A question for my Chinese readers: what does the Chinese title of this 1976 film mean? The official English title, "The New Shaolin Boxers", doesn't make sense. It seems totally irrelevant to what actually happens in the film.
Zhong Jian is an idealist young man. He fights injustice wherever he sees it. If he sees a woman being attacked he rescues her, and if people refuses to pay in his uncle's restaurant he beats them up. The trouble is that he does more harm than good. What's the point of forcing someone to hand over ten dollars for a meal if a dozen tables and chairs are shattered in the fight?
Despite the criticism, Zhong Jian doesn't change. His martial arts teacher, Master Zhou, sends him to learn a fighting skill called Choy Li Fut from an old monk.
Why does the training with monks always involve carrying buckets of water up hundreds of steps? Just asking. Is it really essential, or are the monks just too lazy to fetch their own water?
When Zhong Jian is visiting the village he hears that his former master has been killed by a local gang leader. He tells the monk that he wants revenge, and that's the only person he has on his side. He's taught essential fighting skills.
Fu Sheng, the actor who plays Zhong Jian, was only 21 at the time he made the film. His first acting experience was as an extra in "The 14 Amazons", and his talent was immediately recognised. After only four years, this is his 16th film. It looked like he was going to have a big career. He could have become one of the biggest Chinese stars of the 20th Century, but he died at the age of 28 in a car accident. We can be thankful that we have 43 films to remember him.
In the pre-credits scene, Fu Sheng demonstrates Choy Li Fut for uninitiated viewers like me.
Once more, I'm curious about the accuracy of the translations. I welcome my Chinese readers to leave comments below.
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| Fu Sheng 20 October 1954 – 7 July 1983 |
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