L'Impitoyable

Jacky Chan's father is killed by an evil Kung Fu master. Chan vows to remain silent until he can get his revenge. He goes to a Shao Lin temple, and gradually becomes a master of the arts. His instructors include Ping-Yu Chang, who teaches him to fight in a tray of grease, and Kang Chin, who is chained up in the basement.

Chan being silent allows the film to focus on the sheer physicality of the young man. The movie seems to be about four-fifths training sequence; the most striking in the final test, in which Chan must make his way past a gantlet of giant wooden dolls controlled by chains. Of course we know it will all come down to a final fight between Chan and the Big Bad. There's no sign of the comic Jacky here, but the variety of fights, as well as a couple of plot twists that seem obvious once they've happened keep this one interesting.

As far as martial arts movies go, Shaolin Wooden Men is pretty standard stuff, but I think it's still fun enough in bursts to make it worthwhile for fans of the genre and/or Jackie Chan. He plays a character here who doesn't speak, so I think that helps it stand out a little among all the other early Jackie Chan movies out there (I do feel like he really came into his own and made his best stuff during the 80s and 90s, though).

The plot here is one you've probably seen a bunch of times if you've even watched a decent number of martial arts flicks, but the action is solid (not great, but still mostly fun), and I guess that's the main thing. I don't know if I quite feel like it's a hugely underrated gem or anything, but it's a decent watch and a fairly good time.

The opening fight sequences and the final gauntlet of wooden men. The rest of the film is rather mediocre and not very interesting IMHO.

5 Wooden Men out of 10.

If you like Jackie Chan and have never seen this film, you sould hurry to the video shop in your neiborhood right now. This is definitely the BEST in his early 70's.It was made with very cheap budget the same as his other 70's films made by Lo-Wei,so "Wodden Men" robots looks so shabby, even kids will find out that.But Jackie did his best in both acting and action on this. This film was shown in Japanese movie theatre soon after he became popular in Japan with "Drunken Master", and this movie is still popular in Japanese fans (so they said in many Japanese websites!!)

The narrative of "Shaolin Wooden Men" is divided into two neat halves: the first delineates the struggles of Jackie Chan's character (a mute orphan) at Shaolin Temple, ending with his successful navigation of the gauntlet of titular wooden men; the second follows him into the world outside the monastery, as he tests his combat skills and discovers that people cannot always be taken at face value. The film never rises entirely above the conventions of its genre, but in depicting the friendship between Chan and Kam Kang (who plays a prisoner at the monastery), director Chen Chi-hwa effects some nice touches...and there are well-choreographed fights aplenty. Six and a half stars.

(By the way, there's no historical evidence that those fearsome wooden fighting dummies ever existed at Shaolin. It's a great cinematic device, though.)