Shaolin Wooden Men

As far as martial arts movies go, Shaolin Wooden Men is pretty standard stuff, but I think it's still fun enough in bursts to make it worthwhile for fans of the genre and/or Jackie Chan. He plays a character here who doesn't speak, so I think that helps it stand out a little among all the other early Jackie Chan movies out there (I do feel like he really came into his own and made his best stuff during the 80s and 90s, though).

The plot here is one you've probably seen a bunch of times if you've even watched a decent number of martial arts flicks, but the action is solid (not great, but still mostly fun), and I guess that's the main thing. I don't know if I quite feel like it's a hugely underrated gem or anything, but it's a decent watch and a fairly good time.

A Jackie Chan movie is like pizza, even when it's bad it's still pretty good. First the good, it's a standard revenge plot. There's nothing wrong with seeing that for the millionth time. We're here for the martial arts not the story and the martial art does deliver. Even the hokey part fighting the wooden men (which easily could have failed) was done surprisingly well. The movie never dragged and the funny parts were reasonably funny. There was the expected build up to the big fight at the end and the fight finale could have been better but again, that pizza analogy.

The bad part was making Jackie a mute until the last fight. Whoever's idea that was (did I hear someone mumble Lo Wei?) totally blew it. Really, not that I love to hear his voice or anything and it would have been dubbed by some British guy anyway, but the hero has to say a few syllables. I really think that keeping Jackie silent made the difference between this movie being a miss instead of a hit on it's initial movie theater run. Think of how history would have changed if Jackie came to stardom in 1976 instead of a few years later! The world would be a different place and we all might have our flying cars if Jackie had only spoken up sooner.

Back in July of 2012, I posted the above review here. Today I watched the movie again. I decided to edit my review to compare the two views. I stand by everything written in my original post. Today I would change nothing in the original post and would add as below.

I had a problem with the final fight. Jackie fights Kang Chin first and that is all wrong. Kang Chin's henchmen would certainly intercept Jackie before he could get to their big boss. The fight against Kang Chin must be absolute last.

Also in the Jackie versus Kang Chin fight sequence it looks like Kang Chin is attacking and Jackie defending. Jackie should appear aggressive, attacking with full power and low accuracy. He could even act angry. Instead it looks like Kang chin is leading with his dance moves and Jackie is following.

Despite that I still consider the movie above average for the year and genre. I also recommend this movie to all fans of martial arts movies of the golden age from 1967 to 1984.

Under-rated film featuring a mute Jacky Chan who begins training at a Shaolin monastery. This films best draw-card is it's plot. This is your regular Kung Fu vengeance story but written much more cunningly and cleverly. The typical plot mechanisms are used, but they didn't bother me, and the story held my attention better than most modern movies I see.

Jackie's fighting is great, and I particularly enjoyed the training he receives from the Nun(?). Not to mention the inventive and really quite absurd training he gets from the imprisoned man.

As like other films of this period, I think that only Kung Fu genre die-hards will really sit through this and feel rewarded. The Wooden Men themselves never seemed as dangerous as the real men in the film - is this some kind of comment on human nature in a Kung Fu film?

Jacky Chan's father is killed by an evil Kung Fu master. Chan vows to remain silent until he can get his revenge. He goes to a Shao Lin temple, and gradually becomes a master of the arts. His instructors include Ping-Yu Chang, who teaches him to fight in a tray of grease, and Kang Chin, who is chained up in the basement.

Chan being silent allows the film to focus on the sheer physicality of the young man. The movie seems to be about four-fifths training sequence; the most striking in the final test, in which Chan must make his way past a gantlet of giant wooden dolls controlled by chains. Of course we know it will all come down to a final fight between Chan and the Big Bad. There's no sign of the comic Jacky here, but the variety of fights, as well as a couple of plot twists that seem obvious once they've happened keep this one interesting.

Pure A jackie film with a subplot wrapped into a subplot putting this revenge story with fantastic kungfu sequences on display. Kung fu classic.