Film

Raiders of the Shaolin Temple

Name: Raiders of the Shaolin Temple
Genre: Action
Released: 1982
Cast: Sonny Yue, Pai Ying, Wei Ping-Ao, Chan Siu-Pang, Shun Chung-Chuen

Martial arts action

A 1982 kung fu film about a young stable hand at Shaolin Temple determined to master martial arts and protect it from corrupt officials. Propelled by earnest charm and inventive action choreography rather than big budgets, it captures that specific energy of early-80s Hong Kong action cinema—scrappy, generous with its weirdness, and genuinely inventive about what bodies can do in a fight.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want old-school martial arts where the training sequences are the main event, with stunts that look like they cost real bruises and a cheerfully earnest hero.

Skip it if you need fast editing and polished modern choreography; this is rough-edged, older-style filmmaking with uneven pacing and a lot of earnest sincerity that can feel slow between bouts.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a leisurely runtime of under ninety minutes, where the story unfolds in patient stretches of farmyard labor and training before the fights arrive in bursts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin1978

The template for the underdog-at-Shaolin story, with Gordon Liu's methodical journey through martial training and the film's confidence that we'll love watching someone get very good at a single thing.

But The pacing is deliberately slow and meditative; if you need constant plot momentum, thirty minutes of training montages will test your patience.

Kung Fu Hustle2004

Captures that same spirit of playful ingenuity—using environmental objects, unusual fighting styles, and genuine warmth mixed with wild action. Stephen Chow clearly loved the scrappy films that came before.

But The tone shifts wildly between comedy and violence. If you want consistency or anything resembling realism, this isn't it.

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow1978

Jackie Chan's breakthrough: goofy, tender, and electric with physical invention. Proves that charm and unpredictability matter more than perfect technique.

But The humor is very broad and occasionally lands awkwardly. The dubbing (if you watch the English version) is jarringly bad.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Raiders of the Shaolin Temple

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Bloodsport1988

Both valorize martial training and personal discipline as redemption, but Bloodsport is camp where Shaolin Temple is earnest; seeing them back-to-back reveals how genre and budget shape what feels sincere.

Jean-Claude Van Damme in a fictionalized account of competing in an underground martial arts tournament. The splits are absurd, the sincerity is unironic, and it became a cultural touchstone for a reason.

But It's kitsch—earnestly, completely kitsch. If you can't find something to love in Jean-Claude Van Damme's philosophical monologues about family honor, this will feel unintentionally funny.

Shaolin Wooden Men1976

Another Shaolin training film with the same low-budget resourcefulness, wooden dummy fights, and the sense that the filmmakers were solving problems with creativity rather than money.

But The narrative is genuinely thin. It's mostly a sequence of fights with minimal character development between them.

Crippled Avengers1978

Five fighters with distinct martial styles hunt each other in a revenge plot. The specificity of each fighter's technique and the visual clarity of the action is genuinely instructive and exciting.

But It's deliberately cryptic about who's who and what the stakes are. You have to pay close attention or accept confusion.

Drunken Master1978

Jackie Chan learning an absurd martial art from a drunken master. The fight choreography is mesmerizing and the film finds comedy in the sheer weirdness of what bodies are being asked to do.

But The opening act is slapstick that borders on cruel. If you're uncomfortable with physical humiliation played for laughs, it's rough going.

Executioners from Shaolin1977

A revenge story grounded in genuine technique and teaching: the hero must learn a new style to overcome her enemy. The crane style sequences are visually distinctive and beautifully executed.

But The emotional core—childhood trauma, family death—is treated seriously, which gives it an uneven tone compared to more playful martial arts films.

Kid with the Golden Arm1979

A young fighter with a prosthetic golden arm takes on a heroin smuggling ring. The action is inventive and the moral stakes feel genuinely high, not just backdrop for fighting.

But The film moves between tones—serious crime drama, cartoonish action, exploitation elements—without much grace. It can feel scattered.

Come Drink with Me1966

The spiritual ancestor of the Shaolin film: where Shaolin Temple shows a young person learning to fight, Come Drink with Me shows what mastery looks like—calm, inevitable, and barely stressed about the outcome.

King Hu's masterpiece: a woman warrior in historical China seeking her brother's killer. The action is fluid and sparse, the landscape is nearly a character, and it influenced everything that came after—including Shaolin films.

But It's in Mandarin with subtitles, filmed in 1966, and has almost no plot in the conventional sense. If you need constant forward momentum, the philosophical pacing will frustrate you.