Watched Hong Kong's 1978 The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1:51:07). I note that most Hong Kong movies have great titles but that the actual movies don't live up to them, like a Philippine production company I know of that values titles more than the content of its movies.

This movie was made five years after the death of Bruce Lee and still reflects the producers' efforts to discover another human phenomenon--without realizing that the success of Bruce Lee's movies was his unique, invasive meddling in the production of his own movies. No one else has proven to have his extraordinary talent, vision, and foresight.   

36th Chamber is crude, with steel weapons evidently made of wood and a lot of swords too shiny to have been forged of iron. The cast members look as though they had stepped off the modern streets of Hong Kong and dressed in costume for a stage play. The plot is gothic and predictable: a male student escapes from town, which is tyrannized by the Tartars during the Ching Dynasty, and goes to the Shaolin Temple to learn high-level martial arts in order to avenge everyone who was oppressed, abused, and killed by the antagonists. There is no real conflict, there are only over-choreographed fight scenes. The protagonist's voice is also a liability--it is froggy and an octave higher than an average man's.

Having said all of that, I loved the movie and can understand why most other people did not. It took me into an albeit-simulated Shaolin temple and showcased some of its grueling exercises. That was all I expected, and all I wanted to see. Such a regimen can be boring to the ordinary viewer, plus the fact that Shaolin weapons are bulky, unwieldy, and unlikely to fit in anyone's pocket or even found in one's living room.  

It is 2022 and already very clear that no one can replace Bruce Lee, either in the flesh or in spirit.