The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is a bit of an odd movie for me in that my parents had narrated the entire story to me many times before I actually got around to actually watch the movie myself. My dad loved watching the intense training sessions that came along with learning martial arts. My mom loved the entertaining scenes where the hero fails comically, learns a valuable lesson and then succeeds. When at last I managed to find a good print of it, we immediately put away all other distractions and watched it together.
Since then, I have watched this movie multiple times and it remains to this day my favorite Kung-fu movie for its realistic portrayal of martial arts training, depiction of the journey of personal transformation and how one man’s desire to change the world can influence his path.
(I also recently discovered that the same actor who plays the hero in this movie, Gordon Liu, also plays the martial arts teacher Pai Mei in Kill Bill Vol.2)
It was of course natural that I pay tribute to this movie with Ganesha in the iconic pose where the hero unveils his newly crafted Sanchaku or 3-part fighting sticks connected with chains. I also tried to arrange the text similar to how it appears in the movie’s posters.
And there you have it! Hope you like it!