The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

The Six Degrees of Kill Bill (Part 5)

When KILL BILL begins, the first image that we see on screen (after the obligatory Miramax logo, of course) is the iconic shield that indicated that we're watching a Shaw Brothers film.

The Shaw Brothers Studio was one of the premiere studios in Hong Kong in the 20th century, and their "golden age" would probably have been during the 1960s and 1970s, when they began to produce the Kung Fu films that most western audiences would come to know them for.

These Kung Fu films were a major influence on Quentin Tarantino when crafting KILL BILL, especially during the House of Blue Leaves sequence in VOL. 1 and in the Pei Mei chapter for VOL. 2.

In this episode, we'll trace the history of the Shaw Brothers Studio, and take a look at what might be their most well-known Kung Fu flick, THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978), starring the legendary Gordon Liu, a performer who would appear in not one, but two different roles in Tarantino's film.

And yeah, we talk a lot about Wu-Tang.

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Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.

This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, and Todd A. Davis.