Despite being a relatively unknown entry in Jet Li’s filmography, Martial Arts of Shaolin marked the unfortunate end to an incredible era in the history of the martial arts genre. Released in 1986, Martial Arts of Shaolin was the third and final installment in the loosely connected Shaolin Temple trilogy.
Jet Li famously enjoyed his breakout role in the 1982 Hong Kong kung fu classic, Shaolin Temple. Following the film’s success, Jet Li was tapped to star in a semi-sequel, titled Kids from Shaolin. After that, Jet Li partnered with Shaw Brothers, the top kung fu movie studio in Hong Kong, to make Martial Arts of Shaolin, which saw him work with director Lau Kar-leung.
Martial Arts Of Shaolin Represented The End Of An Era In The Martial Arts Genre
Although the martial arts comedy isn’t typically recognized as one of Jet Li’s best movies, Martial Arts of Shaolin stands out as a special film for the actor, given that it’s the only true old-school kung fu movie that he ever made. Traditionally, an old-school kung fu film is identified as a film set in historical China, with training and revenge often being integral to the plot.
This specific subgenre, which Shaw Brothers had worked years to master, was built around long, intricately crafted fight scenes that leaned heavily on Chinese martial arts, whether it was hand-to-combat, weapon fighting, or combinations of both. Because of the heavy amount of long takes these sequences offered, they could take weeks or months to film.
Martial arts stars like Jackie Chan, Ti Lung, Alexander Fu Sheng, and Carter Wong contributed a great deal to this side of the martial arts genre, but there wasn’t another for Jet Li, due in large part to the timing.
Martial arts cinema was changing in the mid-1980s, with fantasy and modern-day action starting to take precedent. Plus, the approach to filming fight scenes that had helped define old-school kung fu movies was no longer considered practical anymore. Much less time was being spent on filming, which led to less and less wild and beatifully choreographed action sequences.
The genre had already found itself on this trajectory long before Martial Arts of Shaolin, but this film, in a sense, felt like the last hurrah for the old-school kung fu film, as Shaw Brothers – who had done more than any studio in terms of popularizing it – shut down their film division, with Martial Arts of Shaolin sadly being their only 1986 production.