In what is the most socially responsible gesture by a martial artist ever, San Te, having advanced through 35 grueling training levels of brute sadism and inventive torture (not to mention conquering the oh-so-deadly dining room water pit!), proposes to the temple abbot that it's about time Shaolin Kung Fu went mainstream. Tradition is a hard nut to crack, of course, so San Te embarks on his own revolutionary, for-the-peeps movement: to democratise martial arts and make it accessible to all. Grand egalitarianism on the one hand; filthy capitalist greed on the other.

The formula? Plug a gaping hole in the poor-man's kung fu market; open a franchise of imitation Shaolin-style schools; charge bargain-basement prices to the masses; earn a fortune through the teachings of well-branded violence. Either way, this is genre-defining stuff, even if we've all followed the plot, heard the blocky dialogue or seen the crazy snap-zooms before. The Shaw-scopic logo embezzled across the pre-title screen looks strangely familiar too...yes, it's Tarantino, caught red-handed again; the perpetually bald Gordon Liu his other prize loot from the film. Quentin may have appropriated the consummate martial arts professional with the best scalp in the business, but his biggest mistake was not putting Liu and Sonny Chiba in the same scene, let alone in mortal combat. Gripe as we might, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is to Shaolin-vengeance movies what Come Drink With Me (or any King Hu film from that era) is to wu xia, and what The Street Fighter is to skull breaking via x-ray vision.—Tim Wong

» Liu Chia-liang | Hong Kong | 1978