Executioners from Shaolin (1977)

Executioners from Shaolin
Aka: Executioners of Death
Chinese Title: 洪熙官
Translation: Hong Xiguan (or “Hung Shi-Kwan” or “Hung Hei-Gun” or “Hung Hey-Kwun”)

Starring: Chen Kuan-Tai, Lily Li Li-Li, Lo Lieh, Wong Yu, Cheng Kang-Yeh, Chiang Tao, Dave Wong Kit, Shum Lo, Gordon Liu Chia-Hui, Lee Hoi-Sang, Tin Ching, John Cheung Ng-Long
Director: Lau Kar-Leung
Action Director: Lau Kar-Leung

Executioners from Shaolin was Lau Kar-Leung’s third directorial effort and is really where the man hit his stride. It is not exactly perfect, but the general direction feels more assured, the action is stronger, and his voice as a filmmaker is more evident than in his previous movies. The movie suffers from a fourth—yes, fourth—act that is both underdeveloped and that breaks the general rule of storytelling that your main character should not suddenly change later in the narrative. The climax also feels a bit rushed and the movie doesn’t end so much as it stops. The latter is a common flaw of old school kung fu movies, but it stands out as being particularly bad in an otherwise well-made film.

The movie opens with a fight set against a red background—standard 70s procedure—showing us a throwdown between the Shaolin abbot, Gee Sim (the late Lee Hoi-San), and Pai Mei (Lo Lieh, of In the Line of Duty V and Web of Death). The context is that Shaolin has been burned down and the big traitor who assisted in the raid was Pai Mei, a former senior monk (presumably turned Taoist). Gee Sim is killed by Pai Mei after he attacks the latter’s groin and the Pai Mei’s ability to suck his genitals into his body traps the abbot’s hand, leaving him vulnerable to a death blow.

The story proper puts us in the immediate aftermath of the burning of Shaolin, with a couple of dozen laymen survivors fanning out as they try to escape from the Manchu soldiers. Several of them die from wounds sustained during the assault itself, while the others rally behind their senior student, Hong Xiguan (Chen Kuan-Tai, playing the same role he did in Men from the Monastery and Heroes Two). When they are cornered by Qing archers, fellow Shaolin student Tong Qianjin (Gordon Liu, of Cheetah on Fire and Marco Polo) steps in to fend the soldiers off while the others escape. He manages to injure Governor Kao Chen Chung (Chiang Tao, of 5 Shaolin Masters and Bruce and the Dragon Fist), but eventually succumbs to his wounds.

Hong Xiguan and his brothers, including his close friend Xiaohu (Cheng Kang-Yeh, of Heroes of the East and Challenge of the Masters), reorganize their anti-Qing movement into the Red Boats. Basically, they travel along China’s rivers on junks with red sails, posing Peking Opera troupes. While stopping in one port, their antics interrupt a martial arts demonstration given by a female martial artist named Fong Wing Chun (Lily Li, whose character should not be confused with Yim Wing Chun, credited as founding the eponymous style). Fong insults the performers’ kung fu, leading to a friendly duel between her and Hong Xiguan. Both Wing Chun and her uncle (Shum Lo, who spent much of his career playing a clerk or innkeeper) are invited to join the heroes, which they do.

As the days pass, Hong Xiguan and Fong Wing Chun start falling in love, ultimately culminating in their wedding. In a very strange subplot, Wing Chun refuses to let her husband consummate the marriage unless he can break her super powerful horse stance. Yes, it really does sound and come across as a sort of rape roleplay: “You can have sex with me only when your kung fu is good enough to force my legs open.” It is played for laughs here, and would be played for laughs again in 1979 in Chia Ling’s The Crane Fighters. It takes him a while, but he is ultimately able to split her stance…and something else, too.

Eventually, the Manchus figure out the whole scheme involving the red boats, causing Xiguan and the other anti-Qing rebels to spread out all over the countryside. His wife is pregnant at the time and eventually gives birth to a son, Hong Wending (in Cantonese: Hung Man-Ting). Following the birth of his son, Hong Xiguan remembers that he needs to avenge the abbot’s death and starts brushing up on the Tiger Style, which manual he was able to smuggle out of Shaolin. But as Pai Mei has been practicing what is essentially the Iron Vest style, he may be completely impervious to attack…except in one place.

As most fans are already aware, Lau Kar-Leung was a master of the Hung Gar style of kung fu. The term Hung Gar basically means “Hung Family,” referring to the fact that Hong Xiguan is credited as being the style’s founder. Lau Kar-Leung learned the style from his father, Lau Charn; who had learned it from Butcher Lam Sai-Wing (the character Sammo Hung plays in The Magnificent Butcher); who learned it real life Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-Hung; who probably learned it from his father, Wong Kei-Ying; who supposedly learned it from Luk Ah-Choy, who was a contemporary of Hong Xiguan.

The general story is that Hong Xiguan had indeed specialized in the Tiger Style while studying at Shaolin. After leaving the temple, he met and married Fong Wing Chun, who was trained in the (Tibetan?) White Crane style. Hong Xiguan combined both styles to create Hung Gar, or Hung Kuen (“Hung’s Fist”). Hung Gar is best known for its Tiger-Crane form, although it does have a solo Tiger form (reflecting Hong’s original training) and a Five Animals Form, which probably would have been part of the Shaolin curriculum at the time.

Executioners from Shaolin seems to take a few liberties with that story, suggesting that it was Hong Wending, not Xiguan, who actually founded Hung Gar. This may be a liberty that Lau Kar-Leung took with the material in order to develop a theme he had about open-mindedness in learning different styles. Throughout the film, Hong Xiguan is adamant that he stick to his Tiger style and his wife to her Crane style, without ever mixing them.

When Hong Wending starts training in the Crane style under his mother’s tutelage, Hong refuses to “cross the streams” and instruct him in the Tiger style, too. But in the end, that proves to be Xiguan’s undoing because the soft movements and pointed “beak” of the Crane style is just what was needed to ferret out Pai Mei’s weak point. Interestingly, Lau Kar-Leung’s brother, Lau Kar-Wing, had starred in and choreographed the Jimmy Wang Yu film Tiger and Crane Fists (the basis for Kung Pao: Enter the Fist) the year before. That film also addressed that theme, where an invincible villain could not be defeated by one style, but by a combination of the two animal styles. This movie takes the same approach, although the plot point of the rat gnawing away the pages of Hong Xiguan’s kung fu manual does raise an issue with the film’s historicity: if Hong Wending could not learn the Tiger Style completely, how did Hung Gar come to have the “Taming the Tiger Fist” set?

Executioners from Shaolin was followed up by a sequel-cum-remake, Clan of the White Lotus, in 1980. It was directed by Lo Lieh, with Lau Kar-Leung working as the film’s action director (look for him in Executioners as a Qing fighter wielding a three-section staff). The main character of that film is Hong Wending, this time played by Gordon Liu, who is takes it upon himself to take down the head of the White Lotus temple (Lo Lieh), who was a martial brother of Pai Mei. That film does feature a seemingly invincible main villain, although Hong Wending is portrayed as being more open-minded in learning different styles and techniques (including a soft “feminine” kung fu style) to add to his repertoire in order to beat his opponent.

Beyond that, Chen Kuan-Tai puts in one of his all-time great fighting performances here, beating his other two outings as the legendary hero Hong Xiguan. Lily Lee puts in a great performance, one of her best. She would play a crane stylist a couple of years later in the Taiwanese film One Foot Crane. Lo Lieh is absolutely iconic as the white-haired Pai Mei, so much so that Quentin Tarantino included the character in Kill Bill Vol. 2 (played by Gordon Liu). The action, from the fights to the training sequences, are almost uniformly excellent throughout. I don’t consider Executioners from Shaolin to be one of the top old school films of all time, but watching it a second time, I can see why some might think it is.