When the evil Qing dynasty learn that the famed Shaolin Temple is harboring rebels, the ruling manchu send the undefeatable kung-fu priest Pai Mei (Lo Lieh) to destroy it. He kills the headmaster of the temple handily after... trapping a low kick with his crotch in a scene that could only be improved if he screamed "prehensile groin technique!"
The surviving students flee into the countryside, and after a narrow escape from imperial forces (aided by an extremely heroic sacrifice from fellow student played by Gordon Liu) they decide to spread out and crew the red boats that ply the rivers of China, passing themselves off as theater performers. One day, they hope, to get their revenge against Pai Mei and those nasty nasty Qing.
Thus the stage is set for another traditional tale of sedition and revolution - but a funny thing happens: While alighting at the riverside, one of the rebellion's leaders, the inventor of tiger boxing Hung Hsi-Kuan (Chen Kuan-tai) has a meet-cute with Fang (Lily Li), a local beauty who also happens to be a master of the crane style.
His quest for revenge is delayed as they court, get married and have a child. Honour demands a confrontation, however, one for which his skill in the tiger style may not be powerful enough.
Executioners From Shaolin is another classic Shaw Brothers film from director Lau Kar-lung, and its tone is far lighter than its premise might lead you to think - this is both a good and a bad thing. Good, because love story itself and the Hung family life are genuinely charming and sweet; Bad, because there's a lot of grating comedy about idiots behaving like children that I could not manage to find endearing - Cheng Kang Yeh (I think), specifically, is insufferable, and the film gets a lot better once the film leaves Hsi-Kuan's compatriots aside to focus on his family life and quest to kill Pai Mei.
The fights are impeccable - very old school in that you can set a metronome to them, but pretty inventive and the athleticism of the performers is above reproach. The fighting is a lot dirtier than most other Kung Fu movies I've seen, with a bunch of eye gouging and a lot - and I do mean a lot - of attempted testicle crushing, kicking, snatching and clawing. Many of the moves are pretty comedic, too; I'm not sure how to feel about the climactic move that brings about Pai Mei's final defeat on a dramatic level, but I can't argue that it got a huge belly laugh out of me.
There's also a good share of cool and original training montages, the highlight of which is a target dummy with marbles running through it to represent chi flows. Or something, I'm no expert (clearly). But it is pretty cool.
More than anything else, the film ends up telling a very satisfying, deeply felt story about inter-generational revenge that manages to make kung fu techniques and philosophies integral to their development. I love that sort of thing.
There's so much to like here. Fang's mastery of the "two-adduction stance", where she locks her legs in an unmovable fighting stance, comes into play at her wedding night in a very cute, funny, and successful show of pride; Years later, her son (Wong Yu) trains with her father in a brilliant fight that begins over the dinner table (a chopstick duel that predates Fearless Hyena's by a couple of years) and then moves to wreaking havoc among the clotheslines. The final result? The almost mythical warriors chastised, one mending clothes and the other doing the washing.
I think this film suffers from being placed next to the other classics Lau Kar-lung produced during his decades as a director. And to be perfectly honest, I found the film to be a little on the slower side, with a little too much time devoted to unsuccessful comedy. But it's a great story, well told, with the requisite amazing kung fu and characters that are a lot easier to root for than these movies normally manage. It's another good one.
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