Hey, all. I really need to update here more than once every five weeks. But enough chatter! It’s time for kung fu!

No list of great kung fu movies is complete without The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Seriously, right on the front of the DVD box, you can see a quote from the New York Times referring to it as, “the greatest kung fu flick of all time.” If you haven’t seen it yet, please just go rent it or something. Hell, call me, and I’ll lend you my copy. If it helps, the star of this movie also played Pai Mei and the leader of the Crazy 88s in the Kill Bill movies.

The story is simple and timeless. Frankly, it’s one we’ve all lived through. Invaders descend upon a small village. They kill everyone they find. One young man escapes. He joins the Shaolin monks for some intensive martial arts training. He brutally murders his enemies. (We’ve all been there, right?)

Actually, the story is much deeper than that. The main character, San Te, played by our lord and savior Gordon Liu, is participating in an uprising against the reigning Manchu government. This is the real reason they attack his village and kill all his friends; although, they don’t really need a reason in the movie. They’re Manchu. They’re evil. At least, they are in this story. Still, the real meat of the film isn’t the political subterfuge. The good bits come during his training, which takes up most of the film’s two-hour running time. San Te’s personal growth, from revenge-crazed would-be vigilante to altruistic and highly trained vigilante, is the driving force of the story.

As he progresses through the Shaolin monastery’s thirty-five chambers of conditioning, he develops specific skills, strengths, and reflexes. He learns to use various weapons. He does a lot of laundry and cooks a lot of soup. Along the way, he tests his skills against elder monks and repeatedly gets beaten to a pulp in front of his peers. Then, when he finally leaves the monastery and reenters the world, his gift to the people is not his ability to beat up the police and subvert the government. (Even though he does do this. His does this very well, thank you.) When he leaves the monastery, he begins teaching his kung fu to laymen, a practice frowned upon by the monks early on in the film. His students become stronger both physically and spiritually, and by the time he returns to the temple, the elder monks are receptive to his practice. They allow him to create the 36th chamber of Shaolin training, a chamber specifically for laymen who need kung fu but who cannot become monks.

Now, I know it seems like I’ve just told you the whole story, but that just isn’t the point of this one. Some movies are enjoyable for the story and the twists and the turns and the whodunit sort of excitement you get from an Agatha Christy novel. Then, some movies are great because you know how it’s going to end and watching the plot unfold in a beautiful way is fulfilling. The 36th Chamber is one of those movies. From the first moment, it’s obvious that he will have his revenge. Watching him get there is just so damned fun.