The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, also known as The Master Killer, Shaolin Master Killer and Shao Lin San Shi Liu Fang, is a 1978 Hong Kong kung fu film directed by Lau Kar-leung and produced by Shaw Brothers, starring Gordon Liu. The film follows a highly fictionalized version of San Te, a legendary Shaolin martial arts disciple who trained under the general Chi Shan. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is widely considered to be one of the greatest kung fu films and a turning point in its director’s and star’s careers. It was followed by Return to the 36th Chamber, which was more comedic in presentation and featured Gordon Liu as the new main character with another actor in the smaller role of San Te, and Disciples of the 36th Chamber.
Plot:
A young student named Liu Yude is drawn by his activist teacher into the local rebellion against the Manchu government. The government officials, headed by the brutal General Tien Ta, however, quickly discover and suppress the uprising, liquidating the school and killing the students’ friends and family members. Yude decides to seek vengeance and liberation for the people, and heads for the Shaolin temple to learn kung fu. Wounded by Manchu henchmen during an escape, Yude reaches the temple and seeks sanctuary. Initially the monks reject him, since he is an outsider, but the chief abbot has mercy on the young man and lets him stay.
One year later, Yude – now known as San Te – begins his martial arts training in the temple’s 35 chambers, in each of which the temple’s novices are trained in one aspect of the kung fu fighting arts.
The chambers shown in San Te’s training are as follows (names of the chambers, if given, are from the subtitles and in quotation marks):
“Top Chamber”: This is considered the highest-level chamber, where the monks are reciting the sutras from memory. When the head master of the chamber tells San Te to leave due to his ignorance of the sutras, San Te protests, only for the head master to knock him down from a distance. San Te flees the chamber, and agrees to start at the lowest level.
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Reception:
36th Chamber of Shaolin has received massive universal acclaim and is widely considered to be one of the greatest kung fu films ever made and a highly influential entry in the genre. According to the Harvard Film Archive, the film is an “exhilarating rendition of the legendary dissemination of the Shaolin martial arts” and an “absorbing account of [an] initiation into the vaunted Shaolin style, … depicted here [as] an inner voyage of discovery”. In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin was listed in 22nd place on this list. In 2021, Complex posted the article ’24 Best Kung Fu Movies of All Time’ and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin was listed in 5th place on this list.