There are several “Watershed” films in Hong Kong action cinema – Chinese Boxer made unarmed combat popular (something the Bruce Lee films built upon and enhanced), Drunken Master introduced drunkenness as a way of fighting and firmly established comedy as a bona-fide source of entertainment for the genre, and so on.

However, between these events, we have 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Like Drunken Master, the effects of this film can still be felt today. 36th Chamber of Shaolin really began the tradition of the main character training (and suffering great hardship) to achieve his ends. The template displayed here can be seen in dozens of genre classics all over the world – and also the loathsome Karate Kid movie.

Basically, the film is split into three very distinct and separate sections. In the first section we are shown the tyranny of the Manchu overlords and Lau Kar Fai’s impotence to do anything about the oppression. The second and altogether lengthier section concerns San Te’s flight to the Shaolin Temple and his training therein. The third and rather predictable section is San Te exacting his bloody revenge on the oppressors (including Lo Leih as the main bad guy).

The second section is by far the reason why this film is still such a classic. We see San Te’s transformation from a simple man into a well-honed fighting machine in great detail, and feel his agony every step of the way to the elusive 35th Chamber. The training section alone would have made a great film - it comes as a bit of an anti-climax when San Te finally defeats the general! But along the way, San Te does establish his (and, by association, Lau Kar-Fai’s) signature weapon – the three sectioned staff. In some territories this weapon was adopted by cinema-goers much the same as Bruce Lee’s nunchaku were back in the early 70’s.

It has to be said that this film does suffer the age-old problem of the Shaw Brothers’ “Sudden Ending Syndrome”, but apart from that and the fact that you just want the Shaolin section to go on and on forever, this is a fantastic example of Hong Kong action cinema from the 70’s.