THE SHAOLIN TEMPLE

Shao Lin Si

少林寺Tadaaaah! Time for another Wushu movie classic . To be perfectly honest with you, and I know this going to sound silly, I’ve been trying hard to avoid reviewing the Shaolin Temple Trilogy. I fully realized there was no way around it... and yet, I hemmed and hawed. In a way, it’s like writing a book about Rock’n’Roll... and getting to the Elvis chapter.

A nightmare.

I mean, what can you possibly write that some other guy hasn’t written already? Plus, one rash remark (something I got a bad rap for) and the lines run hot with death threats.

There’s a lot of film fans out there who have a bit of a problem with reality when it comes to their favorite screen idols. I know what I’m talking about.Once, I had this heated argument with a stunt bro (a guy who is actually quite knowledgeable and really shoulda known better) while watching Rocky Balboa . I made a random & rather harmless comment on Sly Stallone’s well-documented use of performance-enhancing drugs. I hadn’t even criticized the actor (I don’t aspire to being an upholder of moral standards in the movie industry). I simply stated the fact.

My pal was genuinely shocked. He called me a dirty liar and kept on babbling about “...hard training, proper nutrition, and good genetics...” for the rest of the evening. This is what happens when you burst people’s bubbles.

What can I say... two weeks later, Rocky got busted by Aussie customs while trying to smuggle a few boxes of Human Growth Hormone and several vials of testosterone into kangaroo country.

Some things explain themselves.

So, let’s get this over with. Part V.

You can say about The Shaolin Temple 少林寺 what you like, there is little doubt that this was THE movie that kicked off the big Wushu craze in the mid-eighties and made Li Lianjie

李連杰 a household name with martial arts enthusiasts & Eastern fans world-wide... a decade before he eventually became Jet Li Superstar and a sure-fire box-office draw from Hong Kong to Hollywood.

Mainland Chinese authorities had been watching the success of Hong Kong chopsocky productions closely & warily for some time, and by the end of 1979 , they finally decided to try their hand at the genre. Apparently, the Communist government was giving serious thought to promoting Wushu as an Olympic sport. Using action movies as a vehicle seemed a natural thing to do.

The People’s Republic had two unique assets: the original Shaolin monastery in Henan’s Songjiang mountains and China’s most famous, entirely homegrown Wushu athletes .

Today, The Shaolin Temple is widely regarded as a Mainland venture. However, it was a Hong Kong-based (albeit left-leaning) production company and Japanese money that made filming possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ8I6KjGyG4

Although The Shaolin Temple is by far the most popular installment of the series, it is in many ways the weakest.

For western mainstream audiences this brightly-colored, weird hodgepodge of animal kungfu and animal abuse (including rather vivid depictions of flaying frogs, goring sheep, and eating dogs) mixed with corny musical numbers and endless battle sequences definitely takes getting used to.

The scenes shot at Shaw Brothers’

Clearwater Bay Studios in Kowloon are a particular eyesore. And unnecessarily so... filming lasted nearly two years anyhow, so the famous four-seasons training sequence could have easily been shot on location. Li Lianjie shines here, no question. Still, for some reason the director decided to have his lead show his best moves in badly faked snow, in front of plastic trees, paper blossoms, and tawdry cardboard sunsets.

There’s no accounting for taste. Yuck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOIIUoQ1rig

 

Nevertheless, the combat & training bits are just plain breath-taking, and you’d be hard pressed to find an action movie anywhere on a par with The Shaolin Temple (or any other part of the trilogy) when it comes to ornate fight choreography & genuine martial arts mastership .

Almost every single role was played by a celebrated Wushu pro of the era.

The Champ

Apart from Li Lianjie, who had been National All-round Champion five times in a row before even reaching legal age, we get to witness the first screen appearances of

“Bald Eagle” Ji Chunhua

计春华 ( Zhejiang Wushu Team 浙江武术队);

“Iron Fist” Pan Qingfu

潘清福 (coach of Tianjin Wushu Team

天津武术队);

Hu Jianqiang

胡坚强 (Wushu All-round Champ, member of Zhejiang Wushu Team and Ditang Quan 地躺拳 expert);

Yu Hai

于海 (coach of Shandong Wushu Team

山东武术队 and highly respected Praying Mantis螳螂拳 luminary);

Yu Chenghui 于承惠 (another coach of Shandong Wushu Team and a renowned master of the Two-Handed Sword 双手剑); and

Sun Jiankui

孫建魁 ( broadsword刀术 champion, member of Shandong Wushu Team ).

 

The Good Guys:

         

              Yu Hai 于海              Hu Jianqiang 胡坚强        Sun Jiankui 孫建魁     

 

Although its plot line is far from being ingenious (hey, man... it’s a chopsocky !), The Shaolin Temple is simply ground-breaking in its new approach to fight choreography. Astonishingly enough, according to the 1982 May edition of China Sports Magazine, this was in fact due to the squeeze by Japanese investors who demanded real Chinese Martial Arts to be displayed on the screen.

This finally prompted the producers to drop wire work, trampolines, and camera tricks (unthinkable for any kungfu flick production in those days), and to focus on the real trump cards they had up their sleeves. The rest is history, as they say.

And yet, despite being a milestone of martial arts choreography and a box-office bonanza throughout Asia, with more than decent results in Europe and the U.S., one reviewer called The Shaolin Temple “... a noteworthy last gasp of a dying genre.” Another one from Hong Kong (surprise, surprise) had the nerve to write: “... the fight choreography is not outstanding.” Well, we shall agree to differ, buster.

 

The Bad Guys:

       

      Yu Chenghui 于承惠        Ji Chunhua 计春华        Pan Qingfu 潘清福

 

Unlike Hong Kong, the Mainland hadn’t developed a movie stunt industry of its own at the time. Therefore, the stunt coordination and all the action was handled entirely in a team effort by the pro athletes and their coaches.

Most sources credit Yu Hai and Pan Qingfu as the main fight choreographers (assisted by Shanxi Team

山西武术队 coach Ma Xiandai

馬賢達 & Shandong  swordplayexpert Wang Changkai 王常凱).

On his website, however, Jet Li claims that all the fights were more or less made up by the athletes themselves, in large parts long before the actors went on the set and actual shooting took place.

This makes sense. For a Wushu pro athlete, whose bread & butter are Duilian 对练 (team staged combat) fighting moves, throwing a spectacular brawl together is a pushover.

The plot:

Boy’s father is killed by evil warlord. Boy escapes to the Shaolin Temple to learn kungfu. Boy returns to settle the score.

Let me hazard a guess: you heard this one before (just a wild stab in the dark). The Shaolin Temple is a pretty standard revenge yarn, to put it mildly. It’s roughly based on a folk tale based on allegedly historic facts – the rescue of Tang Dynasty emperor Li Shimin by the 13 Chivalrous Monks of Shaolin.

Anyway, since more than half of the running time of the movie consists of battle sequences, training montages, and duel scenes, the plot takes a back seat, adopting a serviceable role, but not much more.

Oh yes, the scriptwriters threw a love story into the mix as well (enter almond-eyed cutie Ding Lan 丁嵐), just for good measure... but the half-assed attempt comes across a little too saccharine and therefore remains less than convincing.

Ding Lan - damsel in distress

Moreover, the rather lax treatment of Buddhist religion by the Communist filmmakers has been repeatedly criticized. (In The Shaolin Temple, monks don’t have a problem with drinking alcohol, eating meat and killing other living creatures by the dozen “... as long as Buddha is in the heart...”).

Gloss:

As stated earlier on, the cast of The Shaolin Temple reads like a Who Is Who of the best Wushu athletes of the time. In addition to the aforementioned champions and their respective specialties, rope dart 绳镖 whiz Liu Hualiang

劉懷良 and nine-section whip 九節鞭 champ Du Chuanyang

杜傳揚 show off their stuff, and then some.

I found it particularly funny to spot one of my former coaches ( Fang Ping

方平 from Zhejiang Wushu Team ) in the background of several scenes, shaved head and all.

If you get to watch the original Mandarin version, you might be surprised to find that – even though the actors are all native Chinese, of course – their voices are dubbed by other (professional) actors. Apparently, the producers didn’t think the athletes capable of using their own voices properly. In those days the “natural approach” wasn’t really in favor, and ultra melodramatic tone – ludicrous as it may seem today – used to be the hallmark of good acting.

Many of the Shaolin Temple' sfirst-time actors have successfully continued to work in film and TV.

Ji Chunhua, for instance, has become a familiar face in both the Hong Kong and Mainland entertainment industries. He’s played the villain in nearly 20 Hong Kong blockbusters (including the memorable miscreant Yu in Fong Sai Yuk II 湘西屍王 and the hilarious Poison Juice Monster in The New Legend of Shaolin洪熙官, both alongside old pal Jet Li). He even starred in Zhang Yimou’s much acclaimed Mainland art house film Red Sorghum紅高粱. In 2007, I visited him at Hengdian Movie City, on the set of Wing Chun咏春. And as is the case with many a movie bad guy, he’s one of the coolest & nicest people you’ll ever meet.

 

Meeting Ji Chunhua behind the scenes

Grandmaster Pan Qingfu is another living Chinese martial arts legend. According to Wikipedia, he was recruited by the Chinese government during the Cultural Revolution to hunt down Triad leaders, eventually capturing 23, and thus earning the name "Gangbuster." He has also worked as an instructor for the Beijing Police and the Chinese Special Forces . A real old-school tough nut. Today, Grandmaster Pan runs a Wushu school in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He did not pursue a career in the movies. Only in the documentary This Is Kungfu and Mark Salzman’s autobiographical martial arts movie Iron and Silk (1990) he can be seen on the silver screen again - playing himself.

In 2006 , a number of members of the original Shaolin Temple crew reunited for Clarence Fok’s big budget multi-episode TV series Seven Swords of Mount Heaven 七劍下天山, namely Yu Chenghui, Ji Chunhua, and Sun Jiankui, with director Zhang Xinyan as Tsui Hark’s co-producer.

Like young Jet Li, Hu Jianqiang, Yu Chenghui, Sun Jiankui, and Yu Hai will all be back in the upcoming installments of The Shaolin Temple trilogy. We’re going to take a closer look at their lives & careers later on.

Other titles for Shao Lin Si:

The Shaolin Temple

Siu Lam Chi (HK)

Director: Zhang Xinyan張鑫炎

Action Director: Yu Hai, Yu Chenghui, Ma Xiandai, Wang Changkai

Producer: Liao Yiyuan 廖一原 

Film Company: Chung Yuen Motion Picture Co.中原電影製片公司

Starring: Li Lianjie (as Jue Yuan), Ding Lan (as Bai Wuxia), Hu Jianqiang (as Wu Kong), Yu Hai (as Shifu), Yu Chenghui (as Wang Renzhe), Ji Chunhua (as murdering henchman), Sun Jiankui (as Se Kong)