The workers of a dye factory have their pay cut by 20% when the factory owner brings in some Manchu thugs to try and increase production. Desperate to reclaim their full wages, the workers hire an actor to impersonate a priest and kung-fu expert from the temple of Shaolin.Director Lau Kar-leung excels in this action-comedy. When I think Shaw Brothers kung fu, I think of Chang Cheh, which may be very narrow of me (I am still learning). But Lau is every bit as great, and in some ways maybe even greater, because although much of this looks like a Shaw action film, the comedy is excellent, clearly drawing on old-school American slapstick.

The original 36th Chamber is known as one of the best Kung Fu movies of all time and I personally echo that sentiment, putting it right up there with The Master of the Flying Guillotine, Seven Grandmasters and The Invincible Armour. I was therefore worried that this movie has been tagged as sequel, knowing that it was unlikely to live up to its predecessor. It turned out to be one of the best movies I have seen in the Kung Fu/Wuxia genre. The story began in a not unfamiliar fashion, where a group of laborers are exploited by their employer who hires some Manchus to essentially frighten them into working harder for less money. They try to fight back and to go on strike but are badly beaten by the Manchus. The workers then get there friend Chao Jen-Cheh (Gordon Lu), an actor, to pretend to be a dangerous Shaolin priest so he can intimidate the Manchus and the boss into treating them fairly but he is eventually found out as a fraud and he too is beaten terribly. After this, Chao vows to go to Shaolin and learn Kung Fu for real and to return to set things straight. For the next while the movie takes a comedic turn as Chao tries many tricks to emerge himself in Shaolin's 36th Chamber (a Kung Fu training zone) and the Abbot takes pity on him, allowing him to stay at Shaolin to put together Scaffolding and fix the temple roofs. Chao does this happily as it allows him to observe the 36th Chamber and he presumes he will be taken on as a student when the roof has been mended. However, 3 years later when the work is complete, he is distraught to find that he is asked to leave the temple without have received any Kung Fu training. He goes back to the village and explains to his worker friends that he has learned nothing. They are angry at him for having learned nothing the entire time he was away and attack him, only to find that Chao has in fact picked up quite a bit simply from having observed the Shaolin students and having incorporated what he has seen into his scaffolding work. Having discovered him strength, Chao challenges the Manchu and the boss who he is now able to defeat with considerable style.The oblivious "training" sequences in this film are great and again they justify the use of the label "36th Chamber" as the original movie is well known for it fantastic training act. All great Kung Fu movies have an amazing training act and this one is no exception.Another thing which I loved about this movie was the unique "scaffolding Kung Fu" style which Chao learns. His time as a scaffolder means that his fighting style is one which largely consists of tying his opponents up. This is unique, amusing, entertaining, impressive and also it brought the whole story together. This is because the laborers at the start are using "colour sticks" to mix sheets of cloth into dye. When the Manchus are introduces, they bare their bamboo batons and declare facetiously "these are our colour sticks". These in the final fight scenes are reminiscent of the bamboo poles that Chao uses in scaffolding the temple and as he takes the Manchus on, he ties each of them and the batons together like scaffolding. It's brilliant the way this all ties together...The criticisms I have are only twofold and very, very minor. Firstly I found it hard to believe when Chao returns to the village completely unaware that his skills have improved...then again this is a Kung Fu movie and anything can happen. Secondly, one of the lead characters, a worker who provides some early comic relief, has enormous false teeth. This was supposed to be funny but is actually a big and unwelcome distraction.

I love kung-fu and bought this movie under the name 36th chamber, I thought it was THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN. I paid $1 for it and the quality was horrible, so I decided to go and buy the DRAGON DYNASTY release of THE 36TH CHAMBERS OF SHAOLIN. I was going to toss the older version when I happened to notice it was Johnny Wang on the cover, so I put it in the player and sure enough it was RETURN TO THE THE 36TH CHAMBERS. Now I've gotta get a better version of this film, because the DVD I have is a VHS transfer dollar DVD and it's horrible.Anyway so Gordon Liu is back, but this time around he is playing a new character. I really loved him as San Te on the first one, it was a serious and dark Kung Fu gem. This one he plays Jen Cheh and its one of those comedy/kung-fu mixtures. I must admit I was extremely disappointed that it wasn't a real sequel to the first. I wish it had been under another name completely and still used the 36th chambers, its not like anyone could replace Gordon for the part, it just needed a different title. I hate when sequels get off from the first movie and do something like this.... NOT TO SAY THIS IS A BAD MOVIE AT ALL...Far from bad, this is a great film, unfortunately I have a horrible full screen version so I couldn't appreciate all Master Liu's direction had to offer, I know it was good for what I could tell and even in full screen it captured a lot of the beauty of the fights, especially in early scenes where Jen was pretending to be a monk.Gordon put on a lot of weight in the few years in between these movies and looked less like a kung-fu champ and more like a regular guy, which was good for his characters humble beginnings but not so good for where his character would've ended up with all that work and pseudo training.The movie has a small town's biggest economical leader (a dye shop) taken over by ruthless bosses in order to get a better assembly. They cut the pay and refuse to let workers leave, so when a beggar posing as a monk comes to town they use him to fool the bosses and scare them with his fake fighting style. Ultimately the bosses find out this monk is a liar and they beat him up. He then goes to Shaolin Temple, and unlike San Te in the first film, Cha Jen Cheh doesn't get in to train with the others, he is instead told to work and build scaffolding and repair all the roofs of all the chambers.He sets off working, and even sleeping on the roof and spends all of his time watching the other pupils train. He mocks and imitates their moves and becomes an almost acrobatic master on his scaffolding. Once he finishes the job over a year later he asks to join now that hes done the work and the monk still refuses. He goes back home to sadly tell everyone he didn't get to train and they wonder what he's been doing for over a year while he was away. He soon realizes that he is a master of kung fu simply by watching and the imitation practices he had been doing and he takes on the evil boss played by Johnny Wang in one of the best fights ever filmed.You can never go wrong with the Shaw Bros. I've said it a million times.. here brothers Gordon and Chi-Liang once again made a damn good movie...It a great film and if you love martial arts you will wanna check it out, its not a true sequel, but stands alone perfectly. My flaws was that it was super slow building up to the action, it had way too much of a comedy aspect and I gave it 6 out of 10 stars.

This movie is one of the many "Kung Fu" action films made in Asia in the late '70s - early '80s, full of cheap sound effects, dubbed dialog and lightning fast martial arts action. But unlike most films of this genre it also has a decent plot and lots of great comedy. When workers of a dye factory are forced out of their jobs by Manchu bullies, they hire a con-artist (Gordon Liu) to try to scare them off. When his attempt fails miserably, he cons his way into a Shaolin temple to learn to fight for real. But instead of making him a Kung-Fu student, the Master instead orders him to build a scaffolding to cover the roofs of all 36 chambers. Well, it turns out that while he's performing these menial tasks (stacking and tying bamboo poles) that he's learning the skills to be a Kung-Fu expert! It's sort of like in Karate Kid when Mr. Miagi teaches Daniel the basics of karate by having him do routine household chores- "Wax on, wax off" et cetera. There's lots of great comedy from beginning to end, and plenty of action at the end when Gordon Liu once again faces his Manchu tormentors. "This time it's not just tricks- it's the real thing!" Liu declares, proudly thumping his chest. If you like classic Kung Fu films you don't want to miss this one!