"Heroic Grace" catalog - UCLA Film & Television Archive

SATURDAY MARCH 15
RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER [SHAOLIN DAPENG DASHI]
Hong Kong 1980 Director: Lau Kar-leung
A freewheeling follow-up to the original, immensely popular THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978), this quasi-sequel
applies a light touch to the “warrior-in-training” subgenre and ably showcases director Lau Kar-leung’s (Liu Jialiang’s)
considerable talent for kung fu comedy. Lau Kar-fai (Gordon Liu Jiahui) reprises his starring role, but rather than a fullfledged
kung fu master, he portrays a con man merely impersonating a Shaolin priest. When Manchu thugs thrash him
soundly and expose his imposture, he retreats to the fabled monastery, where the monks assign him a series of menial
jobs while steadfastly refusing to teach him martial arts. Expelled from the temple, he returns to his village and discovers
that, to his great surprise, he now possesses superb fighting skills. Indeed he realizes that his apparent drudgery in
the temple actually constituted an oblique form of kung fu training!
RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER is a delightful self-parody that pokes fun at the very conventions Lau Kar-leung was so
instrumental in establishing. The famed 36 Chambers are here only incidentally depicted, while the clueless hero is
almost entirely oblivious to the education-by-osmosis he receives at Shaolin. A testament to Lau’s refusal to facilely
recycle the formula of his past success, the film cleverly subverts expectations while fulfilling the narrative and action
requirements of the classic revenge plot. Along with the slapstick kung fu films of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan, RETURN
TO THE 36TH CHAMBER helped usher in the vogue for martial arts comedy in the 1980s Hong Kong cinema.
—Jesse Zigelstein
Studio: Shaw Brothers. Producers: Run Run Shaw (Shao Cunren), Mona Fong. Screenplay: Ni Kuang. Cinematography: Ao
Qiqun. Martial Arts Directors: Lau Kar-leung, Qing Qu, Xiao Ho. Art Director: Johnson Cao. Editors: Jiang Xinglong, Li Yanhai.
Cast: Lau Kar-fai, Wang Longwei, Chen Sijia, Xiao Ho, Hua Lun.
35mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 111 min.
Print Source: Celestial Pictures Ltd.
© Licensed by Celestial Pictures Ltd. (a company incorporated in Hong Kong SAR). All rights reserved.
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