Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (11 page)

Even his anniversary film,
Shanghai 13
(1984) — designed to reunite many of the stars he made famous over his career (including Jimmy Wang Yu
, Ti Lung
, David Chiang
, Chi Kuan-chun
,
Chiang Sheng, Lu Feng
, and Cheng Tien-chi
, among others) — was embroiled in a rights dispute that kept the inexpensive, but fun and fight-filled, film from ever being shown in Hong Kong or legally released on DVD.

Happily Chang Cheh
lived long enough to see his great films rediscovered and rechampioned — taking his rightful place as the “Godfather
of the kung fu film.” He wrote his memoir shortly before his death in 2002 at the age of eighty, concluding, in part, “‘It’s easier to advance than to retreat’ is the way of self preservation and ease of mind … it takes a talent to spot a talent … (and) it also takes a talent to judge a talent.” His talent was undeniable.

The most important talent he spotted went on to become the master of kung fu movies. Liu Chia-liang
(aka Lau Kar-leung) was born in 1936 and grew up in Guangzhou until his family moved to Hong Kong when he was twelve. His father was Liu Zhan
, a well-known hung gar
teacher who ran the Hua Chiang Martial Arts Society schools. Liang’s dad was the favorite student of the esteemed Lam Sai-wing
(better known by kung fu film fans as “Butcher Wing”), who, in turn, had been the favorite student of none other than the real Huang Fei-hong himself.

So, was it any wonder that Liang excelled in this martial arts family and that he got his start in motion pictures in
Kwan Tak-hing’s Huang Fei-hong series? Like Brandon Lee
, Liang was first reluctant to toil in his father’s shadow, but he was so bullied at school that his father convinced him to start learning the family style at the age of seven. Not surprisingly, Liang took to it like a duck to water — especially when his father always connected martial arts to “martial virtue.”

In a short time, Liang’s learning became insatiable. His main style was Hung Style Boxing (hung gar
, Hung Family Fist), but he also soaked up eagle’s claw, wing chun
, choy li fut
, baqua
, taichi
, qigong
, and others — to the point that, if he was shown a style, he could immediately replicate it. Thanks to his father, his father’s teacher, and his father’s teacher’s teacher, Liu Chia-liang
intrinsically understood that kung fu was a combination of physical logic and psychological understanding. And then experience taught him that serenity powered strength — both inner and outer strength.

The same was true of filmmaking. At that time, there weren’t enough skilled stuntmen to do anything but real martial arts in the Huang Fei-hong films, especially since
Kwan Tak-hing came from a background of Cantonese opera. Although he resembled the real Fei-hong, Hing was not very familiar with Hung Style kung fu, so Liang, his father, and Shih Kien
(who played the predominant villain in the series) slowly taught him on set. Naturally, Liang was soon featured as a character on screen — usually that of an arrogant punk. But already he knew he wanted more.

“I wanted to be a director as soon as I entered the industry,” he was quoted as saying. And the best way for an ambitious kung fu man to do that was through action choreography. He made his first official foray into the job on the independently produced
South Dragon
North Phoenix
(1963), where he met Tang Chia
— the man who was to become known as the “action director’s action director.” Born in 1938, Tang had been working in show business since he was fifteen. His martial arts training in Peking Opera
performances led to kung fu work in early Chinese cinema.

Liang and Tang were impressed by each other’s skills, so they agreed to team up. It was perfect timing. There were so few knowledgeable choreographers that their talents were regularly in demand. Within two years, they joined the Shaw Brothers
Studio. They started collaborating with a few directors, but soon zeroed in on Chang Cheh
. After all, the three seemed made for each other. Cheh admired and appreciated good kung fu, but knew little about it. But he wanted someone who could create on-screen kung fu that matched the quality of his concepts and dramatics.

Liang was so good at it that he was soon promoted to the then-new rank of “action director.” Whenever there was a fight scene, Chang would step aside and Liang would take over, placing the camera, instructing the cast and crew, and even saying the magic words, “camera, rolling, cut.” Liang and Tang worked with Chang on virtually every film up until 1975, contributing substantially to Cheh’s success. By then Liang had also been instrumental in establishing a Shaw Studio kung fu training program and developing the skills of every action star the studio promoted. So it was probably inevitable that Liang’s desire to have total control of his work would lead to friction. It finally came to a head after
Disciples of Shaolin
(1975).

For years, apparently, Cheh did what he could to keep Liang from being given his own film. For, as Liang quoted: “‘colleagues are like enemy nations.’” In other words, if someone knows you are that good, why would they want you competing with them for the same audience? Finally, on the set of
Marco Polo
(1975), Chang Cheh
and Liu Chia-liang
went their separate ways. Tang Chia
eschewed the director’s chair, satisfied to remain choreographing films for other Shaw Studio directors.

Tang’s work was prized for its inventive seamlessness and versatility. Chia seemed as comfortable working with two actors as he was with two dozen, and was equally adept at empty-hand fighting as he was with virtually any legendary wushu weapon. He was also known as an exceptional collaborator, willing to work closely with the director rather than insist that his fight scenes be filmed traditionally. The results were movies that pushed the envelope of classical wuxia
.

Liang, meanwhile, was sick of studio politics. In fact, he was even threatening to tear up his Shaw contract and go to Los Angeles to open martial arts studios with Tan Tao-liang
(aka Delon Tam, the star of such enjoyable independent films as 1977’s
Flash Legs
, and 1980’s
The Leg Fighters
). But famed Shaw Studio producer Mona Fong
finally gave this essentially untried, unknown talent his own movie. There was method to Mona’s seeming madness. Bruce Lee
had shaken up cinema, the city, and the box office with his realistic, convincing, and believable kung fu. Of all the people working in
the industry, the one person who might match him, kick for kick, technique for technique, was Liu Chia-liang
. Ironically, it turned out that Liang had known Bruce very well when they were both kids.

“Bruce Lee
was passionate about kung fu,” Liang said in an interview. “It was his life. He introduced it to the whole world. But he was missing something. That was the ‘wu de
’ (martial arts philosophy) and the ‘xiu yang
’ (self-control). He hit to hurt, for the pleasure of the strikes. He was too much a Westerner. The traditional Chinese courtesy was alien to him. When you watch his movies, the violence and the power of his blows can’t be missed. For us, the principle is ‘dian dao ji zhi’ (to use chi to power the strike, using ‘soft’ to support and complete the ‘hard’).

“Someone is really strong in kung fu only if he’s able to do that. Bruce Lee
was limited in his knowledge. Likewise, his ‘zhaoshu’ (gestures) were also limited. But there were elements derived from aikido
, tae kwon do, karate
, Western boxing — all that, with a little Chinese kung fu. And Bruce was very smart. He was a superb actor. He applied himself diligently, and when he practiced kung fu, he gave it his all.”

Liang admired Bruce, but did not want to epitomize him. So, instead of a straight-out kung fu thriller, he started his directing career with a then-unheard-of “kung fu satire” called
Fighting God
in Hong Kong and
The Spiritual Boxer
(1975) in the United States. He filmed it in a month with a cast of unknowns (save for cameos in the prologue by friends Ti Lung
and Chen Kuan-tai
). A kung fu comedy? The studio thought he was insane. But it made over a million dollars — an almost unheard-of amount at that time, especially by a first time filmmaker. Master Liang had cemented the kung fu comedy genre.

Given that encouragement, Liang finally felt it was time to show his peers what he could really do. It was time to put all his kung fu on screen and balance it with his love of martial virtue. It paid off in his second film,
Challenge
of the Masters
(1976), which established his reputation for making a traditional concept seem brand new. In this case, it was the Huang Fei-hong movies. Liang had seen them all, been in a bunch of them, and figured it was about time that someone made movies about the character’s youth — the all-important genesis of the ultimate Confucian hero.

The film started on a striking note — one that would be repeated throughout the director’s career. The credits played over a stark soundstage. There was no attempt to make the environment realistic. It was a huge white expanse with two towers of Chinese calligraphy around which two fighters practiced their forms and stances. The fighters were Chen Kuan-tai
, portraying Huang’s teacher Lu Ah-tsai, and Liu Chia-hui (aka Lau Kar-fai aka Gordon Liu
), the adopted brother of the director, playing Huang Fei-hong.

For years, many thought that Hui was Liang’s real brother, but it was not so. “I don’t belong to the Liu family,” Gordon told me, “but when I was nine years old I started to practice at his martial art school. His mother liked me very much and treated me like her son. Then when I was about twenty years old I joined their working family. That’s when I changed my name. My real name is Sin Kam-hei. At first I had no interest in shooting any movies. I started as a messenger, at night I studied accountancy, and then I worked as an accountant for two years.”

But that all changed when Liang gave him the leading role in
Challenge
of the Masters
. The whole film was a family affair — both blood and adopted — with Hui as the star, the director playing the villain, and his real brother, Liu Chia-yung
(Lau Kar-wing), playing the policeman who dies trying to capture the killer. But, more important than merely the plot, Liang used it as a vehicle to introduce a strong current of martial virtue into his movies, and set out to make a film that was actually about the relationship of a kung fu student to his or her sifu.

As such, probably the most important piece of dialogue in the film was “Forgive man and forebear. Never forget humility and kindness. That’s the way real kung fu should be.” Of course that doesn’t mean that evil people should go unpunished. In film after film, Liang showed that by seeking to better your own kung fu, you will be able to correctly show those who would do harm the error of their ways.

What truly set Liu Chia-liang
apart was that his films were really all about kung fu. His were the only ones in which the kung fu couldn’t be removed without negating the movie. In every other director’s filmography, the kung fu could be replaced by guns, or swords, or boxing, or whatever. Not in a Liu Chia-liang film. That’s one of the reasons he’s the true “Master of the Kung Fu Movie.”

He cemented his reputation in his next film, which has stayed with anyone who ever saw it.
Executioners
from Shaolin
(aka
Executioners of Death
, 1977) was nominally about the surviving temple monks taking vengeance on Pei Mei (played by Lo Lieh
), the white-browed hermit, who betrayed them. But it was actually about the creation of hung gar
, the Hung Family Fist. It contained ample amounts of the things that made Liang famous: screenplay wit, cinematic inventiveness, and superlative kung fu.

One of the film’s highlights is on the wedding night of Shaolin survivor and tiger style kung fu master Hung Hsi-kuan
(played by Chen Kuan-tai
) with crane stylist Fang Yung-chun (played by Queen of Shaw Studio kung fu Lily Li
). In their honeymoon haven, she sets him a challenge. If he can open her crane legs with his tiger style, he wins. But once he eventually does, and their son, Hung wen-ting (Yung Wang-yu
, star of
The Spiritual Boxer
) grows up, the film explodes into repeated attempts to defeat Pei Mei’s consummate iron skin kung fu, using such esoteric, fascinating devices as a metal statue with rolling pinballs that symbolize the monk’s moving internal weak point.

But only when the son combines his father’s and mother’s techniques — creating hung gar
— does the villain get his bloody comeuppance.
Executioners
from Shaolin
succeeded grandly on an emotional, kung fu, and box office level, so Liang pressed his advantage by suggesting his next film be even more unusual.