8-2-09: 36th CHAMBER REVISITED

The influences and the influence of a kung fu classic (part one) prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /

I am delighted that, through our friends at Momentum, the Dragon Dynasty edition of 36 th Chamber of Shaolin is finally getting a UK DVD release. I first saw the film when it was released on VHS by Warner Bros. This was the edited international cut of the movie, and it was only when I saw a bootleg of the Dutch version that I realized how much footage had been cut. When we first released the film in prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /North America, I wrote a three part article examining 36 th Chamber in detail. (This was basically an on-line commentary, as the legendary rap maestro RZA and respected American cineaste Andy Klein provided the one on the disc.)

In these features, I’d like to look at the arts and individuals that influenced 36 th Chamber of Shaolin, and also at the effect the movie had on the industry.

The most obvious influence on the film comes, naturally enough, from the unique life experience of its director, Lau Kar-leung. He was raised in a martial arts family, his father, Lau Chaam, having been a famous teacher of Hung Kuen kung fu. Hung Kuen, also known as Hung Gar, is, according to legend, descended from the Shaolin Temple, and so Lau Kar-leung grew up hearing stories of the arduous training undergone by Shaolin monks.

In the wake of Bruce Lee’s passing, acclaimed Shaw Bros director Chang Cheh asked Lau if he could come up with a new style of Hong Kong action film that would be different from Lee’s, but just as exciting. Lau proposed that they make films reflecting the classical ‘animal’ fighting styles and traditional weapons of Shaolin kung fu.

Though the Bruce Lee films, ‘King Boxer’ and subsequent Shaw Bros and Golden Harvest releases established the genre internationally, there was very little actual ‘kung fu’ in them. Lee’s Enter The Dragon character is supposedly a Shaolin monk, the style he uses in the opening bout is actually more of an MMA-style throw down! It really wasn’t until 1974’s ‘Shaolin Martial Arts’, directed by Chang Cheh and choreographed by Lau, that classic Chinese combat styles were seen on screen in all their glory.

Though he embraced the Shaolin mythos, Chang was resistant to having an actual monk as a central character. At the time, Shaw Bros considered their actresses more bankable than the male stars, and a film about a Buddhist monk would necessarily limit female roles. It wasn’t until 1978, after Lau had split with Chang Cheh to become a director in his own right, that audiences finally got to visit ‘The 36 th Chamber of Shaolin’.

Though this may seem sacrilege to some, it’s evident to me that 36 th Chamber of Shaolin was influenced by the pilot, and subsequent episodes of, the American TV series ‘Kung Fu’. This had debuted in the States in 1972, and subsequently been screened in Hong Kong. (It was known colloquially as ‘Cho maan jai, ‘Grasshopper Boy’.)

Controversially, the lead role in ‘Kung Fu’, the Eurasian Kwai Chang Caine, went to a white guy, David Carradine. I always felt that, provided you established the character was of mixed race, you’d hedged your bets pretty well! Anyway, its difficult now to imagine anyone else, even Bruce Lee, playing the role.*

‘36 th Chamber’ made a star out of Lau Kar-leung’s adoptive brother, Lau Kar-fai AKA Liu Chia-hui AKA Gordon Liu. (His real name is Sin Gum-hei, he took on the nom du guerre of Lau/Liu when he joined the clan.) Gordon had worked on several earlier films, but it took the role of San Te (‘Three Virtues’) to make his name.

‘Kung Fu’ gave the west its most famous Shaolin monk, ‘36 th Chamber’ the east. (Years later, the two were united for ‘Kill Bill’, but that’s another story…)

Though ‘Shaolin’ had been referred to in numerous earlier films, right back to the black-and-white fantastique cinema of the 1940s, it was ‘Kung Fu’ that really established the ‘look’ of the temple in modern cinema. The show was actually shot on sets left over from the shooting of the musical ‘Camelot’. The sense of Shaolin as a ‘kung fu castle’ was carried over into ‘36 th Chamber’.

Like Caine, San Te is frustrated when, having been accepted into Shaolin, he is given nothing to do but sweep the temple courtyard. Caine learns ‘Light Body’ skill by walking the rice paper, Liu by jumping across plates balancing on water. To leave the temple, Liu has to defeat a senior monk, using a weapon of his own devising, the three-sectioned staff. This had also been the weapon of choice of Kwai Chang Caine (and is not, incidentally, a prominent weapon in Lau’s Hung Kuen style.) Both ‘Kung Fu’ and ‘36 th Chamber’ ignore the Shaolin bronze and/or wooden men, the gauntlet that monks had to fight their way through before graduating.

A combined influence of Lau’s experience and ‘Kung Fu’ was the concept that excellence in martial arts was achieved through meeting a series of physical challenges. In the old black-and-white fantastique films, and even in King Hu’s Touch Of Zen, Shaolin masters were depicted as possessing supernatural powers developed through their spiritual practice.

Though 36 th Chamber does reference the high levels of ‘chi’ practice, its accent is firmly on the strenuous physical demands of the Shaolin training. This was also at odds with the Bruce Lee films, in which Lee was a martial arts master from start to finish. We never saw the training that made him that way. Both Gordon Liu’s San Te and David Carradine’s Kwai Chang Caine are very ‘human’ heroes. We can imagine ourselves actually becoming like them, while Bruce Lee remains an icon with a grace, power and charisma beyond us mere mortals.  

• Casting ‘Kung Fu’ still seems to be an issue. The long-planned remake remains stuck in development, largely due to the challenge of finding the right leading man.