Film Descriptions
Return to the 36th Chamber
Hong Kong (1980), 35mm, 111 minutes, Mandarin with English subtitles
Director: Lau Kar-leung
Cast: Lau Kar-fai, Wang Longwei, Chen Sijia, Xiao Ho, Hua Lun
Producer: Run Run Shaw (Shao Cunren), Mona Fong
Martial Arts Directors: Lau Kar-leung, Qing Qu, Xiao Ho
Show Time: 4/19 at 5pm at the Metro State Auditorium
A freewheeling follow-up to the original, immensely popular The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978), this quasi-sequel applies a light touch to the "warrior-in-training" subgenre and ably showcases director Lau Kar-leung's (Liu Jialiang's) considerable talent for kung fu comedy. Lau Kar-fai (Gordon Liu Jiahui) reprises his starring role, but rather than a full-fledged kung fu master, he portrays a con man merely impersonating a Shaolin priest. When Manchu thugs thrash him soundly and expose his imposture, he retreats to the fabled monastery, where the monks assign him a series of menial jobs while steadfastly refusing to teach him martial arts. Expelled from the temple, he returns to his village and discovers that, to his great surprise, he now possesses superb fighting skills. Indeed he realizes that his apparent drudgery in the temple actually constituted an oblique form of kung fu training!
 Return to the 36th Chamber is a delightful self-parody that pokes fun at the very conventions Lau Kar-leung was so instrumental in establishing. The famed 36 Chambers are here only incidentally depicted, while the clueless hero is almost entirely oblivious to the education-by-osmosis he receives at Shaolin. A testament to Lau's refusal to facilely recycle the formula of his past success, the film cleverly subverts expectations while fulfilling the narrative and action requirements of the classic revenge plot. Along with the slapstick kung fu films of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan, Return to the 36th Chamber helped usher in the vogue for martial arts comedy in the 1980s Hong Kong cinema.
--Jesse Zigelstein, UCLA Film and Television Archive
Lau Kar-fai (Gordon Liu Jiahui)
This one-time stuntman and martial arts instructor segued successfully to the front of the camera in Shaolin Martial Arts (1974). Headliner status followed two years later in Lau Kar-leung's Challenge of the Masters, but it was the actor's portrayal of the monk San De in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978), again under the direction of his adopted brother, that rocketed him to fame. Dirty Ho (1979) and Return to the 36th Chamber (1980) are other notable collaborations between the two Laus. More recently Lau has branched into television drama. He is scheduled to appear in Quentin Tarantino's upcoming Kill Bill.
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