A 1977 martial arts film – Executioners from Shaolin – stands out as one of the best of the decade, a notion that’s reinforced by the villain’s inclusion in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 2. Directed by Lau Kar-leung, Executions of Shaolin is an old-school kung fu movie from the library of Shaw Brothers, the most prominent Hong Kong studio ᴀssociated with martial arts films.

Given its large stable of veteran, well-known Hong Kong stars, greater production values than its contemporaries, and talented directors at its disposal, Shaw Brothers was responsible for a large swath of the greatest kung fu movies of the 1970s and 1980s, save for the ones that Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan made, which were with different studios.

During the 1970s, the studio pumped out a mulтιтude of old-school kung fu movies, including Executioners of Shaolin, which featured a handful of the studio’s key players in major roles: Gordon Liu, Lo Lieh, Lily Li, and Chen Kuan-tai. Although not as famous as Enter the Dragon or Drunken Master, the film is a martial arts gem, something that Tarantino has clearly recognized as well.

Executioners From Shaolin Is A Top-Tier Kung Fu Classic

Like many Shaw Brothers movies of its time, Executioners of Shaolin revolves around the monks of the Shaolin Temple. In this particular film, their conflict is with the evil Priest Pai Mei, played by Indonesian actor and martial arts star Lo Lieh. As for Lo Lieh’s opponents, he has to contend with two generations of martial artists.

Executioners from Shaolin expertly weaves many of the best kung fu movie tropes into a single film, creating a truly epic martial arts adventure. It has revenge as its core motif, great training sequences, a seemingly unbeatable villain, and epic martial arts battle to end the story.

Making Executioners from Shaolin all the more intriguing is the fact that it doesn’t follow the traditional formula of a kung fu movie. It would normally be expected for the heroes of the story to prevail over the villain, but the film pulls a twist by having Pai Mei slowly kill off each the Shaolin fighters, and even Chen Kuan-tai’s character isn’t spared, even though he’s initially seen as the main protagonist.

As it turns out, Hung isn’t the real hero of the story. In the movie, he forms a romance with Lily Li’s character, who uses a different fighting style, Crane Style Kung Fu. The son that he has with her, who grows up quickly due to a time skip, emerges as the real protagonist, and uses a combination of his father’s Tiger Style and his mother’s expertise in Crane Style to fight Pai Mei.

Executioners From Shaolin Reinvented Lo Lieh’s Image

Executioners of Shaolin became a cult favorite among martial arts movie fans, and one that also had a major influence on the careers of its actors. It helped Gordon Liu escape from supporting roles and grow into a bigger star, and even impacted Lo Lieh, despite the actor already being a seasoned martial arts star.

Lo Lieh’s performance as Pai Mei went over so well that his later films leaned on it heavily, casting him in similar roles. Once utilized as a hero, Lo increasingly found himself playing sinister, white-haired kung fu masters, a look that obviously required a lot of makeup since he was only in his 30s and 40s during this period.

The white-haired master became a popular villain archetype, with Lo Lieh’s version being the most well-known. In fact, the actor reprised the role in Shaolin Abbott and also played an almost identical villain (and the brother of Pai Mei) in a quasi-sequel to Executioners of Shaolin, Clan of the White Lotus.

Quentin Tarantino Revived The Lo Lieh Version Of Pai Mei For Kill Bill Vol. 2 (But With A Twist)

Lo Lieh’s legacy as Pai Mei was paid tribute to by Quentin Tarantino in the sequel to his Uma Thurman-led martial arts movie, Kill Bill. In Kill Bill Vol. 2, the antagonist is revealed to be Pai Mei, complete with the look that Lo Lieh brought to the character in Executioners of Shaolin and Shaolin Abbot.

Quentin Tarantino deepened the connection between Kill Bill Vol. 2’s Pai Mei and the Shaw Brothers’ incarnations of the character through his casting choice for the role. Portraying Pai Mei was Gordon Liu, who had appeared in Executioners of Shaolin and played the hero who defeated Pai Mei’s twin brother in Clan of the White Lotus.

With Lo Lieh’s Pai Mei standing out as one of the greatest old-school kung fu movie villains, Kill Bill Vol. 2 made an excellent choice to revive him for its final showdown. Having Lo Lieh’s Executioners from Shaolin co-star Gordon Liu be the actor to play him was just the icing on the cake.