i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

The first must-see film of the year.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I was disappointed my this movie. I wasn't expecting it to be better then the first one, but the comedic element definitely hindered it.Gordon Liu once again stars, but his time he plays an actor impersonating his character from the first one. It is an interesting concept. Basically the plot is the same. The manchus are oppressing a dye factory and hire someone who looks like San Te to fool the manchus. Gordon gets his butt kicked so he goes to Shaolin to actually become a shaolin master. Once he learns kung fu he goes back and frees the dye workers.Its not a bad film, but all the comedic parts got really annoying. I am a big Gordon Liu fan, but a consider this one of his weakest roles.

I love kung-fu and bought this movie under the name 36th chamber, I thought it was THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN. I paid $1 for it and the quality was horrible, so I decided to go and buy the DRAGON DYNASTY release of THE 36TH CHAMBERS OF SHAOLIN. I was going to toss the older version when I happened to notice it was Johnny Wang on the cover, so I put it in the player and sure enough it was RETURN TO THE THE 36TH CHAMBERS. Now I've gotta get a better version of this film, because the DVD I have is a VHS transfer dollar DVD and it's horrible.Anyway so Gordon Liu is back, but this time around he is playing a new character. I really loved him as San Te on the first one, it was a serious and dark Kung Fu gem. This one he plays Jen Cheh and its one of those comedy/kung-fu mixtures. I must admit I was extremely disappointed that it wasn't a real sequel to the first. I wish it had been under another name completely and still used the 36th chambers, its not like anyone could replace Gordon for the part, it just needed a different title. I hate when sequels get off from the first movie and do something like this.... NOT TO SAY THIS IS A BAD MOVIE AT ALL...Far from bad, this is a great film, unfortunately I have a horrible full screen version so I couldn't appreciate all Master Liu's direction had to offer, I know it was good for what I could tell and even in full screen it captured a lot of the beauty of the fights, especially in early scenes where Jen was pretending to be a monk.Gordon put on a lot of weight in the few years in between these movies and looked less like a kung-fu champ and more like a regular guy, which was good for his characters humble beginnings but not so good for where his character would've ended up with all that work and pseudo training.The movie has a small town's biggest economical leader (a dye shop) taken over by ruthless bosses in order to get a better assembly. They cut the pay and refuse to let workers leave, so when a beggar posing as a monk comes to town they use him to fool the bosses and scare them with his fake fighting style. Ultimately the bosses find out this monk is a liar and they beat him up. He then goes to Shaolin Temple, and unlike San Te in the first film, Cha Jen Cheh doesn't get in to train with the others, he is instead told to work and build scaffolding and repair all the roofs of all the chambers.He sets off working, and even sleeping on the roof and spends all of his time watching the other pupils train. He mocks and imitates their moves and becomes an almost acrobatic master on his scaffolding. Once he finishes the job over a year later he asks to join now that hes done the work and the monk still refuses. He goes back home to sadly tell everyone he didn't get to train and they wonder what he's been doing for over a year while he was away. He soon realizes that he is a master of kung fu simply by watching and the imitation practices he had been doing and he takes on the evil boss played by Johnny Wang in one of the best fights ever filmed.You can never go wrong with the Shaw Bros. I've said it a million times.. here brothers Gordon and Chi-Liang once again made a damn good movie...It a great film and if you love martial arts you will wanna check it out, its not a true sequel, but stands alone perfectly. My flaws was that it was super slow building up to the action, it had way too much of a comedy aspect and I gave it 6 out of 10 stars.

Return to the 36th Chamber is one of those classic Kung-Fu movies which Shaw produces back in the 70s and 80s, whose genre is equivalent to the spaghetti westerns of Hollywood, and the protagonist Gordon Liu, the counterpart to the western's Clint Eastwood. Digitally remastered and a new print made for the Fantastic Film Fest, this is "Presented in Shaw Scope", just like the good old days.This film is a simple story of good versus evil, told in 3 acts, which more or less sums up the narrative of martial arts films in that era.Act One sets up the premise. Workers in a dye-mill of a small village are unhappy with their lot, having their wages cut by 20% by incoming manchu gangsters. They can't do much about their exploitation because none of them are martial arts skilled to take on the gangsters, and their boss. At first they had a minor success in getting Liu to impersonate a highly skilled Shaolin monk (one of the best comedy sequences), but their rouse got exposed when they pushed the limit of credibility by impersonating one too many times.Act Two shows the protagonist wanting to get back at the mob. However, without real martial arts, he embarks on a journey to Shaolin Temple, to try and infiltrate and learn martial arts on the sly. After some slapstick moments, he finally gets accepted by the abbot (whom he impersonated!) but is disappointed at the teaching methods - kinda like Mr Miyagi's style in Karate Kid, but instead of painting fences, he gets to erect scaffoldings all around the temple. Nothing can keep a good man down, and he unwittingly builds strength, endurance and learns kung-fu the unorthodox way.Act Three is where the fight fest begins. With cheesy sound effects, each obvious non-contact on film is given the maximum impact treatment. But it is rather refreshing watching the fight scenes here, with its wide angled shots to highlight clarity and detail between the sparring partners, and the use of slow-motion only to showcase stunts in different angles. You may find the speed of fights a tad too slow, with some pause in between moves, but with Yuen Wo Ping and his style being used ad-nausem in Hollywood flicks, they sure don't make fight scenes like they used to! Return to the 36th chamber gets a repeat screening on Monday, so, if you're game for a nostalgic trip down memory lane, what are you waiting for?

I agree with another user here and have to say that this is one of the best Kung Fu movies ever! I watched this as a kid and absolutely loved it! The scaffolding scenes are brilliant and you can really empathise with this guy because he is treated as an outcast. Nice humour and fantastic kung fu this movie rocks! If you like Kung Fu you would love this!!!