Rating:
Directors: MeiJuin Chen, Martha Burr
Writer/Producers: MeiJuin Chen, Martha Burr
Director of Photography: Teodoro Maniaci
Narrator: Beau Bridges
Cast: Shi Guolin, Zhang Li Peng, Shi Xing Hao, Shi De Shan, Shi Xing Hong
| SHAOLIN
ULYSSES: KUNG FU MONKS IN AMERICA Rating: Directors: MeiJuin Chen, Martha Burr Writer/Producers: MeiJuin Chen, Martha Burr Director of Photography: Teodoro Maniaci Narrator: Beau Bridges Cast: Shi Guolin, Zhang Li Peng, Shi Xing Hao, Shi De Shan, Shi Xing Hong |
|
Review by: Ryan
Kugler
6/29/02
The best part about attending a film festival is that you get a chance to see stuff that you never would otherwise. If I had to drive over-the-hill and pay to see an hour-long documentary about Buddhist Monks that come to America in hopes of teaching others about their culture and style of Kung Fu, I doubt I would have ever gotten to it. Turns out, I would have missed an entertaining and informative look at a group of people that I knew nothing about.
Shaolin Ulysses: Kung Fu Monks in America begins with a clever animated sequence that gives a brief history lesson on the origins of the Shaolin Temple. From there, co-directors MeiJuin Chen and Martha Burr mix modern interviews done in both China and America with footage from old demonstration videos to give us a good introduction to the temple, the Monks, a unique style of Kung Fu and their religious beliefs and practices.
The main focus of the documentary is to catch us up with a few of the monks who left China for America to try to start up their own Shaolin Temples in hopes of keeping the ancient tradition alive. We meet and get to know a handful, including one whom moved to New York City, one who went to Houston and one who went to try his luck in the city of sin, Las Vegas. They all faced culture shock and had obstacles to overcome, but according to the directors (who attended the screening), they're all still over here and are as determined as ever.
My favorite sequences were the ones where the filmmakers let the Monk's actions do the talking. These guys are truly amazing and we get to see both old and modern demonstrations of some of their moves. We've all seen a guy break a piece of wood or even a brick with a karate chop, but here we're shown things that I don't ever remember seeing. I was impressed when a Monk put a brick block on his forehead and let a guy crush it with his foot, but the coolest things were the demonstrations of two moves that I was unfamiliar with. For the Iron Neck, a Monk ties a noose to a tree and actually hangs himself for several seconds, while for the Iron Crotch, a Monk drags a huge piece of tree bark by his package, then lets another repeatedly kick him in that most holy of places. Ouch!
Shaolin Ulysses isn't just a serious exploration as there are some genuinely funny parts, and the Monks that we get to meet seem like fun guys that you'd want to hang out with. The scene that best exemplifies this is when they toured with Lollapalooza in the mid 90's and found themselves on stage doing demonstrations between sets by Tool and Metallica. How cool is that?
Chen and Burr have done a thorough job with their subject and even though it's only 58 minutes long, when it was over, I felt that I had learned a lot and that the length of the film was ample. Spending some time with these Monks was a real treat and the next time I'm in Vegas I may even look one of them up (not really).
Shaolin Ulysses was proceeded by the documentary short East Side by Kuang Lee. This fascinating, though much too brief look at two Asian-Americans and one Canadian that go to Asia to try and bring some of North America's skateboard culture over, is awesome. This 23 minute film would make a great companion piece to the currently playing Dogtown and Z Boys, which Lee wholeheartedly recommended catching (as do I). East Side is fast and funny and contains both cool music and some of the best skateboard riding that I've seen captured on film (I mean digital video).
(Screened at the 2002 Los Angeles Film
Festival)
|
|
|
|
|