侠僧探案传奇

The large-scale period detective drama *Legend of the Monk Detective* is set in the late Northern Song Dynasty, when bizarre cases occur frequently in the Kaifeng area of the capital. Most of the perpetrators are martial arts masters with uncanny skills and elusive movements. The local authorities are powerless to investigate, and the cases involve the Seventy-Two Arts of Shaolin. The abbot of Shaolin sends his lay disciple Li Shaobai (played by Han Shuo) to investigate. While solving one strange case after another, Li Shaobai discovers that all the cases he has cracked are connected to a mysterious society—the Yaksha Sect—thereby exposing a shocking conspiracy. The *Legend of the Monk Detective* film series is divided into ten parts, unfolding through the locked-room murder case of *Juyi Money House*, the daughter's suicide case of *White Horse Escort Agency*, the missing persons case of *Daxing Casino*, the haunted adventure case of *Longyin Temple*, the divine physician's poisoning case of the *Luoyang Flower Fair*, the manor robbery case of *Zui Linglong*, the prefect's embezzlement case of *Kaifeng Prefecture*, the yaksha death-summoning talisman case of *Death Warrant*, the exorcism and soul-summoning case of *General's Manor*, and the final conclusion *Great Yaksha*, with its bloody mystery cases including the Shaolin Temple debt collection and the appearance of Li Shaobai's biological father. While showcasing Shaolin martial arts, the film series explores one by one the Buddhist commandments concerning "wealth," "lust," "gambling," "temper," "falsehood," "wine," "greed," "poison," "anger," and "delusion," leading at the end to debates on Dharma and Zen meditation, stripping away hypocrisy, dispelling resentment, quelling killing, and eliminating evil thoughts until "all dharmas return to Zen." As the saying goes, "All dharmas are empty and return to the sea of nature; not a speck of dust stains the true Zen mind."