BEHIND THE 36th CHAMBER: Some notes on the creation of a martial arts masterpiece (part two).
Despite the fact that the version I first saw was the edited, ‘international’ cut of the film, it was obvious that 36th Chamber Of Shaolin was a classic kung fu movie. I think a masterpiece is defined by how your reaction to it changes, as you do, over the years. Ordinary films provide repeat doses of the same experience, classics grow more rewarding as time passes. I found my appreciation of 36th Chamber deepened as my knowledge of Chinese kung fu, language and culture did.
In this blog, I’d like to go through the film pointing out some of the cultural, martial or linguistic specifics that I’ve noticed over the years, so load up your DVD and prepare to enter the 1st of 36 chambers…!
The opening sequence sees the striking figure of Gordon Liu, shaven-headed and stripped to the waist, performing the movements of the Hung Kuen form Tit Sin Kuen,
Iron Wire Fist. This is a traditional set of movements designed to generate internal energy that can be applied during actual combat. Liu performs them with eight metal rings on either forearm. The rings are a traditional Shaolin training aid used to both develop arm strength and condition the forearms. The first section is performed against a plain white background, so the audience’s focus is solely on the power of the movements.
Next, Liu performs a section of the traditional Ng Gor Kwun, Fifth Brother Pole Form under a water fall. (Liu remembers that he was suffering from a high fever on the day this was shot, but soldiered on so as not to disappoint his adoptive brother.) Still under the waterfall, Liu shows off some Hung Kuen hand strikes, based on animal movements, with the water used to enhance their power.
The opening sequence of the film itself, with Lau Kar-leung’s real brother, Lau Kar-wing as the ill-fated Ming rebel General Yin, was cut from the international version of the film. (As I mentioned, Shaw Brothers edited various scenes from the film for various reasons, and I’ll detail the cuts made.) Ho, the fellow patriot with whom he confers is played by Taiwanese actor Wai Wang. Wai played so many devious characters in his career that it’s hard to trust him when, as here, he plays someone sincere. He was, more typically, in fine villainous form in the cult classic ‘Master Of The Flying Guillotine’ (1975).
The two red-clad Ching commanders presiding over the captured Ming patriots are Lords Tong (Wilson Tong) and Cheng (John Chang). The older man between them is character actor Fei Lian, who, like many such supporting players, appeared in over a hundred Shaw Brothers films. When General Tien (Lo Lieh) and his party arrive, Lau Kar-wing leaps into action wielding a seung fu tao, double-headed battle axe. Tien wields his weapon of choice, the seung dan do, double broadswords. Though he had played both heroes and villains during his lengthy career at Shaw Brothers, Lo Lieh was, by the time of ‘36th Chamber’, playing mainly charismatic villains, as he had done the previous year, creating his most memorable role, Pai Mei, in Lau Kar-leung’s ‘Executioners From Shaolin’ (1977).
Director Lau executes an interesting cut between Yin crying out in pain and a woman, Yien-pin, calling an unruly class of students to order. Yien-pin is played, in a cameo role, by the actress Chan Si-gaai, who starred in many of director Chor Yun’s Shaw Brothers swordplay epics, starting with The Magic Blade (1976). She also plays a supporting role in Lau Kar-leung’s Return To The 36th Chamber (1980).
Gordon Liu had already shaved his head before the film began, and so wears a wig for these scenes where he plays the young student Liu Yu-de. (The actual shaving of his head was recorded for posterity by the Shaw studio unit photographer!) Liu Yu-de’s gawky school-mate Lin Zhen is played by Hon Kwok-choi, who went on to a lengthy career in kung fu comedies like Fearless Hyena 2 (1979) and Dragon’s Claws (1979). (Though he doesn’t get to show it here, Hon was a skilled acrobat.) The portrait on the classroom wall behind teacher Ho is that of the Chinese sage Confucius (551BC-479BC).
When the Liu Yu-de and Lin Zhen venture to the execution ground, they are joined by a third unnamed student, played by Wa Lun. Wa Lun had a brief career at Shaws as a supporting player, and also appears in Return To The 36th Chamber (1980).
The image of the dead Lau Kar-wing strung up like a puppet is a striking one. (In the international version, this is our only view of the character.) When Liu Yu-de is heard praising the dead Ming general as a hero, he’s saved from the bullying Ching General Tang when a family friend intercedes on his behalf. The man is played by Wong Bat-ging, who was the assistant director on this film and most of Lau Kar-leung’s Shaw Brothers movies. (During this scene, actor/stuntman Peter Chan, also plays a Shaolin master later in the film, is visible in the background.)
Liu decides to join the rebels. When he delivers the information to the ‘resistance’, the password is “Hoi dong yau wong hei”, “East of the sea has the emperor’s influence”, and the reply is “Gwei loi tin ha hei”, “When he comes back, everyone is happy”. (The original English subtitles read simply “Open sesame/close sesame”!) Their rebel contact is played by martial arts player Ho Kei-cheong, a regular in Lau Kar-leung’s films who went on to action direct the cult kung fu title Descendant Of Wing Chun (1979).
Liu’s father is played by Wong Ching-ho, a wonderful character actor who appeared in over 165 Shaw Brothers films, starting with Temple Of The Red Lotus (1965) and including such key films as The Duel (1971) and King Boxer (1971).
We first hear the word ‘Shaolin’ mentioned in the film when one of the Ming underground, played by martial arts stuntman Law Keung, uses a kung fu blow to smash open a wooden crate. Law worked for both Lau Kar-leung and Sammo Hung, and later became an action director in his own right.
The spartan walls of the rebels’ lair are contrasted with the ornate splendour of the general’s mansion. Lau Kar-leung executes another clever edit between Lo Lieh’s fist hitting the table and Hon Kwok-choi hitting the floor. Lau is often dismissed as a director whose sole talent is filming kung fu fight scenes, but his best movies show a profound understanding of cinematic language. One of his strengths is his ability to bring nuance to even his supporting characters. For example, Lin Zhen, though not a fighter, still shows real courage when he commits suicide rather than let General Tong interrogate him.
When the Ching soldiers trash Yu-de’s father’s warehouse, the helper who tries to intercede on his behalf is Wong Ha, who went on to play fighting roles in various kung fu movies, most memorably Sammo Hung’s Spooky Encounters (1980).
The scenes where Yu-de and his comrade go on the run were shot in the countryside around the Shaw Brothers studio, backdrops that will be familiar to anyone who has seen any number of Shaw martial arts movies.
The owner of the roadside inn Yu-de stops at is played by Cheung Chow-kok, a prolific character actor who worked exclusively at Shaw Brothers. The first Shaolin students we see are those pulling a trolley laden with produce back to the temple. The distinctive blue uniforms they wear would become de rigeur for Shaolin disciples in Shaw Brothers movies, and many other kung fu films. Lau offers us an impressive overview of the elaborate Shaolin Temple set, with the gold sign above the entrance reading nam yuen, southern building.
The Discipline Master monk who tries to prevent Yu-de from entering the temple (and later faces him in a series of weapons duels) is veteran martial arts movie bad guy Lee Hoi-sang. The abbot is played by Chow Siu-loi, a performer who was a real-life martial arts expert, and began his career as an action director, on black and white films like Na Zha Is His Mother’s Escort (1958). His natural gravitas made him a perfect choice to play both benevolent martial arts masters and menacing heavies. The sign above the abbot’s head reads ‘Fut fa mo bin’, ‘Buddha’s Law Has No Limits’.
Having been admitted to the temple, Yu-de finds himself performing such menial tasks as sweeping up leaves in the courtyard. The scene that follows closely resembles one from the pilot for the Kung Fu TV series (1972), shot six years earlier, and this is an interesting example of cross-pollination between eastern and western martial arts cinema. Kung fu legends inspired the David Carradine series, which, when it was screened in Hong Kong as ‘Cho maan jai, ‘Grasshopper Boy’, in turn influenced Lau Kar-leung.
When youngsters joined the temple, it was common for them to take on a ‘Buddhist’ name, and, when the older monk addresses him, we learn that Yu-de’s Buddhist name is San Te, Three Virtues. The elder who advises San Te is played by Keung Hon, a regular player in Shaw Brothers martial arts movies. Keung’s high cheekbones led to his being cast mainly as feral bad guys, but, as with many of the monks in this film, Lau casts him against type here.
The next sign we see reads Ding Fong, Top Chamber. As San Te walks through the hall, he passes between rows of monks beating their mook yu, ‘wooden fish’ percussion instruments to keep time while they chant the Buddhist sutras. The master of this chamber is played by Kok Lee-yan, a veteran character actor who appears in such genre classics as Wang Yu’s The Chinese Boxer (1970), King Hu’s A Touch Of Zen (1971) and Huang Feng’s Hapkido (1972). His fluency in English, a rare attribute in a Hong Kong actor of his generation, earned him roles in Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon (1973) (as Lee’s retainer) and Robert Clouse’s Golden Needles (1975). Kok Lee-yan dispatches San Te from the chamber using a form of hei gong, internal energy, knocking the young man down with a wave of his hand. This reference to reputed higher levels of kung fu study is unusual for Lau Kar-leung, who usually adopts a pragmatic approach. (In Legendary Weapons Of Shaolin (1982), he goes to some lengths to refute the existence of any supernatural aspect of the martial arts.)
San Te decides to start at the bottom, and we see the gold sign reading ‘35th Chamber: Fan Tong, literally Place For Rice, meaning the temple’s eating hall. The monks have to jump on a log floating on water to enter the hall. The master of the 35th chamber is played by Shum Lo, a character actor who appears in many of the key Shaw Brothers films, including Come Drink With Me (1966), Boxer From Shantung (1972) and Blood Brothers (1973). Initially, San Te is unable to balance himself on the logs, and plunges repeatedly into the pool. (There are still images of DP Arthur Wong standing waist deep in the murky water to capture the shot.) We then see San Te practicing long into the night to develop this balance. Prior to this, it was unusual to see the heroes of martial cinema undergo this kind of rigorous physical training. It was Lau Kar-leung and Yuen Woo-ping (with Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow (1978)) who made arduous training sequences de rigeur for the genre. San Te’s training pays off, with Gordon Liu executing a (wire-assisted) single legged leap across the water.
The 35th Chamber master raises the stakes, teaching the students to skim across surface of the water like a plate. In the last shot of the scene, the monk to the right of Gordon Liu is Wai Tin-chi, brother of Lau Kar-leung regular Wai Yin-hung (‘My Young Auntie’ (1981)), who would later star in the underrated ‘Gang Master’ (1982) for Shaws. Behind them is stuntman Johnny Chang, the confusingly named younger brother of John Chang, who plays 36th Chamber’s General Cheng. Again, we see San Te practicing tirelessly to perfect the next level of ‘water’ skill.
The 34th chamber develops arm strength, and makes excellent use of the extensive Shaw Brothers backlot. The students must carry buckets of water up a steep incline with their arms outstretched, with blades stabbing their sides if they weaken. The master of the 34th chamber is played by Lui Dat. This wonderful gentleman enjoyed incredible career longevity, stretching from Tomorrow (1952) to Sex And Zen II (1996).
The master of the 33rd chamber is played by the late Chan Shen (1940-1984), a character actor here cast against type as a monk. Chan Shen was almost invariably cast in villainous roles, and shone in such high profile films as King Boxer (1972) and the Shaw Brothers-Hammer co-production Legend Of The Seven Gold Vampires (1974). He hit the headlines when his marriage to sexy Shaw Brothers starlet Shirley Yu didn’t last long enough for them to leave City Hall!
The 33rd chamber is devoted to wrist strengthening, with the disciples wielding a long bamboo pole with a weight attached to strike a large bell. (Again, Gordon Liu has some help attaining mastery. A wire attached to the weight allows it to strike the bell with increasing speed.)
The master of the eye chamber is Geung Nam AKA Chiang Nan, a toothy character actor who divided his energies between Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest, and between devious and comedic roles. His most popular role was as the crafty minister in Shaw’s Emperor Chien Lung series.
In the eye chamber, San Te must follow a moving light just with his eyes, and is burned by incense sticks if he moves his head. The Buddhist symbol known in Sanskrit as a svastika, reversed and co-opted by the Nazis, is carved in the shadows on the rear wall.
The Head Chamber sees various dazed disciples condition their foreheads by slamming them into a series of suspended bags. The Head Chamber master wields a Pythonesque pole with a metal hand on the end. He is played by Ngai Tung-gwa, a burly character player best known for his work on the films based on the popular Hong Kong comic book Lo Fu Jee Old Master Cute. As befits his Chamber, the master has callouses all over his shaved head.
Having completed basic training, San Te begins to learn the actual Shaolin kung fu fighting techniques. Some of the disciples are memorizing movements laid out in training manuals, like those popular in 1960s and 70s Hong Kong. The page we zoom in on is headed Kaap Sau, Chong Chiu, striking hands, full force, and we cut from an illustration of the movement to the actual technique being performed by San Te and his fellow disciples. The movements they are practicing are from the Hung Gar style Gung Gee Fook Fu Kuen, The Taming The Tiger Fist form.
The master of the ‘empty hands’ chamber is played by Yuen Siu-tien AKA Simon Yuen, the father of director Yuen Woo-ping. Yuen also played a kung fu master in Chang Cheh’s Shaolin Martial Arts (1974). However, he found his lasting fame as the eponymous ‘Drunken Master’ (1978) opposite Jackie Chan.
In the sparring scene, the second monk San Te fights is played by San Sin, a martial arts stuntman who would later choreograph Writing Kung Fu (1979) and Clan Of The White Lotus (1980). (The following three scenes were all deleted from the shortened international version of 36th Chamber Of Shaolin.)
The master of the Leg Chamber, where the monks practice their kicking skills is played by character actor Wang Ham-chan. He made his debut in Escorts Over Tiger Hills (1969), one of the relatively few martial arts films made by Shaw’s rival studio, Cathay. Wang moved to Shaw Brothers, and worked on many key films, including Flying Guillotine (1975) and Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires (1974). He was the owner of the teahouse Jackie Chan has to fight his way out of in Drunken Master (1978). In those pre-CG days, the rings of fire were all real flames, and Gordon Liu remembers burning his ankles on them.
The Sword Chamber scene was also cut from the international version. Its master is played by martial arts actor Yeung Wah, a performer who appeared almost exclusively in Lau Kar-leung’s films.
The master of the Pole Chamber is Peter Chan AKA Chan Lung, an actor/stuntman who began his career with Bruce Lee before becoming one of the key members of Sammo Hung’s group. He showed both his comedic flair and his staying power by playing practically the same role, twelve years apart, in Sammo Hung’s Prodigal Son (1981) and Jet Li’s Fong Sai-yuk (1993).
Within the pantheon of kung fu classics, 36th Chamber is remarkably realistic, both in terms of the kind of arduous kung fu training it depicts and the time frame. It takes San Te five years to pass through each of the 35 chambers, and, given the reaction of the senior monks, this is evidently a record. Most youngsters in most kung fu movies achieve mastery in a matter of weeks!
Though he created this whole array of physical challenges for the Shaolin novice, Lau Kar-leung declines to show the legendary Shaolin wooden men, a gauntlet of robotic dummies that (according to legend) a student had to fight his way along in order to graduate as a monk, because director/producer Lo Wei had already depicted them in the early Jackie Chan vehicle Shaolin Wooden Men (1976).
The abbot wants to give San Te command of any chamber he chooses, but the discipline monk (Lee Hoi-sang) insists that they fight a match so that San Te can earn this honor. Lee was a burly martial arts actor whose shaved head and burly frame were put to good use throughout the glory days of kung fu cinema. He did his best work as an action actor at Golden Harvest, in Sammo Hung’s The Magnificent Butcher (1980) and John Woo’s ‘Last Hurrah For Chivalry’ (1977). In real life, he’s an exponent of Wing Chun kung fu and, like most movie bad guys, a genuinely sweet man. He still works as an actor on Hong Kong TV, playing avuncular roles more in keeping with his real persona.
The first duel sees San Te wield a wooden pole and the discipline monk a pair of wu deep do, butterfly swords. After he loses this round, San Te trains with a pole that has a spade-shaped blade at one end and a crescent moon blade at the other. As San Te practices, Lau Kar-leung shows us how he envisions using it to defeat the discipline monk’s butterfly swords. In the real fight, though, the monk easily out-manoeuvres San Te. Frustrated, San Te returns to the bamboo grove, and accidentally cuts down some of the wood. He has his moment of what the Japanese call satori, enlightenment, and invents a new weapon, the saam jik kwun, the three-sectioned staff. This became Gordon Liu’s signature weapon in much the same way that the two-section staff, the seung jik kwun or nunchaku, was Bruce Lee’s. (Interestingly, , the three-sectioned staff had also been Kwai Chang Caine’s weapon of choice in the American Kung Fu TV series.)
Having won his stripes, San Te then tells the abbot he wishes to open the eponymous 36th chamber of Shaolin to teach kung fu to laymen. This dialogue scene is never allowed to become static, with Arthur Wong’s camera zooming back and forward across the room with remarkable energy.
Though it is obvious the abbot sympathizes with his motives, San Te is banished from Shaolin, and returns to his home town. Outside his former home, he encounters a crippled old peddler, played by the extraordinarily prolific character actor Fung Kin-man. In a touching moment, the beggar tells him that the family who once lived in the house is buried in a near-by graveyard, and so he should go to there to pray for their spirits.
Though the above is a day scene, when we cut to graveyard, night has fallen. A Ming rebel named Hung Hei-kwoon (Yu Yung), is burying one of his comrades. A minor character in this film, Hung Hei-kwoon is, historically, a major figure in the development of kung fu. He was one of the legendary figures who escaped the destruction of Shaolin Temple and spread the art into southern China. It is he who gave his name to the ‘Hung’ of ‘Hung Gar.
General Tang arrives and he and his men are about to kill the rebels. Wilson Tong, who plays Tang, was also the assistant action director on 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Good-looking and athletic, it’s strange that he never became a bigger star in his own right. He turned in impressive supporting turns in many of the best films of the era, working with both Lau Kar-leung and Sammo Hung. His creative high point was Snake In The Monkey’s Shadow (1979), which he wrote, action directed and co-starred in. (The lead was John Chang, who here plays General Cheng.)
Before Tang can achieve his aim, San Te intervenes. Having identified himself as the only survivor of the family Tang killed five years earlier, San Te pits his dan do, broadsword, against Tang’s cheurng, spear. (The traditional Hung Kuen system has a pre-arranged famous broadsword VS spear set.) In the duel that follows (and the subsequent scenes) Lar Kar-leung demonstrates the application of the specific skills San Te has developed from his Shaolin training. San Te easily defeats Tang, but, as a Buddhist monk hesitates to kill him, and Tang is finished off by the vengeful Hung Hei-kwoon. (San Te does nothing to prevent this, and later kills Lo Lieh’s character, Tien Ta, which highlights the dilemma of having a presumably passive Buddhist monk as an action hero.) At the end of the scene, Hung Hei-kwoon begs to become San Te’s student, a scene that has much more resonance if you know he will go on to become a great hero in his own right. San Te reveals that he is looking for other worthy disciples.
When we first see the blacksmith Tung Qian-jin, he is being pressured to make equipment for the Ching. Tung is played by Ng Hong-sang, a burly Shaw Brothers regular. The officer harassing him is Chan Wui-ngai, nicknamed Ah B. Chan was a member of the Bruce Lee stunt team, and is the brother of Peter Chan, who plays the master of the Shaolin pole chamber.
There’s an obvious parallel between San Te finding his students and Jesus recruiting his apostles. The next disciple San Te encounters is Luk Ah-choy. Historically, Luk is the teacher of kung fu hero Wong Fei-hung (Luk was actually Wong Fei-hung’s grandmaster, having taught his father, Wong Kay-ying, as Lau Kar-leung depicts in Challenge Of The Masters.) Here, Luk is played by Tsui Siu-keung, a prolific film and TV actor whose resume stretches from Chang Cheh’s The Savage Five (1974) through every era of Hong Kong action cinema to the present day. This character is depicted as the ‘doubting Thomas’ of the group, and demands San Te prove his skills, giving him various tests using bamboo.
(This sequence and the later introduction of the ‘Rice Husker’ character are both absent from the international version of the film. This was because the studio felt that foreign audiences wouldn’t understand why so much attention was focused on what would seem, to them, to be minor characters.)
San Te goes to the home of Chung Mi Luk (the sign outside bears his name) AKA, Rice Husker Six, is another legendary figure from kung fu history, and is played by Wong Yu. (Sammo Hung played the same character in his directorial debut, The Iron-Fisted Monk (1977)). Wong Yu was a rising kung fu star at Shaw Brothers, and, despite his limited screen time, gets second billing in this film. He played key roles in Lau Kar-leung’s Executioners From Shaolin (1977) and Dirty Ho (1979), and brings his usual cocky screen persona to the role of Rice Husker.
The scene where San Te confronts Cheng (John Chang) is a night scene that makes iconic use of Chinese lanterns, with the character chong, indicating a police patrol group, painted in red on each of them. The duel between San Te and Cheng is given a greater urgency by the fact that they are surrounded by the latter’s armed troops, who keep trying to come to their master’s aid. (Peter Chan Lung, formerly the master of the stick chamber, turns up again as a background Ching soldier in this scene.)
John Chang AKA Cheung Ng Long has had one of the more eclectic careers in action cinema. He began his career as a martial arts stuntman, playing supporting roles like this one before being launched as a Jackie Chan-style comedic actor in Snake In The Monkey’s Shadow (1979). In recent years, he’s focused on action directing, most memorably on the Hollywood bio pic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993). He was the first action director signed for The Matrix (1999).
When General Tien rides out, the gold characters above the gate read Cheung Gwui Fu, home of the general. The soldier dressed in red on the general’s right is Wan Faat, later a member of the Jackie Chan stunt team, and action director of Chan’s Police Story (1985). In something of deus ex machina device, San Te’s men manage to drop flour so that it blinds every one of the General’s men, except Tien himself, meaning that he alone rides off in pursuit of San Te.
The duel between San Te and General Tien is fought on the cliff that provides the setting for many an epic kung fu film finale. The scene was shot at the height of the Hong Kong summer, and the already swarthy Lo Lieh becomes increasingly sunburned as it progresses. The Warner Bros English video release was subject to a curious bit of censorship. Though the fight scene itself remained intact, the bone crunching sound effect when San Te’s three-section staff inflicts a mortal wound was cut.
A coda to the film opens with a signboard reading ‘36th Chamber’, indicating that San Te has succeeded in his aim. We pan down to see San Te, dressed in the full robes of a Shaolin priest, correcting the kung fu postures of the temple’s first lay students, including the disciples he recruited earlier. The film ends on a note of physical comedy, with San Te ordering the students to turn so fast that they knock over Rice Husker, who is lazing at the back of the room. (This scene survives intact in the shorter international version.)
I hope you found some points of interest in the above, and that, like me, you find 36th Chamber Of Shaolin more rewarding with repeat viewings.
Comments
- Dave, Dublin, Ireland | 2007-06-13 04:21:58
- Jimbo, Florida | 2007-06-28 17:18:56
- Eric, NY, NY | 2007-06-26 12:36:54
- SLEEPMAN, ga | 2007-06-11 22:42:48