Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (13 page)

Into this seemingly simple plot the director has mounted more wonderful scenes of “secret” martial arts — as in a ballroom sequence where everyone fights in costume — and added exquisite touches, such as the Westernized boy (Hsaio Ho
) who constantly uses American slang and profanity incorrectly. The shining star of this movie, however, is Hui. Although she was featured in Liang’s three previous films (as well as in
Clan of the White Lotus
aka
Fists of the White Lotus,
directed by Lo Lieh
as a sequel to
Executioners
From Shaolin
in 1980) this was her first starring role and the one that won her the Hong Kong equivalent of a Golden Globe award.

“He was nice,” Kara said of Liang. “He taught me everything. He taught me how to use the camera, how to use film, and how to make movies. He gave me many chances and created stories just for me.” And he wasn’t through yet. His next film was
Martial Club
(1981), his final statement in Huang Fei-hong films. Liu Chia-hui
again played the youthful Huang, but not before Liang himself pops up during the credit sequence, instructing the audience on the traditions and styles of the lion dance. The film then opens with a lion dance performed by Hui and his partner (Mai Te-lo
).

It unfolds as a classic story of kung fu school versus kung fu school, complete with impressive battles and challenges, but the film is basically a setup for its final fight. The evil school has hired a northern Chinese stylist (Wang Lung-wei
once again) to defeat Huang. Instead, the pair test each other’s skills in an extended fight in a long alleyway that gets narrower and twists. This is an amazing fight scene, displaying a range of styles and techniques, as well as subtle moves and grandstand plays. It is a testament to Liang’s, Hui’s, and Wei’s talents — which are prodigious. The Wei character winds up winning, but he never intended to kill the young man. He merely wanted to see what he could do and was duly impressed. At the close he strongly suggests that the bad guys clean up their act. This was a special movie for Wang Lung-wei
… he finally got to play a good guy.

But it was all a prelude for Liang’s next film. More than once, you may notice that when a kung fu star gets to a certain age, he or she becomes interested in capturing his or her kung fu skills at their optimum. This invariably results in an extraordinary film, and
Legendary Weapons of China
(aka
Legendary Weapons of Kung Fu,
1982) is no exception. In fact, I’ve often referred to it as the quintessential kung fu film.

First, it is about kung fu. It is not a western with kung fu, a love story with kung fu, a comedy with kung fu. If kung fu did not exist, this movie could not have been made. Second, it is about kung fu
films
. If the martial arts movie genre didn’t exist, neither would this picture. On the surface it is about the end of the kung fu era in China. Foreigners (gweilos) have invaded and occupied China, causing the kung fu (or pugilist) schools to unite in order to devise a style to counter their most dreaded and powerful enemy: the gun.

Glorious years of self-improvement have ended … perhaps even having been for naught. Weaklings with guns could defeat the mightiest fighter, and only one sifu is willing to admit that: Lei Kung (the forty-six-year-old Liu Chia-liang
). Naturally, all the other schools put a kung fu hit out on him, lest his contention get to the ears of the enemy. But these are no ordinary schools. The Pugilists are a divided sect of the dreaded “Mosha
” (aka Maoshan) — the predecessors of, and inspiration for, the Japanese ninja
… only they don’t have the psychological yoke of the ever-corruptible bushido code of honor to hamper them. These Chinese “magician-spies” are feared to this day and rarely spoken of … even by the filmmakers who cautiously picture them. In this film, they include a group who can control their students via voodoo-like dolls, as well as a vast array of blades, bombs, and chi.

To find Lei Kung, who has gone into hiding, the schools send Kara Hui Ying-hung
, Hsaio Ho
, and Gordon Liu
Chia-hui
. Complicating matters is a
Spiritual Boxer
-like kung fu charlatan played by Alexander Fu Sheng
in total Bob Hope
mode, who impersonates Lei Kung in several memorable scenes. The kung fu complications and comedy Liang wrests from setting the characters off each other like pinballs is a joy to behold, until the Hui Ying-hung character finally finds Lei Kung, who is disguised as an old woodcutter, and convinces him to start honing his rusting skills to confront the killers stalking him.

In several consummate confrontations, Lei Kung defeats his pursuers, gaining their respect in the process. Only then does the truth emerge. Kung’s own brother (played by Liang’s own brother Yung) had arranged the hunt simply to ingratiate himself with the government, the kung fu schools, and the brothers’ own clan. At the end, the two face each other outside a temple at sundown to do battle with all eighteen legendary weapons of China. This extended sequence is, not surprisingly, a masterwork, with each of the weapons and empty-hand techniques identified with titles on the sides of the screen. Even then, Liang takes special care to show that even the most insidious of techniques can be defeated if you use your brain as well as your body.

Lei Kung’s skill, even rusted, combined with his honorable nature, defeats his evil brother every time. Although Lei Yung begs his brother to kill him rather than expose his plot or leave him with this dishonor, Lei Kung turns his back on him, letting him live with his guilt and shame. Happily, the film was a great success, not only for Liang and company, but his new protégé Alexander Fu Sheng
as well. Fu’s legs had been broken on
Heroes Shed No Tears
(a 1980 production directed by prolific wuxia
specialist Chu Yuan
), and fans were concerned that he’d never be the same.

Thankfully, Sheng’s “official” comeback film,
Treasure Hunters
(aka
Master of Disaster,
1982), laid that fear to rest. Directed by Liang’s brother, Liu Chia-yung
, and choreographed by the Liu family, this charming, funny, exciting film was to broaden Fu’s persona for the rest of his career.
Treasure Hunters
was, essentially, a kung fu “road” picture, with Fu as Bob Hope
and his real-life younger brother, Chang Chan-peng
, as a Bing Crosby
type (minus the singing, of course).

Having immortalized his kung fu skill in no uncertain terms, Liang challenged himself again with a full-fledged kung fu comedy … with mixed results.
Cat vs. Rat
(1982) was similar to Steven Spielberg
’s
1941
(made three years earlier) in that it confused humor with loud, strident chaos. Fu Sheng
and the elegant, rakish Adam Cheng Shao-chiu
(who Gordon Liu
directed to far better effect in one of only two movies he helmed, 1981’s
Shaolin and Wu Tang
[the other was 1973’s
Breakout from Oppression
]) played madcap rivals and neighbors who each wanted wealth and fame.

Unable to settle on a cohesive tone in that merry mix-up, Liang challenged himself to do a decent modern-day film by reversing the theme of
My Young Auntie
. This time Liang himself played a kung fu teacher stuck in old ways, while Hui Ying-hung
played a Western-educated hipster who wanted women’s lib, baby.
The Lady is the Boss
(1983) was the result, and it was a pretty painful, campy, overwrought mess — only elevated by Liang’s superlative kung fu.

Unsatisfied with these last two efforts, Liang collected his crew and started to create a deadly serious film about the Tartar betrayal of the Yang family on a Sung dynasty battlefield. “That was so terrible,” Kara Hui Ying-hung
told me. “It took us nine and a half months to film because of all the problems. First there was script trouble, Fu Sheng
had problems with his wife, and Liu Chia-liang
was injured during the filming of
Cat vs. Rat
, which he finished just before.”

Even so, advance word was excellent. This was going to be Liang’s return to form, and Fu Sheng
’s return to drama. Then disaster struck. Three months into filming, on July 7, 1983, with his younger brother driving, Alexander Fu Sheng
died in a car accident at the age of twenty-nine.

“Liu Chia-liang
always filmed the action first,” Ying-hung explained, “then filmed the drama, so when Fu Sheng
died, he had terrible problems. They were very close. Fu Sheng
was Liu Chia-liang’s first disciple. After he died, we stopped shooting for three months.” But, finally, in honor of his fallen friend, Liang returned to the set.

Not surprisingly, the completed
Eight Diagram Pole Fighter
(1984) was Liang’s angriest film. It was also undeniably thrilling, and, incredibly, the only one of the Master’s movies that was included in the Hong Kong film critics’ list of “The Top 100 Chinese Films.” As the credits roll, Chang Chan-peng
, Hsaio Ho
, Liu Chia-yung
, Yung Wang-yu
, and Mai Te-lo
’s characters all graphically die beneath the Tartars’ swords and spears on an artificial indoor set which gives the scene even more of a nightmarish quality.

Only Liu Chia-hui
and Fu Sheng
’s character survive, but the latter is driven insane by his brothers’ deaths and his father’s sacrificial suicide in the face of trusted peers’ betrayal. He returns home to his mother and two sisters, screaming and contorting. His brother is almost killed by the invaders, but a hermit (Liu Chia-liang
) gives his own life to help him escape. Hui takes refuge in the northern Shaolin Temple, where his practical killing ways conflict with the monks’ peaceful leanings. They practice pole fighting on wood and steel mockups of wolves — the actual counterparts of which often harass the temple.

“Kill them,” says the betrayed ex-soldier.

“Defang them,” instructs the Shaolin abbot (played by the versatile Kao Fei
).

With the Fu Sheng
character insane, the mother (Lily Li
) sends her eldest daughter (Hui Ying-hung
) out for vengeance. At this point the Fu Sheng
character completely disappears from the picture.

“Fu Sheng
’s character was supposed to go back to the battlefield, reclaim his father’s sword, and convince Liu Chia-hui
to leave the Shaolin Temple so they could take revenge on the Mongol traitor who slaughtered our family,” Kara explained to me. “Then Fu Sheng
died in the car accident, and they had to change the story so my character would be in danger, so Hui would leave the temple.”

Ying-hung runs afoul of the traitorous general (Ku Ming
) and Tartar leader (Wang Lung-wei
) at an inn, where they hold her hostage. That does the trick. Hui pole-fights his Shaolin sifu to a standstill using the eight-diagram style (which leaves an impression of an “8” on the floor), then marches to the inn to take on all his family’s persecutors at once. Awaiting him is a pyramid of coffins filled with his bound and gagged sister as well as sword-wielding killers. Hopelessly outnumbered, he still almost manages to free his sibling before being overwhelmed. Just as it seems his death is a certainty, his Shaolin brethren arrive.

“We will not kill,” says the abbot. “Merely defang the wolves.”

What follows is the most disconcerting fight scene Liang ever staged, where the monks, using a great variety of techniques, rip out the Tartars’ teeth (a set actually being wedged into a monk’s bald skull at one point). Hui personally drives the two main antagonists’ heads through the sides of coffins, where their skulls are crushed and throats slit, before marching into the hills, never to be seen again.

Following that, Liu Chia-liang
was never quite the same. His penultimate film for the Shaw Brothers
Studio was
Disciples of the 36
th
Chamber
(1985), which returned Gordon to the San Te role, but was actually another showcase for Hsaio Ho
, who played the infamous Shaolin hothead Fong Sai-yuk
. Although an interesting combination of
Master Killer
and
Animal House
(1978), audiences could surmise that Liang’s heart just wasn’t in it. But his head and body weren’t done … not by a long shot.