Gordon Liu is San Te, a young student in Canton who – along with some classmates – is pulled into the rebellion against the Manchu government by an idealistic teacher. We’ll get to those chambers in just a little bit, but first let’s look at the storyline.
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His performance is peerless, mixing his impressive legitimate kung-fu credentials with an appealing innocence and and defiant streak that makes his progress through the various training chambers completely engaging.īut what makes this movie so darn special? While the plot is certainly interesting, and the fight scenes – particularly those at the end – are memorable, it’s the chambers themselves that would forever influence future kung-fu films, and a heck of a lot of hip-hop groups at the same time. While he had made impressive martial arts films previously, his role as the rebellious Shaolin Monk San Te (and his bald head) would become his trademark, and would be repeated and referenced in many of his future films. We’ll talk about Gordon Liu at length in a future ENTER THE FIST column, but needless to say – he’s the whole show here. In short, it changed the way I viewed martial arts cinema, and I have trouble being very objective when it comes to a film that meant to much to my development as a fan. It expanded my scope of what a martial arts movie should be, and made me hungry to go outside the Golden Harvest films I had been devouring and open my mind to other Shaw Brothers films.
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It was dubbed, full screen, and jaw-droppingly awesome. I was transfixed from the opening credits, stylized to show Gordon Liu practicing various martial arts styles (a Lau Kar-leung trademark). Picking up MASTER KILLER (and, at the same time, SHOGUN ASSASSIN) must have been divine providence.
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I had recently began to track down the older films of Jackie Chan, and was digging through the kung-fu sections of various video stores to see what I could find. I remember my first experience with ENTER THE 36TH CHAMBER very well. Kar-leung is still doing choreography – he worked on Tsui Hark’s SEVEN SWORDS in 2005 – which is damn impressive for a guy in his mid-70s. He would later go on to clash – both onscreen and off – with Jackie Chan when directing DRUNKEN MASTER II (aka LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER), which led to him walking off before the final fight scene was complete.
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Oh, and did I mention that Lam Sai Wing was a student of Wong Fei Hung? Yeah, that’s some serious legitimacy. Kar-leung is the real deal, and he took a much more realistic approach to choreography, as well as featuring lots of interesting (and awesome) weapons in his films.
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Their father Lau Cham was a martial arts master, and student of the legendary Lam Sai Wing (aka Butcher Wing) who would be portrayed by Sammo Hung in THE MAGNIFICENT BUTCHER. Of course, Lau Kar-leung, along with his brother Lau Kar-wing (also a notable director), was destined to be involved in martial arts. While his first film EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN turned some heads, it was THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (aka MASTER KILLER) which gained both the director and star international prominence. Starting as a fight choreographer for Cheh’s films – including THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN – he soon graduated to directing and began casting his father’s pupil (and godson) Gordon Liu in his films. Lau Kar-leung, who had an extensive (and distinctive) background in martial arts was also starting to make his mark in the second half of the decade. Chang Cheh (FIVE DEADLY VENOMS, ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN) wasn’t the only great director making quality kung-fu films for the Shaw Brothers in the 1970s.