Monk Comes Down the Mountain

A young monk, He Anxia, is forced to leave his impoverished monastery and venture into the outside world, where he must rely on his martial arts training to get by. Searching for guidance, he meets a kung fu master who holds a rare book containing a lost fighting technique. The book is coveted by others, drawing the monk into a conflict over both the book and his new teacher. The story unfolds in China during the 1930s, with He Anxia encountering various masters who pass on their knowledge of different fighting styles.

Monk Comes Down the Mountain was directed by Chen Kaige, released in 2015. It is the sixth of the thirteen films he has directed, arriving after To Each His Own Cinema and before Legend of the Demon Cat. Chen shares screenplay credit with Zhang Ting. Baoqiang Wang plays He Anxia, alongside Li Xuejian, Fan Wei, Chi-Ling Lin, Vanness Wu and Danny Chan Kwok-kwan, among a credited cast of twenty. Running 113 minutes, the film is a Chinese action production from Columbia Pictures.

It performed modestly at the box office, taking in about 64 million USD worldwide. Audience ratings sit in mixed territory: on IMDb it holds 5.5/10 from 2,400 votes, and on TMDB 5.2/10 from 115 votes.