Executioners from Shaolin (1977)

Original title

洪熙官

Directed by

Lau Kar-leung

Genre

martial arts film

Country

Hong Kong

Runtime

1h 38m

Rated

R

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 55 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A Shaolin student survives a massacre and marries a fellow martial artist. He spends years trying to get revenge on the man who killed his master, but keeps failing. Eventually his son takes up the fight using skills from both parents.

determinedvengefulgrittyintenseaction-packedclassictraining-focusedfamily-driven

What happens

Executioners from Shaolin (Chinese: 洪熙官; pinyin: Hóng Xīguān; Wade–Giles: Hung Hsi-kuan) is a 1977 Hong Kong kung fu film directed by Lau Kar-leung. The film begins after the massacre of the Shaolin students with Hung hsi Kuan escaping with his life. He meets Fang Yung Chun, and the two soon get married and have a child all while Hung prepares for revenge against Pai Mei, who killed the Shaolin Chief Abbott. As Hung prepares to challenge Pei Mei, failing twice. His son, Hung Wen-ting steps in to avenge his father with the martial arts skills passed down from both his parents. Executioners from Shaolin was one of the many martial arts films from Hong Kong in the 1970s. It followed the trend for kung fu films which began in 1970 and more specifically, the trend of Shaolin kung fu-themed films which began to be released more since 1974. The film borrows from folk legends from Chinese culture, such as a mythical Southern variation of the Shaolin temple and the stories of martial artists like Hung Hei-gun. The film was produced by Shaw Brothers Studio and was both directed and featured action choreography from Lau Kar-leung. It has been released in the United States as Shaolin Executioners and Executioners of Death. The film received positive reviews in retrospecive books on Hong Kong or martial arts films such as The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies (1995) and The Hong Kong Filmography, 1977-1997 (2000). Stephen Teo, in The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity (2000) described it as a "a key work" that extended the kung fu film beyond the cliches of master and disciple stories from the late 1960s into what he described as "greener fields of gender politics, father and son relationships and explorations of fight style allied with personality and sexuality." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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