Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (27 page)

Hark, often called the Hong Kong’s father of special effects, was the country’s most politically daring filmmaker. Having graduated from film school in Texas, Hark returned to Hong Kong in 1977, where he embarked on a series of challenging films in many genres (including 1979’s landmark
The Butterfly Murders
and 1980’s controversial
Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind
). He even made an unforgettable kung fu zombie film called
We’re Going to Eat You
(1980). He gained his greatest fame, however, with the phantasmagorical action film
Zu
Warriors of the Magic Mountain
(1983) — an eye-popping fantasy adventure featuring Yuen Baio
, Mang Hoi
, Moon Lee
, and Adam Cheung
battling demons and demigods for the fate of the world.

He followed that with
Peking Opera
Blues
(1986), a wonderful comedy action romance starring three of Hong Kong’s most beautiful and talented
women (Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh
, and Cherie Chung) as reluctant revolutionaries and eager acting hopefuls who run afoul of sadistic sheriffs and mad military men. Eager to push filmmaking technology further, Hark produced two groundbreaking classics: Ching Siu-tung
’s
A Chinese Ghost Story
(1987) and John Woo
’s
A Better Tomorrow
(1987), both of which revitalized and revolutionized their respective genres. But with the new decade came cinematic confusion. The press reported Hark’s seeming habit of creatively intruding upon his filmmakers to the point of dissolving partnerships, so it seemed he had little choice but to keep exploring new ground.

Rooting around for another genre to resurrect, he took a look at
The Master
and realized that there was one man Jet Li
seemed born to play — Huang Fei-hong … only now the translators were spelling it
Wong Fei-hung. Go figure. In any case, who better to embody the young, serious, honorable man than the man whose name was once translated as Jet Lee? Inspired by this thought, and Liu Chia-liang
’s
Legendary Weapons of China,
Tsui turned his attention to the Chinese pugilist’s vain attempts to defeat the gun with kung fu … but added layers of relevance by having Hong Kong harbor filled with heavily armed ships from Britain, the United States, and Germany.

As the foreigners vied for political clout in the emperor’s palace, Wong would rescue his lady love, Aunt Yee (Rosamund Kwan
) from the clutches of evil English-speaking white slavers, as well as a homicidally jealous tiger claw kung fu master. The climatic battle takes place on a series of precariously balanced ladders and was an influential landmark of martial arts and special effects (during which Jet broke his shin).

Once Upon a Time in China
(1991, named in honor of Sergio Leone
’s ground-breaking
Once Upon a Time in the West
[1968] and
Once Upon a Time in America
[1984]) was a huge hit — revitalizing both the
Wong Fei-hung series and Jet Li
’s career. He played Fei-hung with an assurance and command hitherto fore unseen in his filmography. Not surprisingly,
Once Upon a Time in China II
appeared in 1992. Surprisingly, however, it was even better than the original — beautifully balancing action, romance, comedy, emotion, and politics in this tale of Wong meeting real-life revolutionary Dr. Sun Yat-sen
while fighting the gweilo-hating White Lotus sect.

Veteran star David Chiang
and relative newcomer Donnie Yen
are standouts in this terrifically entertaining, exceptionally well-directed piece. Chiang plays Sun’s assistant, who gives up his life for the cause, while Yen plays the violent, corrupt, arrogant “sheriff,” who is a little too anxious to test his kung fu skills against Wong. The action is plentiful and impressive throughout (choreographed, as in the original film, by Yuen Wo-ping
), but it is the three-part climax that stays in the memory. Wong decimates the White Lotus headquarters, then battles Yen in a soybean factory before taking it outside into an alley.

From that dizzying height, there was no place to go but down, and
Once Upon a Time in China III
(1993) showed signs of strain. Seemingly an attempt to combine the first two films, while climaxing the action with the most elaborate (and essentially ridiculous) lion-dance competition of all, the third time was not the charm. In fact, it sounded the death knell of Jet’s partnership with Tsui Hark
… but not before another side of Li’s talent and career was broadened by his starring in Hark’s
Swordsman 2
(1992) — the nominal sequel to the troubled
Swordsman
(1990,
a “King Hu
Film” that had to be completed by at least three other directors — Hark, Ching Siu-tung
, and Raymond Lee
— when Hu became ill). There he displayed a charm missing since the Shaolin Temple days.

But charm alone wasn’t enough for him to avoid the “Tsui Curse.” According to press reports, Li felt he was as important to the
Wong Fei-hung movies as Hark, but the director-producer apparently felt differently. Allegedly, Hark’s parting words were along the lines of “without me, you’re nothing,” and the disjointed, overblown story line of
Once Upon a Time in China III
reflected the backstage conflict. With that, Jet turned his back on Tsui, but not on Wong Fei-hung. With the director’s harsh words ringing in his ears, he had a lot to prove, and he wanted to prove it fast.

Jet Li
made five movies in 1993, the first being the aptly titled
Last Hero
in China
(one that Jet intended to be his last Wong Fei-hung movie). Adding insult to injury, he worked with the madman of Hong Kong cinema, Wong Jing
, to put Wong and Tsui in their places. Although Jet played his martial arts straight, the plot was the goofy tale of Wong being forced to move his kung fu school and healing hospital next to a brothel. As is Jing’s wont, there is even a musical number as the kung fu students drool over the semi-clothed girls next door.

The climax also mixes straight kung fu with satire as Wong defeats the villain using chicken style. Maybe not so coincidentally, the man Jet defeats is played by Zhao Wen-zhou
, the actor Tsui Hark
chose to replace Li in 1993’s inferior
Once Upon a Time in China IV
and 1994’s
Once Upon a Time in China V
. By soundly vanquishing Zhou in this (and a subsequent film), Jet clearly (although perhaps unintentionally) signaled his fans that Wen-zhou was no competition.

Although younger, and a quite capable martial artist, the actor who was to take on the name Vincent Zhao
did not have Jet’s looks or charisma, and, despite the fact that Hark used him in several subsequent
Wong Fei-hung television shows, the
Once Upon a Time in China
series was considered over the moment Li left it. Jet, in the meantime, continued to leave Wong and Tsui in his dust. He enrolled the help of the popular kung fu film director/choreographer Yuen Kwai
, and traveled to mainland China to take on the role of firebrand
Fong Sai Yuk
(1993) — the famous, hot-headed Shaolin Temple survivor whose love for his mother is only exceeded by his kung fu power. Former superstar Josephine Siao
’s career was revived by this film, which also rematched Li against Zhao Wen-zhou as Fong fights against the evil Qing dynasty.

This turned out to be one of Li’s biggest hits, so out came
Fong Sai Yuk
II
(1993)
,
which is even more entertaining — at least from a kung fu standpoint. Here, Li is reunited with Ji Chun-hua
, who played villains in all three
Shaolin Temple
movies. His performance adds weight to the quickly-produced film, in that he plays an insanely envious member of the initially chivalrous Red Lotus sect, who frames Fong and ultimately murders the sect’s true leader, played by the charismatic Adam Cheung
.

The climax has a blindfolded Fong chopping his once faithful sect brothers to bits (so he wouldn’t have to see their betrayal) before rescuing his mother, who the bad guy has put in a hangman’s noose atop a tall series of wooden workshop horses. It was another triumph for Li, Siao, and, especially, Yuen Kwai
, who proved again what a fast and imaginative director he was. Yuen took the American name Corey (an asexual moniker which never failed to amuse his friend and “big brother,” Sammo Hung
) once he had directed a lion’s share of successful kung fu flicks.

Even after those successes, Li’s year was not over. He continued to have fun with martial arts traditions with
Kung Fu Cult Master
(1993), another Wong Jing
extravaganza that was supposed to be the first part of a series based on a famous martial arts novel. Perhaps Jing went a bit too far kidding the audience. They seemed to want to see Jet Li
do kung fu, not make fun of it. And little wonder. Classically trained, Li had a chi-driven energy that seemed to spark his every move. There was an elegance, balance and power to his screen kung fu that exceeded actors and dancers who were just quickly instructed how to fight. Viewers can instinctively identify the real deal, and Jet was clearly the real deal.

So, despite some amusing scenes (highlighted by one in which, coincidentally and ironically, Jet learns a new martial art in just a few minutes) and the fact that it was choreographed by co-star Sammo Hung
,
Kung Fu Cult Master
was Li’s weakest film of 1993. One of his strongest, however, was the aforementioned
The Tai Chi Master
, which marked a new direction in both Jet’s and director Yuen Wo-ping
’s on-screen kung fu career.

As remarked upon before, taichi
is one of the most misunderstood kung fu styles. Most westerners seem to think that it is “merely” a nice little dance that helps the elderly and has no fighting application at all. In fact, it is one of the most powerful styles … it’s just that its strengths as a martial art aren’t apparent on the surface. Which is odd, since it’s very name is translated into English as “balance,” and its symbol, the yin-yang sign, represents that balance. Yet, in a majority of American classes, only one half of it is ever taught.

Stephen Watson
, the world heavyweight taichi
push hands champion, displays its full power by starting the “dance” — i.e., the form — then invites anyone in the class to attack him at any time. Then he will repulse each attack, no matter when, no matter how, without changing the form in any way. Unbeknownst to most students, not to mention teachers, each move of that “dance” has a devastatingly effective martial application. The internal healing properties of taichi fuel the external martial properties.

Yuen Wo-ping
discovered that to his joy. Now he had only one problem: how to translate that entertainingly and acceptably on film.
The Tai Chi Master
was his first try. It also starred Michelle Yeoh
, who was working with Li for the first time. “Everyone had told me that Jet was so serious,” Michelle said. “But I found that far from the truth. We had a wonderful time on the set. In fact, we used to drive the director crazy with all our cutting up. Of course he was a better martial artist than me, but he never tried to show off. In fact, he always made sure that I was okay, and was always very supportive and helpful — both as an actor and as a martial artist.”

Wo-ping compensated for taichi
’s mystique with some labored comedy and too much time dwelling on inconsequentials, but the film ends in an effective flurry of activity, as Jet learns to harness nature’s energy. The film is best in the self-learning sequences, not the battles. Standing in a windy clearing, Jet creates a spinning ball of fallen leaves without touching them, simply by a supreme movement of his arms. He then uses his new skill to defeat a power-mad eunuch as well as an insanely corrupt betrayer. The film ends on a satisfying note, but Wo-ping was not satisfied by his visualization of taichi
’s delights. He would return to it again and again.

Meanwhile, by any criteria, 1993 was an important year for Jet Li
. On the plus side, it was clear to the entire film industry that he was still very much somebody, even without Tsui. But on the minus side, this was also the year when Jet’s manager was gunned down in an underworld battle for control of the film industry. According to the Hong Kong press, Jet hastily returned to mainland China, ostensibly to seek a divorce from his wife. According to insiders, however, he was waiting for the smoke to clear in Hong Kong. Because of that, his output in 1994 was reduced to “only” three movies — but one of them remains a kung fu classic while the other two were the result of his newfound producing powers.