Shaolin Wooden Men (1976) November 7, 2007
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , trackbackDirector: Chen Chi-Hwa Cast: Jackie Chan, Kam Kong, Doris Lung, Chiang Kam Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co
A mute and underachieving Shaolin student (Jackie Chan) endures mistreatment and disdain by his contemporaries for his disability while the masters think he’s lazy and lacking in ability. He harbours a secret past: as a child, he saw his father assassinated, and has vowed to find the killer. One day, as he slaves away at the temple, he spots a secret cave within the grounds and investigates it to find a man chained to the walls. Living on scraps provided by the guards, the mute strikes up a friendship with the prisoner and trades extra food for Kung Fu lessons. He also gets some tuition from a Shaolin nun and a drunken monk, and soon he is skilful enough to take the ultimate graduation test – crossing a corridor lined with large wooden mechanical dummies that attempt to pummel the students back to the safety of the temple. Once released to the wide world the mute again meets his prisoner friend, who is now a free man, and seeks the killer of his father.
Back in the day when Hong Kong movies meant Jackie Chan movies and vice versa to me, I thought Shaolin Wooden Men was a pretty great film and certainly one of the best from his time with Lo Wei. A few hundred movies or so later, I have to admit my horizons have been broadened and the shine has been knocked off this particular nugget a little.
For a start, it’s a bit of a knock-off of 18 Bronzemen, which was released the same year and is quite a bit better than this even taking into account its own faults. Furthermore, well, it’s just a bit…naff. The villain (who I’m not going to reveal, just in case there is someone out there who can’t figure it out from my plot synopsis) is pure comic-book cliché and there’s a bizarre scene where a misunderstanding leads to him killing a family in front of Jackie and a restaurant worker (played by Chiang Kam, one of the few familiar faces amongst this nondescript cast). There’s an attitude of: “hey, you shouldn’t have done that. Oh well, never mind. Let’s bury them”. This odd behaviour runs throughout the film and everyone seems to be prone to it at one point or another.
The Shaolin Wooden Men of the title are but a minor part of the film and serve merely as a final test for each student to pass. There’s little sense of drama here, especially seeing as how Jackie takes the test mid way through the film and passes. Even if you’re not looking too carefully, you can see the head of one of the wooden “robots” lifting to give a glimpse of the performer beneath! I actually prefer the first half of the film, where Jackie is being tutored by the three very different masters. His relationship to the chained man is quite unusual for a film of this nature, and it’s a pity their ties to each other wasn’t explored more deeply. Jackie, in his only “silent” role, is surprisingly flexible without the dialogue and shows a decent range of facial expressions.
It’s the second half, where Jackie is let out into the world, that things get a bit haphazard. He is befriended by a family of restaurant workers (including the aforementioned Chiang Kam and Doris Lung, who would go on to feature in Half a Loaf of Kung Fu) and helps them out of a few scrapes with a gang of thugs (which includes a young Yuen Biao). From here on in, it’s a standard Kung Fu movie, and not a very memorable one at that. Jackie finds the killer of his father and the two duel to the death. The action choreography is passable and occasionally pretty good with Chan throwing in some flips and some other impressive acrobatics, but sadly there’s nothing to pump the adrenaline through the veins.
I find these days that I want to like Shaolin Wooden Men a lot more than I do. I guess I’m never going to think of it as fondly as I used to, but it still has a few things going for it. There’s a rousing score and the opening titles are really great. They show the Wooden Men in a series of still silhouettes (even though you can actually see them moving most of the time!), and the effect is quite striking. Maybe if they’d played more of a part in the film, it would have been better. There again, maybe not…
Comments»
Already read your review on Shaolin Wooden Men on HKMDB
. A good read as always (mine was the verbose review right below yours 
). Not much to disagree with since I gave it a 6 while you gave it a 5.
Oh I love this film. It isn’t very good but its sentimental value is tremendous. The Jackie/Lo Wei films were among the first kung fu films I saw and they’ll always have a special place in my heart
Thanks guys
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Shawn: yes I read your review on HKMDB. Agree with you totally about the “Knockabout” connection. I think these two films are quite unique in that way. It’s a shame you can’t really give feedback on reviews on HKMDB, you don’t really know if anyone’s reading them or not.
James: This was certainly amongst my first lot of Kung Fu films. I got most of the Lo Wei films early on as they were quite readily available (and usually cheap!). I was buying anything Jackie-related at that point! I forgot to mention in the review, but this version is the Fortune Star DVD from HKL (but you can probably tell that from the screenshots). Is it just me or did anyone else find it really weird seeing this in widescreen and remastered??!
Well I’ve not bought the HKL DVD because of the sound issues. I do however have a fan made DVD combining the FS remaster with the original Mandarin mono and the rarely seen full uncut English dub and yes it’s like a different movie!
The old tape I had was pan’scan stretched so heads went off the top of the screen and were skinny looking, and it was missing the first 10min!