Shaolin Wooden Men

Shaolin Wooden Men (少林木人巷, 1976) is a Hong Kong martial-arts feature you can watch online on iFILM, and it stars a very young Jackie Chan years before he became a household name.

Chan plays a boy nicknamed Little Mute, struck silent after watching a vicious fighter kill his father. Raised inside the Shaolin temple, he quietly befriends a chained prisoner who teaches him a forbidden, lethal form of kung fu. The senior monks notice his stubborn drive and add the Gliding Snake style and Drunken Master moves to his training. His final trial: a run through the hall of 108 mechanical wooden men, a brutal test of stamina and precision.

Director Chen Chi-Hwa shoots it in the no-frills tradition of early temple cinema. Watch this one as a time capsule. The slapstick and acrobatics Chan later made famous aren't here yet, but the hard, classical hand-to-hand work of 1970s Hong Kong is. Stream Shaolin Wooden Men (1976) online on iFILM.