Buddhism And Kung-fu Movies

[camerata]

Has anyone ever seen a martial arts movie where Buddhism is treated intelligently? Mostly it seems to be Shaolin priests ready to rumble at the slightest provocation. Even in the classic Touch of Zen there is no Zen and just two short scenes where the bad guys get tough with some monks and get their butts kicked.

I recently came across an exception - Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (a.k.a. Invincible Pole Fighter). This re-mastered 70s movie has Gordon Lui (lately of Kill Bill) as a fugitive from the army that killed his brothers. He enters a remote temple, bursting with rage, and demands to be ordained. When the abbot says he isn't ready, he tries to beat the sh*t out of him with his pole and then rampages through the temple until he finds the ordination hall, where he kneels down in front of the Buddha image.

The monks of course just melt into the shadows, saying something like, "It's his hair, so we can't stop him." In a very intense scene, he procedes to shave off his own hair and impale his head nine times on huge incense sticks.

The obligatory training scene is pretty imaginative and sets up the finale. The monks train with wooden poles against a moveable wooden wolf - the objective being to de-fang the wolf without killing it (although a defanged wolf wouldn't last long in the wild!). You can probably guess how the monks help him in the final battle without actually killing anyone.

There are some very fine action scenes in this movie, particularly the one where our angry hero manages to duff up the abbot of the temple without actually hurting him.

I am not that familiar with Chinese Buddha images but it seems to me that in movies they always look very weird. I wonder if the producers try to make them look less Buddha-like so as not to offend viewers? Anyone know what the large Buddha image in Replacement Killers was? It didn't look much like Amida to me.

[Abandon]

Good point Cam. Buddhism has been hi-jacked by martial arts practitioners who often look to Bodhidharma as their originator. Thus these action movies all make some allusion to Buddhism, but without tact or respect (though not overly disrespectful either viz. Crouching Tiger). Lets face it - movie goers want to see blood.

In the real world however, I have seen a lot of martial arts trainers who do have a good respect, and understanding of Buddhism. And who are not out to spill blood or show off.

In a similar vein I have noted a crass tendency for drug users to pay a certain 'homage' to Buddhism, almost a way of making thier trips into something spiritual.

[fivevenoms]

Well, the film you referenced, 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, was one of many, many, Shaw Brothers films featuring Buddhist kung-<deleted> fighters, all of whom can be more or less leaked back to a single source.

The perhaps overly-referenced Shaolin Temple was famous for it's practitioners of Kung-<deleted>, which in turn helped them in their meditations, and depending on whom you listen to, the defence of the temple/monks. Despite its fame as a center of martial arts, there was no evidence I'm aware of that the monks wandered the countryside kicking ass, as shown in film. They are also often seen in opposition to the Daoists of WuDang (Wu Tang) mountain, who of course, are also kung <deleted> masters. Eventually, the Shaolin temple was burned to the ground by the Qing Dynasty, who were afraid of a group of well trained monks who could theoretically pass their martial knowledge along, or act as soldiers, which apparently also happened. The temple was burned, and some monks, did, in fact escape and pass on the teachings of the Shaolin Temple. Many kung <deleted> schools today can trace their lineages back to some of these monks. It was later rebuilt, burned again, and I believe hence rebuilt.

This is the root for many of the films you mentioned. 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, and some other films, were directed and occasionally written by a director named Lau Kar Leung, or Liu Chia Liang, depending on Cantonese vs Mandarin language reference, who has a VERY strong background in traditional kung <deleted>, which probably explains his respect for some of the Buddhist references in his films. However, the Shaw Brothers studios made so many films that the elements in them became more than a little cliche, so you see "monks" randomly appearing in other films indiscriminately wandering around breaking limbs and such, in such films that incorporate only the elements of the original Shaw Brothers films, without regard to the backgrounds of the monks, etc.

This bout of too much information comes to you courtesy of Singha beer and too many Kung <deleted> movies viewed.