"Heroic Grace" catalog - UCLA Film & Television Archive

SATURDAY MARCH 15
THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN [SHAOLIN SANSHILIU FANG]
Hong Kong 1978 Director: Lau Kar-leung
THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN is the most popular screen version of one of the key foundation myths of the kung fu subgenre: the story of the
dissemination of the top-secret combat techniques developed at the Shaolin Temple to the populace at large. An ebullient Lau Kar-fai (Gordon
Liu Jiahui) plays a real-life figure long-since transmuted into legend, a Han Chinese commoner on the run from the Qing Dynasty’s Manchu
oppressors (including a glowering Luo Lie) who seeks refuge at Shaolin. The film’s absorbing account of his initiation into the two-fisted mysteries
takes up a good third of the running time. The Shaolin style is known for its emphasis on the external and the physical, but as depicted
here the training process is very much an inner voyage of discovery: The novice must work his way through a series of torturous “chambers,”
designed to build strength and self-discipline, before winning permission to acquire actual fighting skills.
The newly minted monk, now known as San De (Three Virtues), soon demonstrates the truth of the adage that “the mind is also a muscle”; he
invents a new weapon, the three-section staff, to counter a rival’s “butterfly twin swords” style. In this tradition-bound milieu, however, innovation
is always a dicey proposition: San De is drummed out of the corps when he suggests opening a “36th Chamber” to teach Shaolin techniques
to the masses. Many of the pupils the reluctant apostate acquires in the final reel went on to become famed martial heroes in their own
right. Some of their descendent disciples are still at work today in the Hong Kong movie industry.
—David Chute
Studio: Shaw Brothers. Producers: Run Run Shaw (Shao Cunren), Mona Fong. Screenplay: Ni Kuang. Cinematography: Huang Yuedai. Martial Arts
Directors: Lau Kar-leung (Liu Jialiang), Tang Weizheng. Art Directors: Johnson Cao, Li Yanhai. Editor: Jiang Xinglong. Cast: Lau Kar-fai, Luo Lie, Yu
Yang, Wang Yu, Lau Kar-wing (Liu Jiarong).
35mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 115 min.
Print Source: Celestial Pictures Ltd.
© Licensed by Celestial Pictures Ltd. (a company incorporated in Hong Kong SAR). All rights reserved.
LAU KAR-FAI (Gordon Liu Jiahui)
This one-time stuntman and martial arts instructor segued successfully
to the front of the camera in SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS (1974). Headliner
status followed two years later in Lau Kar-leung’s CHALLENGE OF THE
MASTERS, but it was the actor’s portrayal of the monk San De in THE
36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978), again under the direction of his adopted
brother, that rocketed him to fame. DIRTY HO (1979) and RETURN TO
THE 36TH CHAMBER (1980) are other noteworthy collaborations between
the two Laus. More recently Lau has branched into television drama. He
is scheduled to appear in Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming KILL BILL.
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