#Lau Kar Leung

[boardsdonthitback]

Gordon Liu, Lee Hoi-Sang - The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

[omercifulheaves]

Dirty Ho (1979)

[fuforthought]

Clan of the White Lotus (1980)

[maggiecheungs]

help me decide which ones to prioritise before my mubi membership runs out! and please feel free to tell me why or recommend multiple films (or one i haven't mentioned)!

[silveremulsion]

If you haven’t gotten the Shawscope Vol. 1, 12-film, 8-Disc box set from Arrow Video, it is a must have! It’s incredible.

Get it on Amazon!

[latenightcinephile]

Film #903: 'The 36th Chamber of Shaolin'/'Shaolin Master Killer', dir. Lau Kar-leung, 1978.

A bit of a shorter write-up this time, because there's not too much to dig into here - it's just a really fun film. If you are expecting something emotive and meaningful from this write-up, you're in the wrong cinema. There's nothing particularly deep about the plot of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (included in the book as Shaolin Master Killer). This film is certainly a crowd-pleaser rather than a philosophical treatise. What its inclusion here indicates is how a particularly devoted director can forward the narrative structures of a genre single-handedly.

Lau Kar-leung started his career as a fight choreographer for the Shaw Brothers studio, working closely with the director Chang Cheh (who later directed Five Deadly Venoms, also 1978) before taking the directorial role once the genre exploded in the early 1970s. Most of the martial arts films a Western audience would encounter during this boom would have had Lau's involvement in some form. His adeptness with fight choreography makes his films singularly identifiable - each fight scene in a Lau film moves the narrative forward, rather than merely being a spectacular set-piece. In particular, his films codified the 'training montage' trope, and The 36th Chamber has some of the most streamlined training montages of any classic martial arts film. Let's start with the actual plot of the film, though, because it acts as a framework (even though it's quite a rudimentary one) for the martial arts action. China is ruled over by the oppressive Manchurian government, and several students are embroiled in a local uprising. This cabal is quickly squashed, but a survivor, Liu Yude (Gordon Liu), swears revenge on the local Manchurian general for the deaths of his friends and family. Liu sees learning kung fu at the famed Shaolin temple as his only course of action, even though the temple famously refuses to teach the art to laypeople. The second section of the film, and its largest, follows Liu's training as the monk San Te. The temple is divided into 35 'chambers' where students perfect specific techniques. One chamber requires the acolytes to carry water uphill with knives strapped to their upper arms - weakness in the arms is rewarded with a sharp jab in the ribs. Another has dozens of heavy bags strung at head height, where Liu must repeatedly headbutt the bags on his way to burn incense at an altar (the teacher in this chamber has thick calluses on his head from his decades of experience). Having mastered the skills without losing his desire for revenge, Liu asks the masters if he might institute a 36th chamber, where the teaching of kung fu can be made available to anyone. The masters refuse, instead sending him out to collect donations in the city. This refusal is a calculated ploy by the temple to allow Liu to achieve his aims to aid the populace. He gathers his first students and succeeds in both defeating the local Manchurian regime and bringing the first secular students to the temple.

It should be noted that The 36th Chamber is not particularly concerned with exploring the ethical or philosophical implications of its plot. The film could find itself having to tread a fine line between Buddhism's famous non-violence and advocacy of violence as a tool to fight oppressive regimes. Instead, Lau completely ignores this question. The temple accepts that its martial arts might be a useful weapon for the greater good, and no time at all is given to discussion of this. And why should it be? This is a martial arts film, and it would be a foolish decision to make the film fret over the ethics. Lau is far more interested in encouraging the viewer to build a vocabulary of martial arts techniques that can then be recognised later on. The fact that only monks can learn kung fu has an interesting implication: right from the beginning we see martial arts combat, but because these characters can't have learned martial arts they must be doing the graceful equivalent of messy brawling. And yes, when we see the later fight sequences the other characters seem distracted and sloppy in comparison to San Te's techniques. More interesting, though, is how we make sense of the fights in the third act.

The third act has two types of fight: broader fights against groups of opponents, and the climactic battle against General Tien Ta (Lo Lieh). In the earlier combats, we're assisted in identifying how each of the chambers of the temple has provided parts of San Te's style. Here he is encouraging someone to use a hammer in a fight, just like in the gong chamber! Here he is balancing on reeds, like in his first lesson! When we see him fight, there are headbutts and sword techniques that are drawn directly from his earlier training with no amendments or ornamentation. In his individual fights, though, a progression occurs: a synthesis of these techniques where we might recognise, just vaguely, the same type of leg-crossing jump he uses in a particular lesson. In other words, Liu's character development is mostly charted through the smoothness of his fighting style. Like the viewer, Liu faces each chamber with initial confusion: how can this task possibly assist in developing martial arts? As he absorbs each new technique into his repertoire, though, his outlook changes as well. His indignant impatience with the Manchurian rulers is tempered by the time he spends training, and his anger turns into tactical planning. Only by mastering all the chambers of the Shaolin temple could he become adept enough to succeed in his quest, and by doing so, he also becomes the kind of person who deserves to succeed.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin becomes a much more fitting title for the film, then, than Shaolin Master Killer. Under the latter title, the audience is primed to watch this film looking for the action and violence. By referring to the 36th chamber, which we are told early in San Te's training doesn't yet exist, we're encouraged to look ahead to his eventual accomplishment, and the things he has to learn in order for that ambition to become a reality.

[jonnyconsequence]

"May the stick defend you."

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984) Directed by Lau Kar-leung Cinematography by Cho On-Sun

[andy121019]

My @letterboxd review of Drunken Maater II (1994)

[baddawg94]

Kara Wai (Yang No.8)

1984’s “Eight Diagram Pole Fighter”

[boardsdonthitback]

Ken Lo, Jackie Chan - Drunken Master II (1994)

[kungfuwushuworld]

Great fight between two giants of martial arts cinema!

Lau Kar-leung VS Lau Kar-wing in Legendary Weapons of China

[omercifulheaves]

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

[fuforthought]

The legendary Lau Kar Leung takes on Eddie Maher and his cronies in New Kids in Town aka New Killers in Town (1990)

[silveremulsion]

If you haven’t gotten the Shawscope Vol. 2, 14-film, 10-Disc box set from Arrow Video, it is a must have just like the first set! They’re both incredible!

Get it on Amazon!

[hotpotdragon]

Heroes of the East (1978)