Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book

by Meyers, Ric

  “There can’t be two tigers on the mountain,” is an old Chinese proverb, and Chan quoted it often after firing Liang and taking over the film. Gutting a major supporting role by Andy Lau, Jackie brought back Ti Lung and Anita Mui to reshoot and design new sequences over a six-month period. He complained that Liang only wanted him to do drunken boxing during the final battle, then to wipe out nearly hundreds with it. Instead, Jackie set about establishing the drunken style earlier in the film, and creating a spectacular, albeit more intimate, climatic battle.

  Meanwhile, Liang took Lau and went off to make Drunken Master III (1994), a weak attempt at payback. Even so, the master of the kung fu movie did manage to complete one more film prior to his retirement, Drunken Monkey (2003), for a temporarily resurrected Shaw Brother Studio film unit. Co-starring Jacky Wu Jing and Gordon Liu Chia-hui, it was a fitting kung fu-filled finale that also served as a metaphor for the director’s triumph over adversity and illness (Liang beat cancer in addition to everything else).

  Back at Drunken Master II, Chan was obviously inspired to live up to Liang’s kung fu skills. The final fight, in an audaciously designed metal foundry set, is among the best things Chan has ever accomplished, mixing amazing martial arts and acrobatics with involving and emotional moments — culminating with Huang Fei-hong drinking industrial alcohol to achieve his ethereally unbeatable Drunken Master status. Rather than take on dozens as Liang had reportedly intended, Chan narrowed his focus to a few, culminating in a one-on-one tour de force with his friend, ex-bodyguard, training-mate, and super-kicker Ken Lo.

  “In the last fight scene, I was going to fight someone else (Ho Sun-park),” Jackie revealed. “He’s a very good marital artist, but he couldn’t get the rhythm down — he keeps twisting his ankle, so I used Ken Lo. I had Ken train hard for three months even before we started filming it.”

  But even then, accidents happened. Adding to his list of on-set injuries (dislocated shoulder, dislocated sternum, broken fingers, broken eyebrow ridge, dislocated cheek bone, crushed legs) was a broken nose when the alcohol-powered Jackie charged his adversary.

  “I’ve broken bones from head to toe,” Jackie said. “But broken legs and fingers don’t matter. I hurt for weeks and months, but my films give people memories that can keep for years.” And many people think of Drunken Master II as Jackie’s kung fu masterpiece.

  The only discordant note in the finished film was the final scene where, in the original Hong Kong release, Huang is shown to have been rendered mentally incompetent by his ordeal — his performance enough to make even Jerry Lewis cringe (in fact, the scene was removed from the American version).

  Drunken Master II was a critical and financial bonanza, and clearly the best movie Jackie Chan made since Project A II. And with it, he had accomplished something no other action star had ever done: he gained entry to the mainland. Only Jackie Chan films were allowed into Red China. Although ticket prices there were less than a dollar, the cinemas had a potential audience of billions. With voracious audiences in Japan and China, and a Hong Kong studio willing to give him all the time and money in the world, Chan was unique: clearly the most popular action star in the world, the only filmmaker with unquestioned authority, resources, and power, and the only man on the planet willing to die for his audience.

  “I’d much rather die on a movie set than in a car or plane crash,” he said. “I love making movies ... and I don’t want to die for nothing.” The writing on the marquee was clear. It was time for him to conquer the one mountain that had always eluded him. It was time to return to America.

  Even though Police Story had been the hit of the New York Film Festival, Hollywood was slow to accept Chinese-style action, but the underground video world was quick to pick up the slack. Intrigued by a book on the subject, as well as television specials that were broadcast on the Arts and Entertainment and Discovery channels (hmmm…wonder who wrote and/or instigated those?), thrill-seekers sought out Chan’s films in Chinatowns and through vaguely legal specialty mail-order houses.

  By the time New Line Cinema made a deal to distribute Chan’s new films in America, and Dimension Films arranged to screen some of his older movies, the audience that made Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman, and Batman famous were already well aware of Jackie’s talents. Now all he had to do was create new films for the international market that lived up to his past classics. Easier said than done.

  “American stuntmen try to teach me how to fight,” Jackie recalled. “I ask them, ‘How long have you been fighting?’ Two years. I studied Northern Style ten years, Southern style five years, hapkido, six months, karate, four months, boxing three months…. ‘How long have you been in the movie business?’ Three years. I’ve been in the action movie business for more than forty years. Most people who choreograph martial arts films in the U.S. only know how to fight. They don’t know about their audiences, and the effects needed to excite that audience.”

  Still, Double-Boy wasn’t giving up on his American dream. First came Rumble in the Bronx (1995), fueled by an exceptional New Line promotional campaign. It made more than thirty million dollars, a respectable sum for a film where the kung fu finale had to be scrapped because Jackie broke his ankle. It was infuriating. While Chan was used to being injured on his sets in some spectacular way, now his ankle was snapping after a mere hop from a bridge to a hovercraft. Even so, he merely had a sock painted to look like a sneaker, put it over his cast, and reworked the ending so it could be a car stunt instead of an extended kung fu fight.

  Then, much to his fans’ dismay, Jackie discovered that he liked replacing his tiring, challenging, final, extended, fight scene with a car stunt. Thunderbolt (1995), a wild, aimless auto racing thriller that starred Jackie as an erstwhile Speed Racer, featured two great Sammo-choreographed fight scenes but little else to recommend it. First Strike (1996) was a surprisingly tepid spy saga. Mr. Nice Guy (1997) and Who Am I (1998) — both set in Australia — had some fine fights as well, but that hardly made up for their amateurish acting and feeble plotting.

  The year 1998 saw Jackie Chan’s American hopes under siege. His U.S. box office had been hurt by the re-editing, re-scoring, re-dubbing, re-titling, and re-releasing of his older movies in America. Chan’s movies kept making money, but not the kind of money they could have been making, and one American filmmaker was getting pretty fed up with it. So he took a script about a married couple of cops who bicker their way to find the abducted child of a Chinese diplomat, rewrote it to replace the married couple with a fast-talking, streetwise African-American cop and a straight-laced kung fu cop from China, recruited an actor from his previous film, Money Talks (1997), then went to Jackie with a promise: to make him as big in America as he was in the rest of the world.

  Brett Ratner was as good as his word, despite the fact that Rush Hour (1998) was only his second major feature film. But although Ratner loved Jackie’s Hong Kong films and was certain he could translate their joys into the “buddy cop” idiom, it seemed that Jackie didn’t like being just an actor, nor being at the mercy of co-star Chris Tucker’s quick improvisational wit — especially in a language he had always been uncomfortable with. At first his worries seemed justified. Studio execs who viewed the footage, and critics who attended the premiere, gave the picture only a middling chance of success. Even the director himself was reported to have thought that the movie would probably gross only thirty million, tops.

  But those who went to the movie its opening weekend knew different. In hundreds of cinemas across the country, the seats were filled with young and old, male and female, black, white, and Asian — and all of them were smiling. Rarely had any movie attracted such a cross section of filmgoers, and rarely had any movie pleased every one of them. Rush Hour turned out to be the movie Jackie Chan had been promising for years — fast, funny, warm, action-filled entertainment with virtually no swearing and essentially no actual violence. Instead, viewers were treated to an effective synthesis of Jackie’s trademarks: an invent
ive use of props as well as an amalgamation of kung fu, wushu, acrobatics, and imagination — all layered with Chan’s anti-Bruce approach (humor, showing pain, etc.).

  The stars’ real-life distrust of one another and their own career ambitions blended perfectly with their characters’ motivations, and their well-honed performing skills only inspired each other to greater heights. Tucker’s mind and mouth aligned with Jackie’s brain and body, resulting in a consummate crowd pleaser. Rush Hour went on to gross more than two hundred million dollars, and instigate a series of sequels … each less effective than the last. And even though Jackie was happy to finally be king of the American hill, he far preferred it on his own terms. The British lease on Hong Kong had run out in 1997, so, as Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule, Jackie Chan returned to China.

  From then until now, he has bounced back and forth between America and Asia, making films in both countries that have ranged from uninspired, though well-meaning, to merely agreeable. In 1999, there was Gorgeous, his middling remake of Kevin Costner’s romantic comedy Message in a Bottle (1999), with some good fight scenes. There he showcased another on-going technique: the imaginative use of putting on, and taking off, his jacket as a martial weapon.

  In 2000, he was back to America for a “wushu Western” with Owen Wilson, Shanghai Noon (which begat the loosely limbed Shanghai Knights in 2003). In 2001, he had the anticlimactic, confusing The Accidental Spy in China and Rush Hour 2 in the U.S. 2002 was a bleak year, indeed, giving rise to, arguably, Chan’s worst films: America’s The Tuxedo and China’s The Medallion. It was obvious that his fight scene prowess had reached a physical and mental crescendo. There was precious nothing new, even in the action.

  Even Jackie realized he had scaled new lows, so he attempted a return to glory with the tough-minded (but weak-willed) New Police Story in 1994. But rather than find new ways of integrating kung fu, he merely ramped the emotional content up to eleven, seemingly crying every chance he got. The American weak-kneed Around the World in 80 Days remake during the same year didn’t help matters. 2005 saw Jackie in India for The Myth — another ultimately unsuccessful attempt to meld his kung fu with special effects. He tried to do a Chinese take on Three Men and a Baby (1987) in 2006 with the awkwardly structured (and awkwardly titled) Rob-B-Hood. 2007 was marred by the indifferent Rush Hour 3.

  2008 was the best of Jackie times and the worst of Jackie times. As an example of what American studios can do badly, Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company hired the three greatest kung fu film minds in the world — stars Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and choreographer Yuen Wo-ping — then apparently told them how to do what they did better than anyone else. The Forbidden Kingdom is supposedly a film created to honor kung fu, but it has virtually no kung fu in it. There’s “martial arts,” sure, but from all the balance-robbing-wires, and stiff-armed, stiff-legged, muscle-driven, hip-less action going on, it certainly appeared that someone told the trio to do “mixed martial arts … that’s what all the kids are digging these days.”

  There’s a joke in Jiang Hu: know what mixed martial arts is mixed with? Crap.

  It’s just a joke.

  Anyway, the finished film is a mass of misplaced homages, messy battles, ham-fisted story development, and missed opportunities by the dozens. The nominal hero doesn’t even learn to avoid a bully’s kick, despite the fact that it is used in the exact same way repeatedly throughout the film. When he finally does counter it, it’s with a ridiculously self-damaging defense that has as much to do with kung fu as a swan has to do with a dead cow.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of town, DreamWorks Animation decided that their first cartoon that wasn’t created to undercut or satirize Disney/Pixar would be about a Kung Fu Panda. More about that in a later chapter, but suffice to say that Jackie Chan did the voice of the Monkey, and the Chinese Government chided its own cinema industry for not coming up with something as excellent and accurate as it.

  Jackie kept busy in 2009 with the well-intentioned Shinjuku Incident, a crime thriller devoid of all kung fu, the idolizing mock documentary Looking for Jackie (aka Jackie Chan and the Kung Fu Kid aka Jackie Chan Kung Fu Master), and The Founding of a Republic, the Chinese Government’s sixtieth anniversary latter-day propaganda film. Chan started 2010 with The Spy Next Door, a demoralizing Disney-produced, agonizing American family comedy. But then came the summer and the Will Smith-produced remake of The Karate Kid, starring his son Jaden and Jackie in the “Mr. Miyagi” role.

  Although the Smiths had lobbied for a title change (and, indeed, the film is known as The Kung Fu Kid elsewhere in the world), the studio marketing department demanded “brand recognition” — even though calling this remake The Karate Kid would be like calling the tale of a young baseball player The Football Kid. Nevertheless, the Harald Zwart-directed remake, although overlong and featuring another fairly ludicrous final defense, is honorable and enjoyable in the extreme, featuring one of Jackie’s best performances and an extended central training travelogue sequence that’s worth the price of admission.

  It was also abundantly clear that, unlike certain aforementioned films I could rename, the kung fu on screen was left up to Jackie. Naturally his veteran fans got a little boost from seeing his “jacket-on, jacket-off” technique return as a fitting, effective, accurate replacement of the witty “wax on, wax off” of the original (although I’m sure the ludicrous final move would not have been Chan’s first choice … but what American would go for a subtle devastating technique when they can do a circus aerialist routine?). Happily, the film was a surprise box office hit, and a sequel was planned.

  As of this writing Jackie Chan is still considered the reigning emperor of kung fu films, despite the fact that he is planning to slowly phase out his on-screen involvement in the genre — but not before two farewell productions: the prequel Drunken Master 1945, and his ultimate statement in kung fu films, Chinese Zodiac, which is about … surprise, surprise … the illegal selling of Chinese antiquities. Although he will always be mentioned immediately after Bruce Lee, he has secured his legacy as the anti-Bruce, remaining a vitally important pioneer, a welcome diplomat, a generous philanthropist (with a specialty for education), and an influential ambassador for all good things.

  “Before, when I made a movie, it was for money,” Jackie told me. “But now when I make a movie, it is my craft. Money comes second. These movies are my babies. To me, movies are my life.”

  Picture identifications (clockwise from upper left):

  Sammo Hung in Spooky Encounters; Lam Ching-ying, Chung Fat, Li Hai-sheng, Fung Hak-on, and Yuen Mao in The Magnificent Butcher; Moon Lee, Yuen Baio, and Mang Hoi in Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain; Sammo in The Dead and the Deadly, Yuen Baio and Jackie Chan in My Lucky Stars; Warriors Two.

  Jackie Chan’s ascension to the top of the Hong Kong cinematic heap had no real precedent in terms of speed and strength. When Bruce Lee burst upon the scene, it came as a total surprise. No one had done the kind of kung fu he was displaying. But Jackie’s way had been prepared for — by Bruce and, especially, Liu Chia-liang, who had conceived the kung fu comedy Jackie perfected. So, by the time Chan did his Drunken Master thing, it seemed a welcome, subconsciously anticipated, delight — as if even the audience was his appreciative collaborator.

  Although some attributed the success of Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master to novice director Yuen Wo-ping, it became rapidly apparent that these films’ winning formula was more Chan than Yuen. Wo-ping, born in 1945, and an experienced stunt coordinator, performer, and kung fu choreographer since 1971, subsequently displayed a much rougher, more bizarre bent than Jackie.

  Following the success of his first two, Jackie-starring, films, Yuen instituted The Wo Ping Film Company to make a series of increasingly crazier films. He started by cementing his father’s fame with Dance of the Drunken Mantis (1979), a semi-sequel in which Simon Yuen Siu-tien’s “Sam the Seed” (aka Beggar Su) discovers his son, Foggy, only to almost lose him to a vengeful drunken mant
is fist fighter named Rubber Legs (Huang Jang-li).

  Beyond the odd story, Yuen filled the crude-looking film with family, as well as truly weird comedy characters and situations. He also gave the “Jackie” role to his brother Sunny Yuen Shun-yi, who, although an exceptional martial artist, was hardly what anyone would call classically handsome. He also cast Sunny as the star of The Buddhist Fist (1980), another weird, cheap-looking, kung fu-filled effort that combined truly peculiar comedy with a nasty plot about a masked killer rapist (played by Tsui Siu-ming, a Sammo Hung look alike who has had an extensive, eclectic career).

  Speaking of Sammo, he and Golden Harvest came calling on Wo-ping to essentially say, “You know what you did for Jackie in Drunken Master? Could you do that for me, please?” The request was not unnatural. Fans had been waiting years for Sammo to play rotund Butcher Wing, one of Huang Fei-hong’s favorite disciples (who, in real life, was sifu to Liu Chia-liang’s father). So Wo-ping and his own father set to work on The Magnificent Butcher (1979), which promised to do Jackie’s films one better by having Kwan Tak-hing play the “real” Huang Fei-hong in it. Then, tragically, midway through production, Simon Yuen passed away, requiring a hasty recasting of veteran character actor Fan Mei-sheng in the Sam Seed role.

  Although Fan was famous for his many Shaw Studio performances (such as Black Whirlwind in All Men Are Brothers), he was hardly as venerated as Simon. Wo-ping attempted to compensate by creating some of the best, and most memorable, Huang Fei-hong scenes in history (including a calligraphy fight that ranks amongst the best ever conceived), but, as good as it was, Magnificent Butcher didn’t do for Sammo what Drunken Master did for Jackie.