The Family That Slays Together — EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN (1977) [Two Cents]
Two Cents
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
THE PICK
Your tiger style is very weak. Our kung fu is great!
Combining action with broad comedy with an epic historical sweep, Executioners From Shaolin may not be the best known kung fu film to escape from Shaw Brothers Studios, but its by turns zany and melodramatic style offers a wide-range of what the studio could accomplish.
Executioners From Shaolin also features one of the earliest appearances by Pai Mei, a legendary figure of kung fu history, best known to modern audiences thanks to Kill Bill (where he’s played by Gordon Liu, who also pops up in this film and meets an early end at the hands of Pai Mei’s forces). Despite meeting a fairly spectacular end in Executioners From Shaolin, Priest Pai Mei and his killer-crotch would return for many more films.
But aside from that bit of genre history, does Executioners From Shaolin hold up for modern eyes? Are the fights outdated, the lurching tones off-putting? This week, the Two Cents team will throw down with the mighty temple of Shaolin, and only one will emerge triumphant!
(It will be the mighty temple of Shaolin that wins. They kill people with their bare hands, we watch movies. Not even close to a fair fight, whose idea was this?)
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
There are many horror masters, but there was only one Wes Craven. Next week, we will salute this icon of the genre by watching his decade-defining smash hit Scream. Join us as we stroll down memory lane with Ghostface and revisit a film that possibly saved the horror genre when it was at its lowest ebb, and rewrote the entire trajectory of cinematic terror.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
THE TEAM
Ed:
Informed citizens of 2015 all have the benefit of having lived with the wise words of Bruce Lee for most of their lives. We all know to “become like water, my friend”. But unfortunately for Kuan Tai Chen (Hung Hsi-Kuan), this kind of form melding wisdom wasn’t available back in the Dynastic days of China. A stubborn adherent to the Tiger style, Kuan spends his life training to defeat the villainous white-browed priest Pai Mei (who murdered his master for political power), all the while shunning his wife’s advice to learn her own Crane style. Meanwhile, Pai Mei continues to cap fools with his trademark mandibled genitalia. I can’t make these things up. Executioners From Shaolin has perhaps the most scenes of domesticity ever captured in a kung fu film, with father, wife, and curiously-dressed-as-a-female son training together over a lifetime for a chance at vengeance against one of the better old school kung fu villains I’ve ever seen. When Tiger and Crane styles finally merge to vanquish Pai Mei, it’s a hugely satisfying capper to this bizarre and often humorous kung fu parable. I’ll still take Master Of The Flying Guillotine any day, but this entry is up there. (@Ed_Travis)
Elizabeth:
I haven’t seen a lot of old-school martial arts movies (I went through a Jackie Chan phase in high school, as one does, so I watched Drunken Master), and I wasn’t sure what to expect. There’s barely a plot to this revenge-driven film, but a whole lot of action. The fight choreography is flat-out fantastic, and there’s an element of humor even in the fights to the death.
However, the camerawork and crowded set gives Executioners from Shaolin a claustrophobic feeling, and there’s not much to the characters. Only one woman has substantial dialogue, and while she’s a bad-ass crane-style fighter, her character lacks depth and motivation. I want to know: what drew her to learn kung fu? Why was she traveling with her uncle? While her husband has his thirst for vengeance, her character ends up only serving to move the men’s storyline forward.
I noticed possible influences on the work of directors such as Ang Lee (the father-son dinner fight scene brought to mind the tea scene in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and Stephen Chow (as his fight sequences tend to be steeped in humor). But in everything but the fight scenes, this older movie is fairly mediocre. (@elizs)
Justin:
Executioners From Shaolin is a classic kung-fu film that I’ve never seen until this week. So, first and foremost, I’d like to thank Cinapse’s high priest for insisting on this as a Two Cents selection. Second, I’d like to thank Pai Mei for his legendary prowess and skill. Third, I’d like to thank Wen-Ding for learning to weave together the Crane and Tiger styles to take down Pai Mei (who would thus return from the dead in many more films to come).
A few scenes jump out as ones that will be etched into my brain for years. The opening sequence, featuring Pai Mei’s crotch of death, sets a tone for the film, combining humor, action, and battle sound effects that rival Batman for the best of all time. Tung Chin-chin’s badassery in another early battle taught me that it takes roughly 37 arrows in ones torso to kill them. Numerous other battles in the film were fantastic, but these stood out.
The other standout scene is one of pure comedic brilliance. Ying Chun, the lone female kung-fu master in the film, uses her mastery and strength to deny Hung Hsi-Kuan access to her nether regions. I laughed quite loudly. (@thepaintedman)
Brendan:
At its best, Executioners From Shaolin feels sort of like a wuxia Incredibles with mom, dad and son all practicing different forms of kung fu and wielding them against each other to solve family disputes. That’s only a small part of this surprisingly sprawling film, but it’s the aspect of the film that most struck me as I was watching it. That, and the sheer amount of time that is spent on crotch-punching and crotch-kicking. I thought Pai Mei having a murderous crotch was a one-off joke in Kill Bill Vol. 2, but his balls practically deserve their own credit they get so much attention.
Testicle-centric warfare aside, Shaolin is great! While the female lead is unfortunately short-changed, Shaolin benefits tremendously from a great central villain in the crotch-combat master Pai Mei. Having such a strong villain makes the various battles tremendously engaging, and Pai Mei’s final comeuppance is a stand-up-and-cheer worthy bit of gore.
Some Shaw Bros. films can feel frustratingly inert, but Shaolin has a good, simple structure that makes room for good, if very simple, character work and a wide variety of highly accomplished fights. It’s a great little film, and well worth seeking out on Netflix Instant. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Liam:
Let’s get the preliminary out of the way: The fighting is sick, just top level stuff, and there is a retracting penis so that is cool.
But there are two things I really love about this film. One is the goofy, fun style of it. There are so many gags and ridiculous bits interspersed with the fighting and death. It just has a bit of a Hollywood-esque fun filled goof off that I was charmed by it.
The other is how great this is as a period piece. We tend to forget this style of kung fu film is a period piece, because it feels so entirely falsified. Granted Pei Mei is in fact a historical figure according to legend, but the rest of this story feels fanciful. Yet, all period pieces are fictions, right? In fact, what is so odd about western cinema is our need to pretend our period pieces are “authentic”. This style of kung fu film makes no such pretense, but rather takes legend and weaves a contemporary tinged story which both mythologizes as well as illustrates current concerns. It is a tall tale without pretension of reality at all, which is wonderful. (@liamrulz)
Austin:
I’m a kung fu fan and I enjoyed Executioners From Shaolin as I do most Shaw Bros. films, but I may be a bit more critical of this one than the other reviewers. After an intriguing opening that sets up the primary conflict and features a pre-fame Gordon Liu, the film staggers into a weirdly paced, nonsensical script that shortcuts the plot with jarring contrivances. There are several instances where characters randomly exposit critical story updates without any context or causation. For example, in a key scene, a sidekick character who hasn’t been seen in awhile abruptly pops in and announces that he just discovered main villain Pai Mei’s weakness. How convenient.
As the film progressed though, I realized it was successfully dodging my expectations by turning into an epic family arc spanning two decades (which explains some of the rushed storytelling) and offering some neat surprises — for example, that protagonist Hong’s daughter is actually a boy.
A couple other reviewers mentioned that Hong’s wife is short-changed by a male-centric script but in this case I somewhat disagree. Fang Yung-chun doesn’t get a big back story or do much fighting, but she’s undoubtedly the soul of the picture. (@VforVashaw)
Frank:
I realize that the kung fu genre isn’t for everyone, but even the most hesitant of movie fans would be glad they gave Executioners From Shaolin a try. The fight scenes offer the type of action which gave the genre its popularity and legacy, while also managing to rise above a good many of the other films of its kind. There’s such an unstoppable and continuous intensity throughout the entire film which somehow remains even during the handful of non-fight scenes. Its literally quite impossible not to be taken by this ride brimming with fearless energy.
In spite of all the fighting however, Executioners from Shaolin is first and foremost the kind of sweeping epic which Eastern cinema pulls off so well. I love stories of long-standing feuds and quests for revenge as well as romance and family honor. Its not an easy feat to combine all these elements and have them work together as seamlessly as they do. Fortunately it manages this and more, even throwing in a number of surprisingly hilarious moments in the process.
In ranking genres, kung fu is far from being anywhere near the top when it comes to being the people’s favorite. Yet with entries as dynamic and multi-faceted as Executioners from Shaolin, there’s no question it should be nearer towards the top. (@frankfilmgeek)
James:
Any film that has a guy dispatch his enemies with a deadly crotch move gets my vote. Although relatively unfamiliar with the legendary Shaw Brothers’ oeuvre, if Executioners From Shaolin’s anything to go by, I need to do some serious cinematic brushing up.
Traditional to a fault, but executed so well (unsurprising from the director of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and The Legend of Drunken Master), EFS follows the usual chop-socky template: avenging fallen masters; dissing various Kung Fu styles; cackling, elaborate facial hair-stroking villains.
What’s unusual to my inexperienced eyes are the moments of warm (if uneven) comedy and the attempts at family drama as Kuan Tai Chen’s revolutionary leader tries to reconcile his responsibilities to his equally hard-ass wife and son with his raging desire for revenge against dastardly Priest Pai Mei (yes, him from Kill Bill Vol. 2). And the fact that the story takes place over nearly 20 years, inevitably leading to occasional narrative sagging.
But really it’s all about the frequent, well-crafted fight scenes adding to the charm of a film when everyone made whooshing sounds when they hit people, extreme zoom close-ups were all the rage, and the blood was really, really red. (@jconthagrid)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!
