by Meyers, Ric
The industry was galvanized by this news. Although the idea of a bio-pic about this venerable sifu had long been considered, it took a director of Wong’s stature to kick-start several competing productions. The one with the most momentum was to be directed by Wilson Yip and star Donnie Yen. It was the culmination of their collaboration. Edmond Wong, who scripted Dragon Tiger Gate, wrote the screenplay (borrowing many tones and shadings of several Jet Li films like Fearless and Once Upon a Time in China). Sammo Hung, who played the villain in SPL, was chosen as choreographer because he had made the greatest wing chun film up until that time, The Prodigal Son. But to avoid conflict with Wong Kar-wei’s vision, the assembled producers changed their film’s name to Ip Man (2008).
By playing the revered sifu, Donnie was able to act from a place of serenity and center he hadn’t previously hinted at. Always the soul of aggression, he was now performing the soul of discretion, and he wore it extremely well. In fact, the first hour of Ip Man, before it descends into yet another insidious Japanese versus intrepid Chinese World War II saga, ranks among the absolute best — especially an extended confrontation between a raging Northern martial artist (Louis Fan) and the balanced Ip, who brilliantly teaches him that it’s not about the sword … it’s about the sword-holder. This scene displays all concerned — the director, writer, choreographer, and actors — at their absolute finest.
It also firmly established Donnie Yen as the new king of kung fu films. For the first time he was nominated for “Best Actor” awards, and he was now number one on every action film producer’s list. Ip Man won most major Asian film awards. Bodyguards and Assassins (2009), the powerful drama Donnie co-starred in, won the major film awards the following year. Boasting an almost unbelievably difficult production history (which spawned an impressive documentary of its own called Development Hell), this tale of ordinary people sacrificing themselves to protect freedom fighter Sun Yat-sen from government killers was a brutally beautiful film — highlighted by Donnie’s on-screen match with famed mixed martial arts fighter Cung Le (not to mention Donnie’s unforgettable final moment running face first into a galloping horse).
After all his years finding his place in the film world, Donnie seems to be reveling in his freedom to choose any project he cares to. In 2010 he starred in Ip Man 2, 14 Blades (a remake of Lu Chin-ku’s Shaw Brother Studio production of Secret Service of the Imperial Court), and the frenetic, nearly farcical Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen — a seeming sequel to Jet Li’s Fist of Legend in which Donnie gets to redo Fist of Fury once again while also dressing up like Kato.
At the time of this writing, he is also playing The Monkey King in a film of the same name, General Guan Yu in The Lost Bladesman (2011) and a film that spans the history of kung fu entertainment, Wu Xia (2011). At one time he even spoke of teaming up with Tony Jaa (aka Panom Yeerum) before the Jackie Chan-inspired, Bruce Lee-worshipping, inordinately promising muy thai artist and filmmaker threatened retirement after starring in the Ong Bak series (2003-2010) and Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector, 2005).
But whatever he does, it’s safe to say that he will be giving it his all. “Martial art is a form of expression, an expression from your inner self to your hands and legs,” Donnie has said. “When you watch my films, you’re feeling my heart.”
So what will the future of kung fu films look like? You’ve probably already seen it. It was in the book-ending sequences that began and ended Shaolin Soccer (2001) — a classic kung fu comedy directed, written, and starring another Bruce Lee idolizer, but one where, when you watch his films, you are feeling his funny bone as well as his heart.
Stephen Chow Sing-chi loves kung fu. More specifically, Stephen Chow loves kung fu movies. More generally, Stephen Chow loves Bruce Lee. “Bruce Lee’s wushu theories heated up my heart like a fireball,” he said, “helping me through many difficult times.”
And the now internationally famous filmmaker had many difficult times to get through. Raised in poverty, Chow’s one glimmer of hope came from inside a movie theater where Bruce Lee broke a “No Dogs or Chinese” sign outside a park, and made clear to all comers that the Chinese were not the “weaklings of Asia.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” he told me. “Behind wushu is the spirit of always heading forth and never giving up. This spirit, the fighting will, is what I learned from Bruce Lee films.”
And he used it well. At first he dreamed of being a great martial artist, but he soon realized that the Bruce he loved was also a great actor (and, of course, intrinsically knew that the road to financial reward was littered with film stars, not kung fu masters). Getting by with a little help from his friends, he managed to get into the local television training school, and wound up the host of a children’s program called 430 Space Shuttle.
“He was known as being a little tough on the kids,” recalls Frank Djeng, who was the “master of remaster” at Tai Seng Entertainment when they distributed several of Chow’s comedies on DVD. “Really, almost rude, but it was the same kind of dry comedy he’s famous for now.”
Ironically, when Chow got his big break into films, it was about as far away from comedy as he could get. He fought alongside such stars as Danny Lee in Final Judgment (1988), David Chiang in Just Heroes (1989), and even Jet Li in Dragon Fight (1989), but displayed far more acting chops than comedy or kung fu chops. In fact, he won a supporting actor award for the first film.
That, happily, led to roles in eight more films in 1990 alone, before visionary producer Ng See-yuen tapped Chow to star in his satire of Chow Yun-fat’s God of Gamblers. All for the Winner (1990) was that rarest of creatures: a lampoon that made more money than the film it was making fun of. Much of its success undoubtedly came from the writing and directing skills of Jeffrey Lau and kung-fu choreographer Corey Yuen Kwai, but there was no denying the invaluable contribution of Chow, whose charm, wit, and obvious pleasure was infectious.
His joy at “making it” was also obvious, especially since he appeared in nearly a dozen movies the next year alone, including two God of Gamblers sequels. More importantly, he starred in the hitherto fore unthinkable homage to his childhood idol Bruce Lee, Fist of Fury 1991. Fist of Fury, of course, was the original title of the film Americans have come to know as The Chinese Connection, and was considered sacrosanct to Hong Kong moviegoers. So it’s a clear measure of how loved Chow had become that the audience flocked to, rather than ran from, the undeniably hilarious film.
It was in this film that all the ingredients of Chow’s burgeoning genius were on display: his manic-depressive/passive-aggressive screen persona and uncategorizeable charisma as well as the balance of sympathy and pathos within ingenious plotting. In this case Chow played a man with the most powerful right arm in all of China … as well as the weakest left one. By the time he instituted another popular film series with Fight Back to School (1991) — nominally a comedic combination of Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Kindergarten Cop — his new brand of screen comedy, known as “Mo Lei Tau,” was in place.
It meant that anything could, and often did, happen, from unexpected musical numbers to sudden satires of any commercial, music video, TV show, or other movie that came to mind. That much was obvious. What wasn’t, to Western ears, was how much humor came from what Chow said and how he said it. Literally lost in translation were his brilliant wordplay, puns, insults, local slang and risqué jokes.
It didn’t seem to make much difference. As Chow targeted the legal system (Justice My Foot, 1992), Chinese history (Royal Tramp, 1992, King of Beggars, 1992), James Bond (From Beijing with Love, 1994), television (Sixty Million Dollar Man, 1995), the gods (Mad Monk, 1993, A Chinese Odyssey, 1994), and many other things, he did it with revelatory invention and unrestricted imagination, often creating satires within satires that were understood wherever they were shown. He also took every opportunity to both spotlight and satirize martial arts, whether it was suddenly fighting like Bruce in Out of the Dark (1995) — his spoof of both G
hostbusters and Leon: The Professional — or turning a karate confrontation into a cha-cha during several films.
He had been involved in the creation of all his films, whether through ad-libs or dallying with co-writing and co-directing credits, but 1996’s God of Cookery (seemingly a parody of Tsui Hark’s 1995 culinary comedy The Chinese Feast) could truly be called a “Stephen Chow Film.” It was so popular that Jim Carrey was set to star in an American remake with Chow directing. But that was not to be. Instead, Chow appeared in five more Asian films (even fighting Jackie Chan’s bodyguard Ken Lo in Tricky Master 2000) before launching his next full-fledged personal production: an homage to the then-dying Hong Kong film industry called The King of Comedy (1999).
It was that film that cemented Chow’s intention to get off the cinematic treadmill. Finally, after starring in more than thirty movies in a dozen years, he decided to take the next step. It was time for Chow to utterly control his destiny and take over the world through the power of cinema. Rather than make one movie a month, he labored on his next for two years. But it was worth it. Shaolin Soccer, his love letter to kung fu (that started by showing everyday problems and ended with kung fu solving all the problems) won every Asian film award that wasn’t nailed down and broke every box office record … until it hit an American wall.
Despite soccer’s World Cup being played out on the world stage, for reasons still unexplained, the studio which owned the American distribution rights shelved Chow’s delightful movie for years, then gave it only a nominal release with little promotion. It was a distribution mistake Chow had no intention of making again, no matter how much was offered. Three years later, partnered with Sony Pictures Classics, he proved it with Kung Fu Hustle, his flat-out valentine to kung fu cinema.
In order to include every kind of screen wushu, Chow initially hired Sammo Hung to be its action choreographer. “He did the first fight between the Axe Gang and the people of Pig Sty Alley,” Chow told me. The one where the baker, tailor, and coolie reveal their skills. “I think he did a great job.”
But after that, it is rumored that Sammo wasn’t as interested in being involved in the heavily wired and digitalized subsequent sequences. These were not such a problem for the internationally renowned Yuen Wo-ping. And, even if they were a problem, Master Yuen didn’t let it stop him. “He was always open to new ideas and suggestions,” Chow reported, “no matter how outrageous.” And they did get outrageous, from satirizing The Matrix’s mass slaughter of men in black suits, to making a Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner chase sequence come to live-action life.
“Oh yes,” Chow admitted. “I saw Warner Brothers cartoons as a kid, and this sequence was inspired by it. It was originally a little longer — showing me jumping on a motorcycle and then crashing it — but I don’t think that part worked, so I took it out. I am actually very happy I did.”
He was also very happy to cast some of his childhood idols in supporting roles. He had always admired Bruce Leung Siu-lung’s vertical kick — the one he used to great effect in Kung Fu Hustle’s casino battle — and was overjoyed to discover that the popular star of My Kung Fu 12 Kicks (1979) and The Fists The Kicks and The Evils (1979) was not only still in good shape, but also bald.
“At first I thought he had better hair than I do,” he joked. “But then I found out he was wearing a wig. I was very relieved. I thought we’d have to cut his hair to make sure he didn’t look better than me.”
Chow completed his cast with his usual mix of striking faces (Bruce Lee look-alike Danny Chan), amusing attitudes (rotund sidekick Lam Chi-chung), innocent female beauty (Eva Huang) and great kung fu stylists (Yuen Wah, Chiu Chi-ling, Dong Zhihua, Xing Yu, and Fung Hak-on). Initially, it was reported that Chow also sought out retired film star Yuen Qiu, who appears as the landlady with the all-powerful “Lion’s Roar,” but in truth, the girl who saved James Bond’s butt in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) came to him entirely by accident.
“She had come with a friend who wanted to audition,” he recalled, “but when I saw her across the room with a cigarette dangling from her lips, she looked exactly like the character I had created in my mind. I was very happy she turned out to be who she was.”
He was also extremely happy to incorporate many different aspects of kung fu as well as a definitive Bruce Lee homage. In addition to spotlighting Shaolin, iron arm, staff fighting, Deadful Melody-style lyre killing, toad style, and taichi, he had the landlady make the exact same hand motions to the Axe Gang leader as Bruce made to the Italian mafia don in Way of the Dragon.
The final joke was on us. Kung Fu Hustle went on to become the most successful film in Hong Kong film history because nearly every scene either was, or contained, a satire of a specific Chinese action film … that virtually no Westerner living outside of Hong Kong had ever seen. That much was obvious to me when I was asked to interview Chow for the Kung Fu Hustle DVD, but by then I already knew that there were two Stephen Chows. There was the private Stephen, who I already had several great talks with, and the public Stephen, who, as soon as the camera light went on, wickedly grinned and clammed up.
Take a look at the DVD interview and guess which Stephen showed up (and watch for the moment late in the talk when he suddenly looks to the left and smiles while still talking … that’s because when, again, he knows the answer to my increasingly desperate, elaborate question, but refuses to elucidate, I silently mouthed “I hate you” at him). Even though we were under strict time constraints, it’s always great to talk to this remarkable filmmaker, even if, like most of his peers, he occasionally enjoys watching gweilo twist in the wind (all had learned that, while Asian fans usually say “what can I do for you,” American fans usually say “what can you do for me?”).
Actually, just about the only thing that makes Stephen Chow unhappy these days is that he has too much time for hustle, but not enough for kung fu. “I don’t have as much time as I would like to practice,” he lamented. “But I love kung fu. [Famed, pioneering taichi sifu] William C.C. Chen [www.williamccchen.com] is my ultimate master, and I respect him more than I can say. And now it’s time to start thinking out films about Journey to the West, Taichi, and Kung Fu Hustle 2. Got any ideas?”
Look who’s asking. Because “kung fu” actually means “hard work” or “concerted effort toward a specific goal,” good ideas will keep coming from the people who balance eternal, external, martial applications with interminable, internal, personal power. It’s just the nature of human physiology and psychology. Kung fu is harder, more exacting, and takes longer to master than other martial arts, but the life-long rewards are worth it.
So are the films. Again, it’s like comparing all other dance movies to the films of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. No one can really recreate what those two dance giants did, but it is them who, and their films which, have stood the test of time. The same will be true for Bruce, Liang, Jackie, Jet, Donnie, Stephen, and all the others who take the time to do it right.
Why the kung fu film? Because it can excite, engage, inspire, and free an audience like no other genre. Because kung fu is, quite simply, the optimum in human development. There is no better, or more effective, way for a person to use their body and mind to set things right. Besides, when done correctly, it’s glorious to watch. Why? Because, whether you know it or not, the power in kung fu films is also in each and every member of the audience. Now that’s exciting to contemplate. And, as always and ever, watching films of fury is all about exhilaration.
THE TOP 100 KUNG FU MOVIES 1966 - 2010
Come Drink with Me (1966)
Directed by King Hu
Choreographed by Han Ying-chieh
Starring Cheng Pei-pei
King Hu alerts the world that there’s more to kung fu films than meet the eye.
The One-Armed Swordsman (1967)
Directed by Chang Cheh
Choreographed by Liu Chia-liang, Tang Chia
Starring Jimmy Wang Yu
Chang Cheh changes the way kung
fu movies are made and watched.
Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969)
Directed by Chang Cheh
Choreographed by Liu Chia-liang, Tang Chia
Starring Jimmy Wang Yu
Chang Cheh reveals his desire to make snappy populist cliffhangers.
A Touch of Zen (1969)
Directed by King Hu
Choreographed by Han Ying-chieh
Starring Ying Bai
King Hu makes the first kung fu art film with symbolism to spare.
The Chinese Boxer (1970)
Directed by Jimmy Wang Yu
Choreographed by Tang Chia
Starring Jimmy Wang Yu
Wang Yu sets the stage for Bruce Lee’s patriotism.
Vengeance (1970)
Directed by Chang Cheh
Choreographed by Tang Chia
Starring David Chiang, Ti Lung
Chang Cheh bridges Peking Opera drama with his yang gang bloodshed.
New One-Armed Swordsman (1971)
Directed by Chang Cheh
Choreographed by Liu Chia-liang, Tang Chia
Starring David Chiang
Wang Yu out, David Chiang, Ti Lung, and Liu Chia-liang in.
The Water Margin (1972)
Directed by Chang Cheh
Choreographed by Liu Chia-liang, Tang Chia
Starring David Chiang, Ti Lung
Chang Cheh does for wuxia epics what he did for yang gang kung fu.
Fist of Fury (1972)
Directed by Lo Wei
Choreographed by Han Ying-chieh
Starring Bruce Lee
No Dogs or Chinese? Not anymore.
Way of the Dragon (1972)
Directed by Bruce Lee
Choreographed by Bruce Lee
Starring Bruce Lee
The purest Bruce ever.
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972)
Directed by Chu Yuan
Choreographed by Simon Chui Yee-ang