American Title(s): "36 Wooden Men;" "Shaolin Chamber of Death;" "Shaolin Wooden Men... Young Tiger's Revenge"

Chinese Title(s): "Shao Lin mu ren xiang"

Rated: Not Rated

Released: 1976 

Length:  97 min. approx.

Main Cast: Jackie Chan, Jang Lee Hwang, Kong Kim, Yuen Lung, Biao Yuen

Synopsis:

This is a story about a "boy" that seems to be called 'Dummy' in the American dub and 'Mute Boy' in the sub. Anyway, he wants to become a Shaolin Kung Fu master so he can take revenge on the person that killed his father. He has flashbacks to the scene of this dude with a pillow on his head that whacks his dad while he cries. It's lame, and the camera is very warped. Will he succeed? Read the review to find out more!

The Review:

I watched this flick on a DVD I picked up out of a Wal-Mart bargain bin. Amazingly, it was put out by Tri-Star and included a couple of oddball previews, like Spiderman, Panic Room, and The One. The previews are actually more interesting than the movie itself, sad to say.

As the Synopsis so eloquently pointed out, it's about Jackie as a mute. He must learn to become a Shaolin Kung Fu dude, and to do that he has to go through oddball training. The first thing he has to do is walk in super-heavy lead shoes and fill up buckets with water, which he then must take up dozens of stairs to fill up a vat. Then he does some wood-chopping. This makes you feel for Jackie as everyone treats him like he's an idiot.

Eventually he learns some tricks from unconventional "masters". One is a drunk, another is a woman who advocates defense and no dirty moves, and another is a guy that's in chains and locked up in a cave. The cave guy is a jerk with a very foul mouth, especially in the dub. 

Jackie's goal is to get through some weird test with a bunch of wooden men lining a hallway. One must battle his way to the end to exit the school, I guess. They show one dude try it and he gets beat up pretty badly. Jackie gets his licks in, but he gets smacked a lot too. Jackie wins and goes off to take something for the evil dude to one of his minions. Jackie is also given another thing (looks like a scroll) to take to another Shaolin Master. This scroll is something he gets from one of the masters of the school.

Later on in the movie, Jackie's "friend," the evil foul-mouthed dude gets free through some "lion roar" method and rejoins his gang and goes on a killing spree. Jackie must be trained to stop the maniac. Pretty typical stuff. Unfortunately, most of the movie is watching Jackie get buff and it drags. Yeah, it's kind of interesting to see what kind of training he needs to go through, but there's so much of it that you want to throw the TV about.

Another unfortunate note is that this looks like it was transferred to DVD from a crummy VHS version. There are a lot of murky scenes where you can't see a THING and others where you can sometimes see their outfit but not their bodies, so it looks like a floating shirt or a headless man.

I watched most of the show dubbed, but I had the sub running at the same time. It was interesting to note all the little differences. Sometimes certain sequences seemed to be completely changed. It was also weird to see cursing in some scenes where the dub didn't have any and vice-versa.

The Good Stuff:

The Bad Stuff:

If you love Jackie and don't mind seeing him get pumped up (ala Young Master), then you'll like this movie. Otherwise, the only reason to watch it is to make fun of it. Get it if you like to watch bad Kung-Fu movies.

SEXUAL CONTENT: n/a

LANGUAGE:

OVERALL SCORE:  

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