Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (26 page)

Naturally, the American film industry rallied to make it “the exception,” rather than the norm. Hundreds of kung fu and wuxia
films were bought by American distributors — the bulk of which were then shelved, with only a precious few edited, dubbed, rescored, and/or sporadically released with misleading, or flatly inaccurate promotion. Even the dean of film critics, Roger Ebert
admitted that, when asked by a novice fan what they should watch next, his reply was “
Seven Samurai
.” With all due respect, that’s like answering a query for another great football movie with
Pride of the Yankees
.

But that really didn’t matter to Michelle Yeoh
. She had her production company and finally set about creating her own films. Sadly, both the misbegotten
The Touch
(2002) and the misconceived superhero film
Silver Hawk
(2004) were panned by critics and rejected by audiences. Then came the arrogantly woe-begotten American adaptation of the best-selling book
Memoirs of a Geisha
(2005). This supremely Japanese tale was bone-headedly handled by a condescending, blissfully tone-deaf crew who chose to cast three Chinese (Michelle, Zhang Ziyi
, and Gong Li
) in the leading roles, then “improved” the strictly-designed, meaningful geisha wardrobe with blinkingly ignorant Hollywood costuming changes.

Nevertheless, Michelle slowly worked her way back into the audiences’ good graces with a series of honorable supporting roles, including Danny Boyle
’s science-fiction epic
Sunshine
(2007), Yuen Wo-ping
’s elaborate retelling of the Beggar Su story,
True Legend
(2009), and John Woo
’s critically acclaimed romantic fantasy wuxia
,
Reign of Assassins
(2010).

“Each time I make a movie,” Michelle has said, “I put my heart and soul into it.” It showed.

Picture identifications (clockwise from upper left):

Jet Li
in
Fist of Legend
; Jet Li
in
Swordsman 2
; Jet Li
in
Fong Sai-yuk
; Jet Li
in
Fong Sai-yuk 2
; Jet Li
vs. Vincent Zhao
in
Last Hero
in China
; Jet Li
vs. Billy Chow
in
Fist of Legend
.

His name is Li Lin-jei and he was a mainland Chinese wushu champion at the age of eleven. Shortly after Bruce Lee
died, Li was performing at the White House for Richard Nixon
and Henry Kissinger
. After being all-around winner of the National Martial Arts Championships five times, Li even received a backstage bouquet for his performance from Jackie Chan
. Little did either man know that, in a few years, they would be vying for the championship of the Asian action film box office.

It all started in 1981, when Li was eighteen, and already considered a wushu superstar in his homeland. “Kung fu” was a form of self-improvement that Jet would later define on-screen as “concerted effort toward a specific goal.” Wushu is translated as “martial arts,” but is actually more along the lines of a national sport. It’s kung fu with its more powerful internal and external elements removed, making it more comfortable for government officials worried that it might be too effective for them to control — a state of affairs that had been repeated throughout Chinese history. Li, however, excelled at both kung fu and wushu.

After the death of Mao Tse-tung
, filmmakers’ freedoms were enormously extended. Greatly influenced by the work of Liu Chia-liang
, the Hong Kong Cheung Yuen Film Production Company conceived
The Shaolin Temple
(1981)
,
a realistic kung fu epic featuring an all-champions cast, to be filmed on actual locations. Despite having every Chinese kung fu artist at their disposal, the filmmakers only thought of Li to play the leading role of Shiu Hwu, a young revolutionary who is out for revenge against the emperor’s evil nephew.

The inexperienced actor threw himself into the production with the same energy he had brought to his martial arts. After three years of production, and ten million dollars in expenditure, the movie exploded onto the international scene with the newly renamed Jet Li
in front (although the Bruce-baiters tried to graft “Jet Lee” onto him in English-speaking territories). The film was a magnificent showcase for authentic kung fu, and is, in effect, a distillation of all the ingredients that made Hong Kong movies work for decades. In fact, it even used Shaw Brothers
Studio space and Liu Chia-liang
’s expertise in a four-seasons training sequence.

Director Chang Hsin-yen
was also able to utilize the country’s best equipment — resulting in a splendidly visual film, with impressive attention to detail, sumptuous cinematography, and truly great kung fu. Although advertised as an “all-gravity” kung fu film with no special effects, there are hints of such old-school tricks as reversing the film, and maybe a wire or two. Otherwise,
The Shaolin Temple
tells the tale of the conflict that ended the Sui dynasty and started the T’ang with wit and imagination — through the eyes of a boy seeking vengeance for the murder of his father. The boy is rescued from his father’s killer and then taught a wide range of kung fu styles by an unusual group of monks — outsiders who are not averse to drinking wine, eating meat, and even killing when they have to. And as far as they are concerned, when it comes to Sui soldiers, they have to.

Yu Cheng-wei
, the creator and master of the real-life “Shark Fin Broadswordplay,” portrayed the villain, while mantis fist champion Yu Hai
played Li’s sifu, and National All-Around Champion Hu Chien-chiang
played Li’s temple “brother.” The lovely Ding Lan
played the sifu’s niece and Li’s love interest, who just barely loses him to the temple when the newly crowned T’ang emperor arrives a moment too late to prevent Li from taking the monk’s “Thou Shalt Not Sex” oath. The monks celebrate as he eliminates the “Thou Shalt Not Drink” rule by royal decree, leaving the niece to tearfully sneak away.

The movie was a greater success than anyone anticipated. It was so popular in its home country that the government had to issue a request that students not leave school in order to go searching for the Shaolin Temple. Meanwhile, Jet Li
was now a movie superstar in addition to being a martial arts champion. In fact, one of the billboards greeting President Ronald Reagan
when he visited China showed Jet hawking
“Shaolin Wine.” Such popularity was a double-edged sword, however, especially in the topsy-turvy Chinese world where success elicited government scrutiny.

The sequel,
Shaolin Temple II: Kids from Shaolin
(1983), displayed some of mainland China’s political habit of responding to “one step forward” with “two steps back.” Although the main cast and crew were the same, the moviemaking prowess of all concerned seemed to retreat to classic propaganda film techniques — including a crudely animated title sequence, an old-fashioned Peking Opera
-esque soundtrack, and even wildly out-of-place musical numbers. That probably wasn’t surprising since the story was reminiscent of
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
(1954).

Taking place after the destruction of the Shaolin Temple, the new film told of the Lung family of seven men, who lived across the Likiang River from the Pao family of seven girls (plus one tired mother and one frustrated, son-obsessed father played by the villain of the last film, Yu Cheng-wei
). The dragons (boys) knew Shaolin kung fu. The phoenixes (girls) knew Wu Tang
swordsmanship. The father wanted a male heir, but rich husbands for his daughters: he forbade them from fraternizing with the family on the wrong side of the river. Little did he know that his eldest daughters were already in love with the eldest Lungs, or that he was getting set up for the kill by his main adviser, who was, in reality, the leader of a marauding (but in this case, unrealistically patient) band of murdering, raping brigands.

Upon this tenuous plot, the crew lavished heaps of eye-filling spectacle, highlighted by fun family comparisons between empty-handed and sword styles along the riverbanks, as well as astounding swordfights inside gem-encrusted caves. It all comes together in the bandits’ massive attack. By this time, the Lungs have been framed, exiled, and their house burned, while the Pao patriarch struggles mightily to protect his newborn male child (who was introduced to the audience with a massive close-up of his newborn baby penis). Naturally, the Lungs come leaping, chopping, and kicking back just in the nick of time.

The final fray, with all fourteen members of the family strutting their stuff, is a fierce piece of fight choreography, with Jet leading the way with fists, feet, a sword, rope darts, and three-sectional staff. Then, just to make sure the whole shebang wasn’t too internationally friendly, the final cut is deep between the villain’s legs. But the fade-out finds true love conquering all — with a little help from killer kung fu.

The Asian audience was delighted, and the floodgates of cheap imitations opened. Even Li was a bit stymied by the rush of stuff that followed from both Hong Kong and mainland studios. There were almost as many Shaolin Temple movies as there had been Bruce Lee
rip-offs (the best of which being 1981’s
Shaolin and Wu Tang
,
co-starring and directed by Gordon Liu
Chia-hui
).

What was good for Lee was good for Li as well. Now proclaimed the biggest star in China, Jet used his fame to secure control of his next movie. At the tender age of twenty, he ambitiously decided to direct and star in the awkwardly titled
Born to
Defense
(1985). But he was to discover that, like Gordon, directing was not to his liking. The plot was not at fault: Li played a young soldier coming back from World War
II, who is stunned to discover that his own village was proclaiming the Americans heroes while ignoring their own warriors.

“Forget the atom bomb!” Li cries out in anguish at one point. “What about my fists?!”

Naturally, the Americans start beating up old rickshaw drivers and raping the women with seeming impunity. Repeatedly maligned by his own people, Li is finally given the chance to fight back when the Americans arrange boxing matches at the local bar. Unmercifully pummeled as he slowly learns this new fighting form, Li finally explodes in a match that literally brings the house down (during a typhoon). Once that scene is over, however, the film also goes to pieces, just barely holding together long enough for Li to kill the most corrupt American oppressors using a combination of boxing and kung fu. A good idea gone really wrong,
Born
to
Defense
made Jet realize that he had a lot to learn about filmmaking, not to mention American grammar.

It was lucky, therefore, that the great Liu Chia-liang
had just been given the chance to complete a lifelong dream. He was signed to direct
Shaolin Temple III
(1986). Not surprisingly, the man now known as “Kung Fu” Liang subtitled it
Martial Arts of Shaolin
, then set about to make his martial art magnum opus. Having spent his career training actors to look decent doing kung fu, he now had at his disposal literally hundreds of great kung fu athletes, whom he could train to be decent actors. If Busby Berkeley
had learned kung fu instead of dancing, this is what his great 1930s musicals might have looked like. Liang crammed dozens of Shaolin monks and evil Manchu warriors into every shot he could — having them all do the same intricate moves in unison.

Freed as he had never been before, Liang designed fight scenes of such subtlety and complexity that they are occasionally eye-splitting. And he filmed them on locations never before used, including the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China. The plot, as almost always, was simplicity itself. A myriad bunch of young revolutionaries want to assassinate a sadistic Manchu general (Yu Cheng-wei
, back in place as a knee-slapping, constantly sadistically laughing bad guy). Sure, there are some complicating factors, like a fairly superfluous love triangle between Jet, his Shaolin brother, and the lead female revolutionary, but that mushy stuff takes a back seat to the color pageantry of Liang’s kung fu tour de force.

The director saves the best for last — a no-holds-barred battle on a Yangtze River war-boat, featuring some of the most dexterous swordplay ever captured on film. It culminates in a guava field, showcasing the finest mantis fist yet pictured. All’s well that ends well, with the two lovers getting together as Li heads back to the Shaolin Temple with his wise sifu. The actor was not as lucky as his on-screen character. Following this final Shaolin Temple
movie, he discovered that the rest of the film industry was just churning out product.

Yu Cheng-wei
went on to star in the strangely sadistic, but beautifully filmed,
Yellow River
(aka
The Yellow River Fighter,
1987), playing a grief-stricken, blinded, poisoned warrior whose six-year-old daughter was delivered to him by an enemy at the end of a spear. But Jet was grounded, unable to find a quality project. When he finally returned to the screen, it was in a strange pair of movies set in America:
Dragon
Fight
(1988) and
The Master
(1989)
.
The former was set in San Francisco and featured Jet as a recent immigrant who had to fight racism as well as Chinatown gangs. Its one distinction was Jet’s co-star, Stephen Chiao Sing-chi, who was soon to become Stephen Chow
— the king of HK comedy in a string of delightful, hugely-successful, madcap comedies which satirized kung fu as often as they depicted it.

Meanwhile, Jet was left with the role of the student in
The Master
(the title character played by the great Yuen Wah
, who had been raised in that brutal Peking Opera
school along with Jackie Chan
, Sammo Hung
, and Yuen Baio
). Here, both he and Jet were at sea in a hoary modern miasma about evil Americans inexplicably wanting to take over Yuen’s California kung fu school. These, of course, were
Born to Defense
-type Americans: boorish, seemingly mentally-handicapped, hyper-violent bullies who are constantly trotted out in Asian movies to this very day. The single most important thing about this failure, however, is that it was directed by Tsui Hark
.