War of the Shaolin Temple (1980)

War of the Shaolin Temple (1980)
aka: Monks Go Crazy; Thirteen Pugilist Monks in Shaolin
Chinese Title: 十三癲和尚
Translation: 13 Crazy Monks

 

Starring: Chen Chien-Chang, Shen Hai-Rong, Chen Chian-He, Mark Long Kuan-Wu, Alan Chui Chung-San, Chia Kai, Huang Fei-Long, Chang Chi-Ping, Chiang Sheng, Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi
Director: Chiang Nan
Action Directors: Alan Chui Chung-San, Mark Long Kuan-Wu, Fung Hak-On, Lau Fong-Sai

 

War of the Shaolin Temple is an interesting film, mainly because of its unintended relationship with other films. There are some general plot contours that remind me of Jet Li’s classic Shaolin Temple, which was still two years away. I think few people will come away from this movie not having a vague reminder of the better-known Mainland film. It is also set during the Song Dynasty, specifically during the period in which the famed general Yueh Fei was fighting to halt the advance of the “proto-Manchurian” Jin Dynasty. That would make a contemporary, story-wise, with another Mainland film, Yao’s Young Warriors.

When our film starts out, the Jin army has already kicked the Emperor and his entourage out of Northern China, thus giving birth to the Southern Song Kingdom. One of the generals, Chao Wei (the late Alan Chui, of Last Hero in China and Kung Fu vs. Yoga), has gotten a hold of the Emperor’s Seal, which the Han Chinese people in the south now want back. To that end, the famous Yueh Fei (who, like in Yao’s Young Warriors, never actually appears onscreen) sends some of his men to infiltrate the General’s manor and steal the Seal back. Most of the patriots are killed, although one of them, Wang (Chen Chien-Chang, whose other credit was Shaolin Temple Strikes Back), is able to escape with the Seal in tow.

Unfortunately for Wang, he is wounded during the melee, making him an easy target for the Jin soldiers. Fortunately, he is found by a young lady named Miss Bai (Shen Hai-Rong, of Eighteen Fatal Strikes and The Beheaded 1000). She brings him back to her place, where her dad (Chang Chi-Ping, of Valley of the Double Dragon) patches him up. It doesn’t take long for the Jin soldiers to follow rumors to the Bai household, where Miss Bai’s dad and brothers (Venom Mob troupe member Chiang Sheng and Five Element Ninja’s Ricky Cheng) hold off the soldiers while Miss Bai and and Wang make their escape.

The two fugitives eventually find their way to the Shaolin Temple in Hunan. Although the Abbot (Mark Long, of The Mystery of Chess Boxing) has “closed down” the temple in order to enforce political neutrality—the temple is now in Jin-controlled territory, despite the monks mainly being Han Chinese—the monks themselves are more than willing to bring in a Song patriot. After a strange interlude involving Miss Bai being kicked out of the temple after serving meat dishes to Wang (on temple grounds), Wang decides to become a monk in order to improve his martial arts and one day get revenge against General Chao Wei. But in order to really get his skills up to snuff, he’ll have to convince the notorious drunken “Crazy Monk” (Chia Kai, of Seven Steps of Kung Fu) to take him on as a student.

It is always a bit of a novelty to find a Shaolin Temple film not set during the Qing Dynasty. Jet Li’s Shaolin Temple was set during the transition between the Sui and Tang Dynasties, while this film takes place a few hundred years later during the latter half of the Song Dynasty (before the Mongols came and conquered the Song, Western Xia and Jin kingdoms). Not a lot of movies get to tell much of the story of the Jin and Liao Dynasties, which existed concurrently with the Song. So to a Westerner (with a mild interest in history) like me, this change of scenery is a treat.

I do find it interesting that while Hong Kong studios were generally content to rip off Drunken Master or adapt the works of Jin Yong and Gu Long into film at that time, Taiwanese studios showed a bit more creativity. Oh, they had their share of those aforementioned types of movies: even this film has scenes set in the Crazy Monk’s cave that were most likely inspired by Drunken Master. On the whole, however, they seemed to be more willing to tell stories set in different parts of Chinese history. For example, Shaolin Monk (1976) tells the story of Boddhidharma and is set during the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period (A.D. 420 – 589). The Snake, the Tiger, the Crane (1980) tells the little-known story of Li Tzu-Chung, a peasant rebel who briefly became “emperor” during the fall of the Ming Dynasty. And it was Taiwan that made a film about Pan Ku, the Chinese equivalent to Adam, in the 1979 fantasy In the Beginning.

The plot resembles Shaolin Temple in that both films are about a patriot of sorts who ends up at the Shaolin Temple to train for revenge against an evil warlord, and both films feature a sequence of the hero leaving the temple in order to rescue a female friend at one point. I have to wonder if the makers of the more popular Jet Li film had seen this and were inspired, of it was simply a case of convergent evolution. Like a lot of Mainland wushu films, War of the Shaolin Temple a demonstration scene of different monks performing forms with diverse weapons, including the pole and rope-dart.

There are four credited action directors, including the late Alan Chui, who played the film’s main villain, and Mark Long, who plays the Abbot. The bulk of the action involve group melees with weapons—pole, spear, saber and sword—and there is a fair amount of fighting throughout. The weapons choreography is generally solid, although not quite up to the best work of Sammo Hung (see The Odd Couple) or Lau Kar-Leung (see Heroes of the East and Legendary Weapons of China). A lot is made about the Shaolin Monks having a 13-Pole Formation, with our main hero ultimately being the monk who becomes the 13^th member of said Formation. Unfortunately, not much is really made of that from a choreography standpoint, so if you want cool pole formations, stick with Spiritual Kung Fu.

Lead actor Chen Chien-Chang acquits himself fairly well to the action. He only showed up into two movies—both about the Shaolin Temple—and then disappeared from film (at least). Taiwanese mainstay Chia Kai steals the show as the super-acrobatic Crazy Monk. Sadly, he doesn’t not participate in the climax, which I consider to be a huge waste of the man’s talents. Mark Long as the Abbot ends up participating in the action more than most Shaolin abbots do in these films. He teams up with Chen Chien-Chang to fight against Alan Chui in the finale, which features the film’s best action and most sustained hand-to-hand combat. The climax actually downplays the other monks fighting the Jin soldiers in favor of this two-on-one, which I thought was interesting. That said, Mark Long, whose talents rival those of Chia Kai, doesn’t reach the level of his landmark performance as Ghost-Faced Killer in The Mystery of Chess Boxing. And that really sums up War of the Shaolin Temple: everybody does what they usually do well, but they ultimately do it better in other films.