Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Monday, November 10, 2008

Sometimes I forget that a movie can be a klassik and also feature a lot of people getting the shit kicked out of them. I've never been well versed in the cinema of Kung Fu (I did go through a big Jackie Chan phase in my teens), but my buddy Patrick had vouched for this one, and I concur, it's one of the best of it's kind that I've ever seen.

Thing about most kung fu movies I've seen, is that you perk up during the fight scenes, but zone out during everything else. The great thing about The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is that the "everything else" is pretty entertaining too. The largest chunk of the movie deals with the main character being trained in kung fu, and although predictable, his stern tutilage under the guidance of Buddhist monks is a lot of fun to watch.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The highlight of that middle sequence for me is when through sher force of will he basically learns how to fly.
The second movie "return to the 36th chamber" is awesome too. It has the same actors and director but the premise is that someone identical to the main character of this film is mistaken for him. He gets run out of town, meets up with monks, and comes back for revenge. Except this time its all played as slapstick comedy.