One of the classic passages of Hong Kong-made martial arts movies is the use of various daily tools for martial arts training. Usually people who practice do not perceive the meaning of the middle, until they clash with others, they find that they have achieved great success. The movie to be introduced in this issue is the "Shaolin Temple Tent Master" that plays this "routine" to the fullest.
Published in 1980 by Shaw Company, the story follows the background of The Thirty-Six Rooms of the Shaolin Temple, when the Master of the Three Virtues, who founded the "Thirty-Six Rooms", has become a world-famous martial arts master. Many people went to the Thirty-six Houses of Shaolin to worship as lay disciples. However, the protagonist of this time is not the Master of the Three Virtues, but Zhou Renjie, a dyeing workshop worker. In order to squeeze the workers, Zhou Renjie's boss hired ten martial arts masters to supervise the staff in the workshop. He also deducted 20% of the workers' salaries to pay for the daily expenses of the "Ten Sticks of the Manchu Qing Dynasty". In order to resist, the worker Zhou Shisheng found his younger brother Zhou Renjie, who was good at impersonating identities, and imitated the Master chengsan to intimidate the "Ten Sticks of the Manchu Qing". Zhou Renjie's outfit was successful, but he was quickly exposed by the boss and beaten up along with a group of workers.
Zhou Renjie went to the Shaolin Temple, planning to use his cleverness to blend into the Thirty-Six Rooms in order to worship under the Master of the Three Virtues. However, his strategy could not conceal Sande at all, but Sande also saw his talent for learning martial arts, so he arranged for him to be responsible for the shed work of the thirty-six rooms. Three years later, Zhou Renjie not only built a bamboo shed, but also took the opportunity to work at a high altitude to observe various trainings in the thirty-six rooms, and inadvertently practiced superior martial arts. When Master Sande saw that the time was ripe, he expelled him from the mountain, and a group of co-workers welcomed him back with joy, but Zhou Renjie did not realize that he had become a master, and repeatedly said that he could not learn any skills in Shaolin. As a result, Zhou Renjie finally met the "Ten Sticks of the Manchu Qing" again, and defeated them and the owner of the dyeing workshop with the Shaolin martial arts of "tent building". Zhou Renjie was also named "Shaolin Temple Shed Master" by his co-workers.
Although "Shaolin Temple Tent Master" and "Shaolin Temple Thirty-Six Rooms" share the same world view, except for the role of Master Sande, the two actually have little to do with each other. Liu Jiahui, who originally played Sande, was also "demoted" to Chow Ren Kit, a dyeing factory worker, in this film. Therefore, strictly speaking, "Shaolin Temple Tent Master" is not a sequel, but a sister work of "Thirty-Six Rooms of Shaolin Temple". From a plot point of view, compared with the heavy tone in "Thirty-six Rooms of the Shaolin Temple", "Shaolin Temple Tent Master" adopts a more "everyday" pattern. As a result, the main contradiction in the film was transformed from "national hatred and family hatred" to "labor dispute". The protagonist's motivation to learn martial arts has also changed from cultivating anti-Qing righteous soldiers to taking the lead on behalf of workers.
And this "everyday" depiction method also extends to various action scenes. According to common sense, martial arts training must have a special training place, and it is supervised by professional instructors throughout the process. However, Hong Kong-made martial arts films tend to "go the other way", emphasizing that martial arts training can be taken from daily life, and as long as there is understanding and perseverance, it is natural to practice superior martial arts. On the one hand, this can highlight the protagonist's hard work, but also highlight the breadth and depth of Chinese martial arts. And this is one of the themes of "Shaolin Temple Tent Master".
When Zhou Renjie was assigned to build a tent, he used the tools of the tent on the spot to imitate the brothers of the starter to practice. For example, he used the rope belt of the shed as a rattan circle to exercise his hand strength and footwork, and then used the bamboo shed to train his balance and tie it into a wooden stake. After a round of examination by the Three Virtues Master, it was finally proved that he was more powerful than the regular beginner disciples and could go down the mountain. The scene of the final battle has a more "daily life" flavor. The weapons used in the "Ten Sticks of the Manchu Qing Dynasty" are the benches commonly used in Guangdong. The bench material is hard, the stool foot can be disassembled, and in reality, there are indeed routines related to the bench, so the bench often becomes a weapon for Hong Kong-made martial arts films. In order to fight against the bench, Zhou Renjie led the "Ten Sticks of the Manchu Qing" to his "Blessed Land" bamboo shed, used the bamboo shed to perform his own martial arts, and then defeated the "Ten Sticks of the Manchu Qing" with the sawdust of the bamboo shed, which can be described as a big duel of "household necessities".
Although the layout of "Shaolin Temple Tent Master" is always inseparable from the typical Shaw routine of "Shaolin Heroes" vs. "Manchu Qing Lackeys", its popularity is not as high as that of "Shaolin Temple Thirty-Six Rooms". But from another point of view, this film actually uses the daily life of "little people" to inject new energy into the traditional hero story. And the bamboo shed war in the film also exhausts the power of Hong Kong films. If you are tired of seeing the grand narrative structure of the pattern, it may be a new experience to review this film.