You may know Jet Li from such films as 2000’s Romeo Must Die, but the film that launched his career in Asia was Shaolin Temple.
What’s not widely known is that the 1982 movie also essentially created Shaolin kung fu as we know it.
The actual Shaolin Temple is now a Unesco World Heritage Site, and the heart of tourism in central China’s Henan province. Scores of martial arts schools lie on a mountain. Ticket sales bring in tens of millions of dollars a year.
But when a film crew from Hong Kong’s Chung Yuen Motion Picture Company turned up in 1980, they found an abandoned site in disrepair after decades of neglect.
“When I was working in Shaolin there were no monks... only three monks... and
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Jun 28, 2019