Documentary with Shaolin Monks Performing Impossible/Incredible Feats?

February 8, 2005 3:24 PM

Name that Martial Arts Movie: several years ago I saw a martial arts movie (that was more of a documentary) about Shaolin Monks. It showed them performing incredible feats of skill, discipline, fortitude and strength. I think they even had a clip of a young (~6 year old) Jet Li performing a routine, and I remember sequences including the monks hanging upside and lifting buckets of water, a monk that was "immovable" by any outside forces, and a monk pulling a large weight or boulder with his Special Parts. Ring any bells? Google and movie searches reveal a lot of martial arts movies with Shaolin Monks, but can't seem to find this documentary.
posted by robbie01 to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

It's just called "Shaolin Kung Fu", according to the title sequence of the .avi (Divx) rip I have of it.
posted by maniactown at 3:59 PM on February 8, 2005

Yeah, this might be it, although I think Jet Li is the guy in the last demonstration and is closer to 20 years of age...
posted by maniactown at 4:03 PM on February 8, 2005

This looks like it. You probably could have saved yourself all that Googling by going straight to Jet Li's page on IMDb.
posted by jjg at 4:04 PM on February 8, 2005

Y'all do realise the Jet Li picture was a remake of the original 36th Chamber series of films, starring "Gordon" Liu, who played Pai Mai in Kill Bill.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:13 PM on February 8, 2005

I think you might have seen "This is Kung Fu" (IMDB, Amazon) an older film with a younger Jet Li. This is one of the better showcases of Chinese national Wushu training. It seems to be available in any chinatown/kung fu video store. I've seen both VHS and DVD versions of it.
posted by Metametadata at 2:40 PM on February 9, 2005