Shaolin Wooden Men (1976)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Really Surprised!

Admirable film.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Jackie Chan stars in one of his early career movie. Lowe Wei who directed Fist of Fury, and the New Fist of Fury directs this movie as well.Jackie Chan is a new student of kung fu at the Shaolin Temple. They have all sorts of torturous equipments to build the skills of the students. He has a bad memory from childhood. Witnessing his father getting murdered, by a masked kung fu artist. He then meets series of three teachers who are willing to teach him covertly. One is a drunken monk, the other is a nun, and finally a prisoner in a dungeon. These three teach Jackie Chan techniques of kung fu.The graduation at Shaolin temple consists of passing the corridor lined with wooden men that will kick and punch at anyone who tries to pass. Jackie Chan with his knowledge, succeeds in passing the corridor. On the outside of the temple, things aren't exactly peaceful. There's strife everywhere. The man in the dungeon escapes and threatens to destroy Shaolin temple. In order to save the temple, old master teaches Jackie Chan the secret technique of Shaolin temple. The man that's threatening the temple is revealed to be Jackie Chan's father's killer also. Jackie challenges him to a duel.The movie is old school, but compared to other old school kung fu movies where quality usually was very poor, ones that stars Jackie Chan seems to consistently have high qualities. This movie's quality is several notches above the average movies of this type. This was before he got his role as the student in "The Drunken Master" and his comical side has not yet emerged. The story has all the old school kung fu movie elements. Shaolin temple, revenge, student coming of age, and a secret technique. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but is a good movie to watch.

Okay early Chan starring vehicles; very heavy handed, with little humor; a lot of training sequences, more than usual for the genre at this time - these are more realistic than similar training episodes of the period, but they lack of any inherent interest, perhaps for that very reason. The fight scenes are well-choreographed, largely because Chan is clearly choreographing himself. The actual 'wooden men' sequence is unconvincing; this particular legend was best presented by Joseph Kuo in "The 18 Bronzemen," where Kuo presents the Bronzemen as men in bronze paint, rather than the robots or spirit-possessed statues of other films. Here they are rather ungainly robots, and not very threatening, to be honest.The big plus of the film is the relationship between Chan and his teacher, who is also the lead villain - that double identity gives the film its real weight, and the resolution of this relationship in the final fight is almost carried off - enough so to leave the fan of such films of its era satisfied.

This is a very interesting Jackie Chan film. It has the usual revenge cliché's but already you can see several elements that would become common place in his later movies.Two scenes stand out in this movie: the opening scene with the fighting monks and the final fight scene where 'Dummy' confronts the killer of his father. The scenes with the Buddhist non are for some reason quite touching. This film is a must for die-hard Jackie Chan fans but if you are an occasional Jackie Chan viewer you might be put-off because this early movie is much darker in tone than his later movies (e.g. Project A) and thus has none of the humor that characterizes his later movies so much.

Jackie Chan stars in a role that could have been taken by...hmmm...lets say...anyone. This coming of age tale detailing the life of a mute-struck kungfu student and his eccentric teachers, is not as bad but just as weird and predictable as any other kungfu tale.Your basic unlikely hero emerges from his shell to rise to the occasion, type of thing.You're better off with sci-fi on this one folks. Either find a Hong Kong comedy or a nice piece of camp-like "Vixen!"I hope this helps,The Lazy Southerner