Shao Lin ta peng hsiao tzu (1980)

English title: Return to the 36th Chamber.
Synopsis: The workers at a dye factory are exploited down to near slavery by their boss, who brings kung-fu fighting thugs from Manchuria to keep them obedient. The brother of one of the workers decides to get a training in kung fu in order to help them.
Appraisal: Possibly one of the better kung-fu pictures, yet for me this still doesn't mean a quite satisfactory experience, because I find this genre a bit limited. The plot is of a comic nature, very energetic and quite childish. There are memorable sequences alright, like the one in which Chao has to get water from a well without a bucket, and more. The scaffolding style of kung fu is ingenious and well choreographed, as are practically all the fighting sequences in the film. As usual, if you look beneath the surface, the film is quite anti-Marxist, since a minority initially oppresses a working community, being eventually defeated by an even smaller minority (of one). It is probably set in the 18th or 19th century (wild guess, seeing as the film doesn't offer clues to that and I am not a China expert anyway), which makes labor union notions unthinkable - not that it matters: the goal here is to offer entertaining action and not historical reflection. The camerawork is zoom-based throughout.
Rating: 50