitor, Shaolin Death Squads and The Shaolin Brothers. He also starred in Shaolin Invincibles, which features what may be my favourite subtitle from a kung fu movie: “Look, there are two gorillas coming this way… and they look like they know kung fu!”

The perception is that Gordon Liu was immediately typecast as the character San Te, but this is not actually the case. He played a cameo as a monk in Lau Kar-leung’s Shaolin Mantis, and had a lead role in the non-Shaw Bros Lau clan production Fists and Guts. However, his next two major Shaw releases were Heroes of the East and Dirty Ho, and in neither of which did he play a man of the kung fu cloth.

It wasn’t until 1980 that Lau Kar-leung succumbed to studio pressure to make a follow-up to 36 th Chamber. Even then, the film wasn’t a bona fide sequel, but a more imaginative venture in which Gordon Liu played a conman pretending to be San Te, who ends up in the real Shaolin, where he learns the true faith…After this film, too, became a hit, Liu was ever most closely identified with the San Te role, and cast as a kung fu monk in a string of martial arts actioners.

The best of these were both directed by his adoptive brother. In Legendary Weapons of Shaolin, Gordon plays a monk sent to track down a renegade kung fu master, played by Lau Kar-leung. A shadow was cast over 8 Diagram Pole Fighter by the untimely passing of one of its stars, Alexander Fu Sheng. Despite this, Liu delivers the finest pole fighting ever seen on-screen, in the last truly classic Shaw Bros martial arts movie.

36 th Chamber was released in the US in June 1979, under the title ‘Master Killer’. (The ad line read: “He was the best… He killed the rest!”) It had been picked up for distribution by World Northal, a company which, though initially focused on foreign art-house acquisitions, somehow took a left turn into kung fu cinema. After a successful theatrical run in urban American theatres, Master Killer became a cornerstone of the now legendary Black Belt Theatre TV package.

Along the way, the film attracted such devotees as Quentin Tarantino, who called it “the 3 rd greatest kung fu movie of all time”. There were even (erroneous) rumours that Quentin planned a remake. Another ardent admirer is rap maestro RZA, who referenced the film in the title of his debut album, Enter The Wu Tang: 36 th Chambers. His group itself took its name from another Shaw classic in which Gordon Liu played a monk, Shaolin VS Wu Tang. RZA actually visited the Shaolin Temple itself on a tour with his teacher, New York based kung fu monk Shi Yan Ming.

36 th Chamber also paved the way for Jet Li’s 1982 debut film, Shaolin Temple. Where Lau Kar-leung had to make do with the Shaw Bros back lot, this production shot on location at the real Shaolin, and various other spectacular Chinese locations. Though displaying Wu Shu (and Japanese Shorinji Kempo!) rather than Hung Gar, this Shaolin Temple follows the plot structure of 36 th Chamber pretty closely. In 1986, these two great cinematic Shaolin traditions were united when Lau directed Li in the masterful Martial Arts of Shaolin.  

In recent years, dozens of hours of Chinese TV programming has been devoted to Shaolin-themed kung fu dramas, and there are several major movie projects in development. All these years on, the temple’s 36 Chambers continue to fascinate…