Shaolin Temple (1982) the original film

[ninjaboy]

in the movie "the shaolin temple" with jet li, i understand master pan qing fu, now in ontario, canada, was an actor/extra...can anyone tell me me which character he was?

thanking you in advance,

neil

[Wildwoo]

Wasn't he the one eyes dude with the claw weapon thing?

WWII

[GeneChing]

I answered this thread on the main forum and moved it to the media forum (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=32863) where it is most appropo.

Pan played a general, a supporting character. You can only see in in a few scenes doing walk-ons behind General Renze (the villian) who was played by famed double-sword master, Yu Chenghui. ;)

[Shaolinlueb]

my sifu's sifu was in those 3 movies as a co-star :o he has some nice stories about em.

[SimonM]

I got to meet Pan Quing Fu a few years back. That guy is cool. (He is also wicked with a spear, he and one of his students did a two person spear form, WOW is all I can say).

[merlin]

hi

-i tried a search, but couldn't really find any discussion on shorinji kempo on this site...so i was wondering what you guys thought of it...

-reason i'm asking is that i recently watched the jet li-shaolin temple movie on dvd, and noticed that there are several scenes where they used shorinji kempo techniques, including an extended fight scene during the big battle in the temple, and at the very last scene at the end of the movie, where they are doing a basic upper block and front kick(while the voice over describes how shaolin martial arts are now everywhere, etc...which i thought was a little ironic, since the movie was about the shaolin temple and chinese martial arts, but the movie concludes with the scene of the monks doing shorinji kempo moves).

-i was wondering too, if with all the different martial arts practitioners around, was there news on conflicts between the practitioners, especially since the shorinji kempo people in the movie were japanese...

-anyways, just curious about what people thought or heard...

thanks

joshua lee

[MasterKiller]

http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=596451


Shorinji Kempo was founded by a man named Michiomi Nakano who was a member of the a japanese criminal organization (Black Dragon Society) which began acting in concert with the imperial government at that time. Nakano reputedly acted as an agent providing intelligence to Japanese authorities in manchuria. He claimed he was initiated in the the Giwamonken temple which he eventually became successor naming taking the buddhist name "Doshin So" and refering to his style as Shorinji kempo. His claims were hotly contested and In 1972 he was on the losing end of a law suit by a group of Chinese living in Japan and as a result the japanese court action agreed to refer to his style as "Nippon Shorinji Kempo."

A little research will reveal to you that his "System" is in fact a creative Blend of Kango Zen , Shorinji Kenkokan Karate (Nakano trained under Masayoshi Hisataka for a while) and Hakko ryu Jujutsu (which he studied under Okuyama Ryuho) and both of these unique systems are clearly visable in the training of Nippon Shorinji Kempo.


MK is right, or at least concurs with what I've heard. Shorinji kempo (aka Nippon-den Seito Shorinji Kempo) is now headed by So Doshin's daughter. In fact, in the early editions of the movie Shaolin Temple (http://www.martialartsmart.net/dvd40021.html), the 'historic pilgrimage' of So Doshin and his daughter to Shaolin is documented in the intro - that scene is deleted from many later editions.
But there are other Shorin and Shorinji schools, mostly found in Okinawa. It's horribly confusing for me, since I don't really specialize in Japanese research, but I'm sure someone has sorted it all out somewhere.

As for Kempo, it is confusing too. It's part of the name of many Karate schools. Beyond Parker's and So Doshin's, there is Uechi Kanei's Kempo Kai (aka ****o ryu, but don't pronounce it *that* way), Kuda Yuichi's Matsumura Kenpo Shorin Ryu, and Nakamura Shigeru & Odo Seikichi's Okinawa Kenpo. Even more confusing is the fact that by using another character, kenpo becomes 'sword method' (ken as in kendo or jian dao in Mandarin).

[GeneChing]

While the movie, Shaolin Temple, was significant not just in film history, but also in Shaolin's history, it's not good to read to much into the styles in the film itself. Most of the talent for that film was shipped in - Jet Li was on the BWT, Yu Hai was from Shandong (as were many other masters). Ironically, Yu Hai left his modern mantis form at Shaolin, which is still practiced at many of the private schools today. I think you can read something into the exclusion of the Shorinji scenes in later editions of Shaolin Temple (the film). I haven't seen those scenes on any of the DVDs, except maybe the bootlegs...

[merlin]

thanks for the replies...i'll try to do a better search next time...

-as for the dvd scenes...the dvd is not a bootleg, and is distributed by 'mei ah' from hong kong...and is i think, a remastered version, since the colours look so vibrant, with dts sound, and has all the regular chapters, languages(mandarin, cantonese) and subtitles(english, simplified and traditional chinese) on it...

-and MK: do you have a source for the court case? i've tried a search for mention/documentation of it, but couldn't find it...the shorinji people at e-budo have had a similar question asked of them as well, and they've tried a search as well, including asking the honbu, but couldn't find anything either...the shorinji website seems to document the the name changes of the organization throught the past few years, but makes no mention of the court case or change to 'nippon shorinji krmpo'

anyways, thanks for the replies

[GeneChing]

Interesting on the DVD - just goes to show, I suppose. I always thought that intro added to the movie and was disappointed to find it not on my DVD version. Maybe mine is the bootleg. :eek:

As for the court case, well, I can't give you the actual court case number, but according to the Dictionary of Japanese Martial Arts (http://www.martialartsmart.net/byvs28.html) p.361:
After a court decision in 1972 the name was changed to Nippon Shorinji kenpo.

[merlin]

hi gene...thanks for the reply

-i don't have that intro mentioned in your thread on my dvd either, i was referring to an extended fight scene near the end of the movie...when the 'bad' guys invade the temple to kill the monks...there is part where just before fighting, one monk takes off his robe/jacket(?) to fight the enemy soldier, and after defeating the soldier, the soldier yells to fire the arrows, and kills the monk...those 2 were doing a shorinji kempo embu or pair sequence, and are japanese....as well as the very last scene in the movie where they do shorinji kempo upper block and front kick...

-anyways...i haven't done shorinji kempo for a almost 2 years after having kids, and i was just wondering what the kung fu people thought of the system...

[GeneChing]

i don't have that intro mentioned in your thread on my dvd either Good. Well, 'good' in the sense that my facts are somewhat straight. :rolleyes: My understanding is that this version of Shaolin Temple (http://www.martialartsmart.net/dvd40021.html) is the official DVD. We've been very careful not to deal in bootlegs.

[Tripitaka of AA]

Greetings all :)

I've been an occasional reader here for a couple of years, while mainly hanging around the E-Budo.com and Budoseek.net forums. I am a fully qualified "Armchair Fan" and do not actively train anymore. My chosen Art is/was Shorinji Kempo. I've got a few comments to add to the thread, as they may be of interest to anyone searching for threads about the movie. Sorry if some of it is "old news" to you.

I've got a ten year old VHS copy with rotten dubbing (an "official" release, just bad...), but I first saw it on a (presumably) pirate copy in around '83. That version was a bootleg from Malaysia, so itr had loads of subtitles and included the "missing scenes".

From a fading memory, the scenes featuring Shorinji Kempo were an introduction that showed Japanese Kenshi training at the Hombu. ranks of white dogi doing kihon (basics) in unison. Then the senior Kenshi performing an Embu in the same Dojo with the rest of the Kenshi sitting alongside. The Embu (rehearsed sequence of fighting moves) was performed by Kenshi wearing Hoi (the black robe, based on Monk apparel, worn over the dogi with sleeves rolled up and tied). I don't remember the footage of Kaiso (the Founder of Shorinji Kempo), SO Doshin and his daughter SO Yuki, but I remember there were pictures in the glossy pamphlet made to accompany the film. These pamphlets were on sale in London's Chinatown for years afterwards, and were of interest to Jet Li fans and Shorinji Kempo fans alike, at a time when English language materal on either was very scarce.

The pamphlet was an odd collection of "behind-the-scenes" and candid shots of the stars as they shot this amazing film in the most spectacular locations. There were profiles of the main stars and a section about Shorinji Kempo. They managed to find a load of different ways to spell it, from "Shorin Kendo" to "Shorin Jikempo" and combinations of the two.

There were two Shorinji Kenshi who took active roles in the movie. I'm sad to say I only know the name of one, but it would be difficult for any Kenshi NOT to know Yamasaki Sensei, the Head of the Zenrin Gakuen (formerly known as Busen Academy), which is the full-time college for Instructors of Shorinji Kempo. He is the one dressed as a Monk, as described by Merlin above.

There is more footage of Shorinji Kempo seen on the documentary about The Shaolin Temple called "Jet Li's Art of War" (The English video release title in around 1995). It is a Chinese made documentary about the monks at Shaolin and it concentrates on their party-piece skills such as one-finger handstand, iron shirt and pulling-heavy-things-with-a-rope-around-your-testicles :eek: . Jet Li is introduced as a kind of Host, "revisiting" the school and clips from the movie are shown. In one of these clips, the two Kenshi are seen teaching Jet Li a wrist throw that we call gyaku gote.

As I understand it (no proof, just a vague memory), some of the financial backing for the film either came from Shorinji Kempo or some of our friends in high places in Japan. I think I've read on here somewhere that Doshin So had made a comment that since no-one was training at the temple, the Shorinji Kempo monks in Japan were the ones carrying on this fine tradition of Monks training in the way of the fist. Controversial enough to kick-start the Chines Government into rebuilding the Temple to what it is now. I'll leave it to yo to decide if this was a good thing in hindsight.


For those still hug up on the "court case", may I suggest a saunter through these threads on E-Budo;

"a committed Christian could never train in this style with a good conscience" (http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22330) - where an online article is discussed, and the "1972 court case" gets mentioned. Oct 2003.

modern bujutsu and budo book (http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24589) - Where someone asks about the negative slant on Shorinji Kempo in the book (by Donn Draeger :)). Feb 2004.

Some criticisms of Shorinji Kempo based on... yes Draeger's book! (http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29379) - Where the story is repeated, in the hope of getting some clear cut answers, with an interesting comment from Ellis Amdur. Jan 2005.

[mickey]

Greetings,

Does anyone know if there is an extended version of the movie? The fight scene beteewn Yu Hai and Yu Cheng Wei was edited down; we do not see the the transition from weapons to empty hands. Mainland China had a habit (may still have the habit) of editing out what they considered high level techniques from the movies. I was told by someone from the Mainland that there was another movie made called "Shaolin Disciples" (Shaolin Du Li) that featured the same cast as well as the other Shorinji Kempo practitioner that was not in the Shaolin Temple. There were more forms shown and the form that featured the posture that was used for the poster of "Shaolin Temple" was shown as well.

I am still looking for that one.

mickey

[Tripitaka of AA]

For those of you who may recognise the names, here is a quotation from Rogelio Casero regarding some details of SO Doshin's Chinese instructors. The quotation is from this old thread (http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15111&highlight=Wen);


I have been doing research on Shorinji Kempo roots for some years, and I can say the following:
Yihe Quan is a boxing style and also a secret society.
As far as I know, Yihe Quan society was founded by somebody called Chu Hungtang from Shandong. Another theory is that Yihe Quan sect was created by Zhou Hongyi from Zhili at the end of the Ming dynasty. I don´t know whether Chu Hungtang and Zhou Hongyi are the same individual with different transcription of his name or they are two diferent individuals.
Apparently, at the beginning Chu Hungtang stressed only on Kung Fu practice, without teaching any philosophy, but years later, after reading some books about Bagua sect and White Lotus society, he turned Yihe Quan into a philosophical society, which later took part in the Boxer Uprising.
As a boxing style, and according to many Kung Fu masters, Yihe Quan is the same as Meihua Quan (Plum Blossom Boxing). Apparently Chu Hungtang did Meihua Quan and taught his style to Yihe Quan members. Later, during Boxers Rebellion, masters of others styles joined Yihe Quan society.
As regards Wan Xian Zhai, he is the founder of Yi Quan, a different style from Yihe Quan, which bears no relation to this one. Yi Quan is based on Xingyi Quan, another famous Kung Fu style.
In relation to Wen Taizong´s name, I must say that he was also known as Ziming, but I have never heard other names of him, though I have read other transcriptions from chinese as Wen Lao Cho or Wen Lanshi.
Regards.
Rogelio Casero

[Ironpig]

http://www.shorinjikempo.or.jp/wsko/

By the power of the internet, I have copied the link to the official world organization web page with the information you seek.

[Oso]

been talked about quite a bit here. try a forum search.

[Mr Punch]

There are two shorinji kempos.

One is the one invented in 1947, by So Doshin (see above link). It says on that site that he combined the CMA and JMA he had learned, but in fact he admitted to have just seen the name in China and decided it sounded like what he wanted to express. There is no evidence that he even learned any CMA, and no reason to think (despite that site claiming that he experienced the full wretchedness of a defeated people when he was in China!) that any Chinese people would have taught anything to their invaders in that time.

The other is Okinawan kempo which does come from China. This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenpo) wiki link doesn't use the name shorinji, but I have heard it called that by its practioners over here.

[lunghushan]

They have a place in Seattle. I called them once and it didn't sound bad but I have no other information.

http://www.shorinjiseattle.org/

[jethro]

Shorinji Kempo(Killing Machine) is my favorite Chiba flick. Awesome movie.

[Shaolin Wookie]

I love it how extremely old threads get rehashed like a year-and-a-half later. If you're not looking at dates, you almost think you're talking to someone who's still there.

[white tiger]

Where can I purchase the Jet Li movie The Shaolin Temple (1982)? I have heard this is an excellent movie.:confused:

[SPJ]

the movie is alright.

I think it is his first or debut movie.

big smiles on his young face.

--

:)

[Shaolinlueb]

support the board buy it here. (http://www.martialartsmart.net/dvd40021.html)

[lonewolf]

half.com or ebay. i bought a 2 disc set with shaolin 1 and 2 for $.99. i would check those for the best deals.

[jethro]

It is a VERY good movie. I like the 2nd one even better.

MAKE SURE you get a good version. I would recommend supporting the board like Shaolinleub says. If you look for a deal you will be like me and have this movie in dam full screen format which ruins it.

[jethro]

Hey White Tiger, this version may be full screened-http://www.martialartsmart.net/dvd40021.html Hopefully somebody can comment if it's not.

Seek out the Mei Eh version. You will be doing yourself a big favor.

[white tiger]

Are all of the versions in different languages? I am seeking the English version.Everyones help is greatly appreciated.:)

[jethro]

There is a Jet Li 3-pack with Shaolin Temple 1 and 2 on it. It is from World Video and it is badly full screened with bad picture quality. IT IS IN ENGLIGH THOUGH. I cannot recommend it but it is not too bad of a deal.

Like I said, the Mei Eh version is widescreened and in it's original language. It may be hard to track down but it would be worth it. If you have to have it English dubbed then you may not be able to find a good version.

[white tiger]

I took your advice Shaolieub and supported the board. Thanks!

[Shaolinlueb]

I took your advice Shaolieub and supported the board. Thanks!

awesome man!!!!

[GeneChing]

'The Shaolin Temple' and the Cultural Significance of the 'Star Wars' of Chinese Cinema (http://fightland.vice.com/blog/the-shaolin-temple-and-the-cultural-significance-of-the-star-wars-of-chinese-cinema)
Fightland Blog
By Sascha Matuszak

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/55068/jetli333-v2.jpg

Right when Return of the Jedi was about to hit theaters across America, bringing the epic Star Wars trilogy to a resounding close, China was experiencing its own Star Wars-esque craze following the 1982 release of The Shaolin Temple.

Chinese had been force-fed propaganda screeds for decades, featuring impossibly brave Communists and sneering, evil Japanese invaders, or at best kitschy musicals on the resplendence of Mao Zedong and how gloriously red the east was, and always would be. By the 1980s, Chinese were glassy-eyed followers of a defunct cult. Mao had died in 1976, taking the insanity of the Cultural Revolution with him. Suddenly, a short Sichuanese veteran of the rebellion, Deng Xiaoping, was talking about opening up and reform, about making money instead of weaving together red sashes and smelting pig iron in a backyard furnace.

Right at that critical point in time, a classic kung fu flic was released, and it blew a billion minds. The Shaolin Temple was filmed in and around an ancient Buddhist temple, the cast were almost all national wushu champions or opera troupe vets, and the director hailed from Hong Kong, an adventurous territory flaunting shiny, once-forbidden baubles. It was a raucous plot, thick with violence and rebellion and religious undertones. There was dog meat, righteous drunkenness, and every kung fu move you could dream of. Not a single red flag, Communist trope, or ode to Mao.

It hit China like a Super Star Destroyer into a beleaguered Death Star.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqagZNrKSgs

Tens of thousands of youths fled their dreary lives and headed for the Shaolin Temple in search of a master. Here’s the New York Times writing in September of 1982:

“The Chinese press has warned that some teen-agers get too preoccupied with wushu. China Youth Newspaper reported that books on the martial arts were selling out as fast as they appeared and that practice sessions even took place on street corners. Some youths have run off to Shaolin Monastery on the forested slopes of Songshan Mountain east of Luoyang, under the misconception that its monks still taught the martial arts.

In a letter to Guangming Daily, Bo Jingfen wrote from Xian that 'others are playing with swords and cudgels, causing a loss to their studies and unease among their school, family and society.'’”

Wushu as a sport exploded; kung fu as an art was brought back from the dead. Cinema in China would never be the same. This was the blockbuster action film to complement the New China emerging from a half century of destructive ideological nonsense. It would usher in a golden age for martial arts in China, blow up Hong Kong’s film industry, and captivate a generation of inner city American kids.

The Story

Jet Li debuted in The Shaolin Temple as Jue Yun, the son of a rebel who watches his father die at the hands of Wang Shichong’s generals. He escapes and makes it to the temple where he learns kung fu and waits to get his revenge. In the process he joins the monks and their martial arts instructor, starts a small romance with his shifu’s kung fu daughter, and saves the man who will rule all of China in a few years, Li Shimin, the Tang emperor Taizong.

https://upload-assets.vice.com/files/2015/05/29/1432917374May_29__2015_11_31.gif
Jet Li leaps into battle after watching his father get ganged up on.

The plot is based upon an actual historical encounter between Shaolin warrior monks and the Sui dynasty general Wang Shichong’s troops, in a critical battle that helped Li Shimin establish the Tang dynasty in eastern China. Li was the second son of Li Yuan, the Tang Emperor Gaozu, who had established the dynasty in 618 at Chang’an (Xi’an). Wang fought on in the east of the country around Luoyang, just a few miles north of the Shaolin Temple, hoping to establish his own Zheng dynasty as a rival to the Tang. In the final battles, the Shaolin monks took a strategic pass from Wang’s troops and captured his nephew, Wang Renze. Five days later, Li Shimin crushed Wang’s Sui ally Dou Jiande and Wang sued for peace.

All of this is recorded on a remarkable stele in the Shaolin Temple, engraved in the year 728. The stele contains several different texts, including a letter from Li Shimin, the Tang Emperor Taizong himself, sent to the temple days after the monks took the pass:

“Recently, there has been chaos under heaven. Nowhere in the land is there a lord, and the world is falling apart. ... This court [the Tang Dynasty] has received the heavenly omens of government. It upholds the correct Buddhist truth. ...

Shaolin’s Master of the Law, together with the other monks, deeply comprehended the changing circumstances and adapted to them. The monks immediately realized which action would yield the Buddhist fruit, and they succeeded in drawing an excellent plan. ...

The results of their respectful observance and expressed loyalty have become known at court. Their way of attainment and self-cultivation adds further glory to their Buddhist temple. We heard [of Shaolin’s contribution] with pleasure and appreciation. It surpasses imagination and words. The monastery should be supported, and its monks generously rewarded. Regardless of changing circumstances, the monastery should be provided with fixed income. ...”

The movie deviates from the historical record, turning a small raid on a strategic fort into a pitched battle on the steps of the temple, but the basics are the same.

Jet Li, whose real name is Li Lianjie, was just 19 when this movie was being filmed, but he was already a five-time national wushu champion training with Chinese wushu godfather Wu Bin. Li turned out to be a pretty good actor, an unexpected boon for director Zhang Xinyan who had earlier decided to recast wushu performers and try and turn them into passable actors, instead other way around. The real treat was his wushu though. The classic scene for wushu enthusiasts is the “training through four seasons” performance toward the middle of the movie, after Jue Yun has failed to avenge his father and returns to the temple to improve his martial arts skills.

https://upload-assets.vice.com/files/2015/05/29/1432914704Shaolin_Kungfu.gif
​Just a normal day at the Shaolin Temple.

This was the first time wushu as an art form was able to hit the screen and reach more than a billion eyeballs. Several big time wushu champions starred in The Shaolin Temple, so the fight scenes grew more and more epic as the film went on. By the time the character work had been done and most of the audience was aware of who was who and what motivated them, Zhang unleashed his wushu cast. The last 40 minutes or more of the movie are just mass battle scenes featuring intricate face-offs between anyone who wasn’t an extra. Each battle is separated by a filler horse chase.

After a few more pitched battles, chases, and rescue missions, Jue Yuan finally gets his shot at the man who killed his father. Every weapon in the wushu arsenal is whipped out in this crazy fight that ends abruptly with a sword thrust to the chest. No hesitation at all when the monk-to-be Jue Yuan has the chance to land the death blow.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

The Monk’s Struggle

The struggle to be a good Buddhist is a thread that runs through the movie, from the very beginning, when Jue Yuan considers whether or not he can keep from killing someone, to the very end, when he thinks real hard about the celibacy vow he’s asked to take. It’s clear from the very outset that Jet Li’s character is one of those wild monks who gathered about the temple to escape the banditry and chaos of medieval China.

His shifu, played by praying mantis master Yu Hai, tolerates his charges‘ desires for meat and wine. He even sneaks a bite of dog meat himself, in the bamboo groves outside the temple, telling his pupils that, “meat and wine don't hurt, if Buddha is in your heart. The Buddha does not mind these things.”

https://upload-assets.vice.com/files/2015/05/29/1432914697Shifu_Sneaks_Some_Meat.gif
​Dog makes a delicious meal.

What struck me is how Buddhist law is portrayed as somewhat of a joke in The Shaolin Temple, an encumbrance to actually doing right and getting the job done. Religion here is the quaint province of batty mystics like the abbot, a detached old man who preaches tolerance and love for all, despite the war and blood all around him. His second in command admonishes the half-monk martial artists for bringing violence into the temple, but instead of the righteous monk who holds onto his ideals, he is portrayed as an annoying gossip almost, a shrew spouting “it’s a sin!” and “Buddha bless him!” until the very end, when he calls out to the monks to kill the invading soldiers in his final moments, “they deserve it, kill!”

The abbot too, calls for the wild monks to “release them, guide their souls to heaven” when the soldiers of the Sui general Wang Shichong wreak havoc in the temple. The abbot - and through him the Buddha - gives the fighting monks permission and religious license to go to war. It’s in effect a Buddhist call for jihad.

Jet Li’s character begins the movie intent on disobeying Buddhism’s first law, no killing. At the end, after we relive his quest for vengeance, he alters the law for himself:

“I shall not kill, [and if I do] only to uphold righteousness.”

https://upload-assets.vice.com/files/2015/05/29/1432914699Jet_Li_Murder.gif
Jet Li has murder on his mind.

Religion in this film is in all ways subservient to needs of the state. Remember that religion was outlawed and persecuted right up until 1976, just three years before the initial filming on the project began and China in 1982 was still Communist in policy, even if the economic and social control of the Communist ideology was crumbling. Director Zhang Xinyan walks a very fine line between promoting religion and Buddhist principles and advocating righteous violence against oppressive, corrupt usurpers, in service of a true ruler.

The Longmen Grottoes

An interesting historical note: the scene in the film when the emperor-to-be Li Shimin and Yue Jun hide out in large caves surrounded by Buddhist figurines carved out of the rock was filmed at the Longmen Grottoes, one of the world’s great collections of Buddhist carvings, just a few minutes drive outside of Luoyang. Monks and artists began carving figures into the limestone cliffs a few hundred years before the events in the movie take place, and it’s likely that bandits and monks and runaway emperors could have hidden out here for a while.

I can think of few cooler places to have a hideout.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/55067/LongmenBoddhi.jpg
The Temple Reborn

Shaolin was a scattered relic of a place in 1982. About a dozen monks and an aging old patriarch who had seen the temple burn to the ground in 1928 and stood by as Red Guards ransacked the place. It was a windswept ruin ducking down and trying to avoid the blows dealt out erratically by the changeable, angry zealots in charge of China’s vast bureaucracy.

There is a photo of She Dechan, the head Buddhist in charge (it wasn’t until 1999 that the government appointed an abbot, the first since 1664) in 1982, the year the movie hit the scene. He has a smile on his face. His successor, Shi Dequan, would lead China during the tumultuous years following the movie, when thousands of wannabe Jet Lis converged on Shaolin and nearby Dengfeng Town. Shaolin became an overnight sensation, tourists came in busloads and martial arts schools opened up all around the area. A heady mix of kung fu guys emerging from the bushes and charlatan shadows trying to get in on the mix crowded out the monks who had been there before the explosion, when Buddhism was a reactionary evil.

Over the next two decades, the small schools on the fringe of the temple’s territory would swell to thousands of students, with teams competing all over the world. One million tourists a year would walk through the temple grounds. Dozens more movies would be shot on location and the Shaolin brand would become a household name all across the world.

Today’s temple, a flourishing business and wushu assembly line, owes its current wealth and status to the movie, The Shaolin Temple, which came at exactly the right point in time to blow way the scraps of Communist living and usher in a golden age for Chinese martial arts and kung fu cinema. More from Sascha here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68245-New-Masters-Documentary-MMA-and-Kungfu-in-China) (he's a member here).

[GeneChing]

Jet Li reveals he made only 14 cents a day filming ‘Shaolin Temple’ (https://news.yahoo.com/jet-li-reveals-made-only-234652236.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall)
Ryan General
Tue, November 14, 2023 at 3:46 PM PST·2 min read

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/djPRU6Ifxhczfmgn8JdkLg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTIwNDg7aD0xMTUyO2NmPXdlYn A-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/nextshark_articles_509/6750e41948b8e8c3ba18d5cec3db744a
[Source]

Martial arts legend Jet Li disclosed in his newly released book that he earned a mere one yuan (equivalent to $0.14 today) per day while filming his debut movie “Shaolin Temple” at age 17 in 1982.

About the film: The Hong Kong-Chinese film sold around 500 million tickets at the Chinese box office, becoming one of China's highest-grossing films ever when adjusted for inflation. The film became so influential that, a remake of the film, titled “Shaolin,” was made in 2011, featuring Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse and Jackie Chan.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTIm8b9Rft8

Humble beginnings: In his book, "Looking for Jet Li: Beyond Life and Death," the 60-year-old superstar talked about how and why he persevered despite his meager compensation for the groundbreaking film.


"My earnings were incomparable to what others were making in the 1990s. Despite that, I was treated like a Hollywood star at the time. The amount I earned while breaking my arms and legs to survive in the industry paled in comparison to what the businessmen doing global investments were earning."

Balancing dreams and reality: While Li made only around $750 in total for his film debut, he was determined to pursue a career in acting. After completing “Shaolin Temple,” he made the tough decision to not return to martial arts competitions as it would jeopardize his budding acting career.

"If I were to return to being an athlete, my acting career would have to stop,” Li wrote in the book. “I couldn't say no to competing due to the organization's regulations. The only way for me to get out of the competition was to get injured."

Long journey to stardom: The success of the film led to two sequels, "Shaolin Temple 2: Kids from Shaolin" in 1984 and "Shaolin Temple 3: Martial Arts of Shaolin" in 1986, during which Li continued to receive minimal pay. He even contemplated quitting the industry due to poor working conditions and disagreements with directors.

But his perseverance would eventually pay off as the films ultimately established Li as the first Mainland Chinese superstar of Hong Kong, and later Hollywood. His fame allowed him to command lucrative paychecks a few decades later. For instance, Li earned 70 million yuan ($9.6 million) in the 2002 epic “Hero” and 100 million yuan ($13.7 million) for 2007's “The Warlords.”

Shaolin Temple (1982) the original film (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?44939-Shaolin-Temple-(1982)-the-original-film)
Looking for Jet Li: Beyond Life and Death (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72626-Jet-Li-Looking-for-Jet-Li-Beyond-Life-and-Death-by-Jet-Li-(%26%2336229%3B%26%2336234%3B%26%2329983%3B%26%232 7515%3B%26%2365306%3B%26%2326446%3B%26%2336899%3B% 26%2326480%3B%26%2323563%3B%26%2325214%3B%26%23264 46%3B%26%2336899%3B%26%2326480%3B))