Shaolin

Plot

The film is set in Dengfeng, Henan, during the warlord era of early Republican China. The warlord Hou Jie defeats a rival named Huo Long and seizes control of Dengfeng. Huo flees to Shaolin Temple to hide but Hou appears and shoots him. Hou ridicules the Shaolin monks before leaving.

Feeling disadvantageous with his sworn brother, Song Hu, Hou sets a trap for Song in a restaurant, under the guise of agreeing to his daughter's engagement to Song's son. Meanwhile, Hou's deputy, Cao Man, feeling that he was being used by Hou and that he deserves better, decides to betray Hou. Cao sends assassins to murder Hou and his family. Hou manages to fatally wound Song with his handgun, but Song still saves Hou to allow him to escape from the assassin's ambush before succumbing to his injuries. Hou manages to escape together with his daughter, but his daughter was severely injured when a carriage knocked her down while she is fleeing, and worsen when they fall off a cliff. Hou's wife is rescued by some passing-by Shaolin monks, who were stealing rice from the military granary to help the refugees living near the temple. In desperation, Hou brings his daughter to Shaolin, begging the monks to save her life, but it is too late and she dies of her injuries. Hou's wife blames him for the death of their daughter and leaves him. Hou attacks the monks in anger but is quickly subdued.

Hou becomes disillusioned and wanders near Shaolin, until he meets the cook monk Wudao, who provides him with food and shelter. Hou feels guilty for his past misdeeds and decides to become a monk and atone for his sins. During his stay in Shaolin, Hou gradually understands Shaolin's principles through study and practising martial arts, mends his ways and finds peace and enlightenment from his heart. One day, Hou overhears that Cao Man, who has taken control over his army, is oppressing the people by forcing them to unearth Chinese relics. Cao sells the relics to foreigners in exchange for advanced weaponry, after which he will have the labourers massacred to silence them. Hou shows up to save some labourers and exposes himself in the process.

When Cao hears that Hou is still alive, he leads his soldiers to the Shaolin temple to capture Hou. Hou volunteers to distract Cao while the monks secretly break into Cao's house to save the imprisoned labourers. The plan succeeds but Hou's senior, Jingneng, is brutally killed by Cao while buying time for his juniors to escape. Upon returning to the Shaolin temple, the monks decide that they need to evacuate the temple to avoid further trouble. Wudao leads the refugees away while Hou and the other monks remain behind to defend the temple. By then, Cao arrives with his troops and orders an attack on Shaolin. At the same time, the foreigners feel that they have been cheated and they bombard Shaolin with artillery, resulting in heavy casualties for both the Shaolin monks and Cao's forces. Hou defeats Cao in a fight and eventually sacrifices himself to save Cao from being crushed by a falling beam (returning the karma of Song's sacrifice to save Hou during Song's assassination) and falls into the Buddha statue's palm and dies peacefully, leaving Cao feeling guilty. On the other hand, the surviving monks succeed in overcoming the enemy and stopping the bombardment. Meanwhile, the retreating refugees turn back and start crying when they see the Shaolin Temple in ruins. Wudao tells them that the Shaolin spirit will continue to live in them even though the temple has been destroyed.

Afterwards, the scene cuts to an earlier period before the monks evacuate with the refugees, with Hou meeting with his wife in the temple for the last time. Hou passes the urn containing his daughter's cremated ashes to his wife, and she forgives Hou for his past, and accepts the fact that she can no longer be with him. Hou admits that Cao's present evil doings stems from his own past misdeeds, thus he is responsible in guiding Cao back to the correct path. The scene ends with the monks practicing martial arts under snowfall, hinting that the monks and refugees settled down once again.