Looking back on the history of martial arts films, currently recognized as the ancestor of the martial arts film, was born in 1928, "Fire Red Lotus Temple", the film is adapted from the famous martial arts novels

Since then, The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple has been remade as many as 13 times, with the most recognizable one being The New Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, produced by Tsui Hark and directed by Lin Lingdong, which is also known as the most indelible piece of martial arts film history.

After the film was released, it was criticized by the authorities for having a large number of grotesque moves such as invisibility and palm thunder, and was blocked and banned after only seven days in theaters, and was edited several times before it was released on the Internet.

The story is set in the Yongzheng era of the Qing Dynasty, when the Southern Shaolin was scorned by the imperial court for its support of the fight against the Ching Dynasty and the restoration of the Ming Dynasty, which ultimately sent a large number of soldiers and eagles to wash the Southern Shaolin in blood.

The temple was destroyed, the scriptures were burned, and the monks in the temple had a miserable end. Those who were killed, had no peace until their deaths, and were either hung upside down on stakes, or had their heads cut off and piled up in a mound of earth to wait for weathering.

Most of those who survived were taken to the Red Lotus Temple, where they were beaten and enslaved, and never saw the light of day in "hell", while a small number of the rest, though lucky to escape, had to live a life of hiding.

The movie opens in the Gobi Desert, where Shaolin disciple Fang Shiyu (played by Ji Tiansheng) takes his uncle, Master Zhineng, to the desert to escape the Blood Drops assassins of the imperial court.

Fortunately, Fang Shiyu's martial arts skills are so strong that he is able to escape with his kung fu. The two of them run into a poor prostitute named DouDou (played by Li Ruotong), and the three of them are traveling together.

Master Zhi Neng learns that Doudou's mother has just died, so he takes the initiative to do something for Doudou's mother, while Fang Shiyu falls in love with Doudou at first sight.

However, the good times don't last long, as the Blood Drop killer refuses to let go of Fong Sai Yuk's master and disciple, and eventually discovers their whereabouts, and leads his troops to take Doudou captive, forcing the two to surrender.

In the end, Mr. Fong died a horrible death, and Mr. Fong did not want to implicate innocent people, so he put down his weapon and was taken to the Red Lotus Temple with DouDou.

The Red Lotus Temple is a prison used by the imperial court to hold serious criminals, with bones in front of the door, and bloodshed inside the temple, where Shaolin disciples are tortured in various ways, making it a hell on earth.

And ordered to manage the prison of the Red Lotus Temple is the great general of the dynasty Shen Gong (Huang Jinjiang), who is ruthless, cruel, murderous and temperamental.

In this vast Gobi, Shen Gong acts like an underground emperor, enslaving the captured Shaolin disciples and raping and pillaging them, and even DouDou is forced to take over because of his beauty.

Fang Shiyu, who is imprisoned in the Red Lotus Temple, still refuses to accept his fate, and tries to mobilize his disciples to fight with the Godfather and overthrow the evil rule in the Red Lotus Temple.

But what he doesn't realize is that his own senior brother, Hong Xiguan (Yang Sheng), is actually in the temple, and has become a foreman under the Godfather, helping the Godfather in various ways.

Master and brother met again, turned into an enemy, the two began to fight, Fang Shiyu crane fist, Hong Xiguan with tiger fist, the original "tiger and crane double shape", but became a situation of immortality.

At the critical moment, Fang Shiyu wanted to take the risk of assassinating Shen Gong, but did not realize that the other side is actually a supreme master, a counterattack will be stabbed into serious injuries, and then ordered him to throw him into the well of corpses.

Fang Shiyu woke up in the well and realized that the Shaolin Master Zhi Shan was also in the well, and no one thought that the famous Master Zhi Shan would eat the rats in the well and survive.

On the other hand, DouDou coaxes ShenGong to let FangShiYu go. FangShiYu recovers from his injuries under DouDou's care, but he still plans to escape from the Red Lotus Temple and encourages the other Shaolin disciples to practise their martial arts and wait for an opportunity to take action.

Afterwards, Shen Gong realizes that Hong Xiguan is pretending to surrender to himself, but in fact, he wants to secretly steal the map of the Red Lotus Temple's mechanism, so he deliberately orders Hong Xiguan to fight with Fong Sai Yuk for his life.

At the moment of life and death, Hong Xiguan saves Fang Shiyu, who fights with him and arranges for the Shaolin disciples to break through the guards.

Under the siege of the Qing soldiers, the Shaolin disciples fled into the corpse well and escaped through a dark tunnel under the leadership of Zen Master Zhi Shan, while Fang Shiyu rescued DouDou from Shen Gong's bedroom under the leadership of Hong Xiguan.

After rescuing Doudou, Fang Shiyu was unable to break through the layers of the Red Lotus Temple, but Hong Xiguan remembered that there was a gunpowder storehouse in the Red Lotus Temple, so he decided to take the risk of blowing up the gunpowder storehouse.

After blowing up the gunpowder magazine, the Shaolin disciples finally found the hole hidden behind the statue of Buddha, but did not expect the God of the public in the statue of Buddha hidden musket, the Shaolin monks kneeling triggered the mechanism, resulting in heavy casualties.

At the end of the story, Fang Shiyu and Hong Xiguan merged to fight with Shen Gong in the form of tiger and crane, and eventually Shen Gong was killed, the Red Lotus Temple was destroyed in the explosion, and the Shaolin disciples got a new life.

Distinguished from the traditional martial arts being on top of the evil, this movie is harshly drawn, with a strong cult meaning, sometimes frivolous, sometimes grotesque, sometimes horrifying, and totally unguessable what will happen next.

Leaving aside these, the most interesting thing about the movie is the action scene, the classic desert chase scene at the beginning, Fang Shiyu, a man against the Qing soldiers, flying sand and stones, horse heads flying, the scene is called an enjoyable.

The back of the stage of life and death, Fang Shiyu and Hong Xiguan's battle scene, the two surface in the fight, secretly in the mutual aid, see the heart of the thrilling.

However, the reason why the movie is so popular, in fact, in addition to the action scenes, but also because of a "chivalrous" word, the movie everywhere reveals a deep understanding of power, religion, life and death.