| “ | You truly are my big brother. I knew you wouldn’t die so easily. Big brother, I missed you to death! | „ |
| ~ Cao Man to his sworn brother, Hou Jie. |
Cao Man is the main antagonist of the 2011 Hong Kong Chinese martial arts film Shaolin.
He is Hou Jie's second-in-command who later became his foe when Cao took his power as a Warlord in a coup, sending his assassins to kill Hou and his family becoming the main antagonist of the movie.
He was portrayed by Nicholas Tse, who also played Yau Kong-ngo in Raging Fire.
About[]
Cao become a sworn brother to Hou Jie and Song Hu at young age and during the war, Hou Jie became a powerful warlord who killed his enemies in cold-blood and Cao was his deputy who witnessed his boss' killings including a man who seeked shelter in The Shaolin Temple. Feeling that he was used as his pawn and treated very badly, Cao decided to seek power against Hou with the help of foreign leaders.
After Song was informed by Cao's letter about Hou's plans, Cao sent his assassins to kill Song and Hou's family, however Song died during the ambush while Hou and his family managed to escape.
However Hou's daughter was injured by assassin's horse carriage and later died of her injures which left Hou Jie in grief for his beloved daughter's death and in remorse to became a monk at The Shaolin Temple to atone for his past misdeeds while Cao Man took power by killing Hou's allies and bodyguards and forcefully recruited male refugees to build railway by unearthing Chinese relics and massacring people to silence them.
While dealing with Russian Army, Hou and other monks rescued the refugees. Later he informed that Hou was still alive living at Shaolin Temple, Cao sent his troops to bring him Hou volunteers to go with Cao to stop his plans and avoid destruction on the entire country.
Cao taunted Hou's decision to enter monastery to repair his sins as he ordered his solders to drown Yan Xi at the pot before Hou rescued her and defeated soldiers, then Cao stabbed Hou's senior Jingneng to death while covering his juniors to escape. Meanwhile other Shaolin monks and refugees decided that they need to evacuate while Hou and other monks remained behind to defend the temple.
Cao later arrives with his troops and attacks the Shaolin. At the same time, the foreigners find they have been cheated and decide to silence Cao and the entire Shaolin community. They bombard Shaolin with artillery, killing many of the monks and Cao's soldiers. Hou defeats Cao in a fight but eventually sacrifices himself to save Cao from being crushed by a falling beam. Hou falls into the Buddha statue's palm and dies peacefully, leaving Cao feeling guilty.
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