Master of Zen (1994)

[Drunk Monk]

I'm not sure how this got by me for so long. I thought I had seen these but if I did, I've forgotten all of it and it's got some unforgetable stuff. It's a Kung Fu take on the Bodhidharma myths. We follow Tamo from his life as an Indian prince, all the way to Shaolin Temple. It's shot there and in the surrounding area. There's a fun swordfight at the base of the big Guanyin at Longmen grottoes. It catches Shaolin a year before I got there, when it was a little wilder, and a lot less polished. Derek Yee plays Tamo in Indian face, complete with a bald cap and a pre-TNG-Klingon forehead, made up to look like his concentrating. But make no mistake - Tamo's got Kung Fu and busts out in some major fights throughout the film. Then there's a lot of reinactments of famous Tamo moments, like crossing the Yangtze on a bamboo reed. That's done with crazy somersaulting wirework, not at all as I ever imagined it. There's some funny nutty demonstrations of Tamo's power, catching arrows, ejecting needles, holding back horses, all good fun. He's a Kung Fu superhero. His first disciple, Huike, is played by Louis Fan - Riki Oh. If you don't know Riki Oh: Story of Ricky, that is the D00Miest movie for Kung Fu gore fans. It's in my queue in the Criterion collection, but I gotta be in just the right mood for it. 

And above all that, this movie drops some major Zen. Respect. The transmissions of the lamp, the koans (gungan in Mandarin), are recited as part of the reinactment. The translations I saw were rough but recognizable. There's a dubbed version and I'm tempted to give that a peek.

Seen on YouTube.