by Meyers, Ric
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 36th 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.
Meanwhile, his studio colleagues had their own rice to fry. Although Chang Cheh and Liu Chia-liang were clearly the pillars upon which the Shaw Brothers Studio’s kung fu film crown rested, there were others whose contributions were telling — the most prominent being the aforementioned Chu Yuan … for quantity, if not for quality. At the height of his powers at Shaws, he was lauded for being able to work on eight films at the same time. It’s not surprising, therefore, that his filmography, although substantial, ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Born in 1934 and educated at the Faculty of Chemistry within Sun Yat-sen University, he ultimately followed in his actor father’s footsteps and entered the film industry. Not only did he find it to his liking, he even found it easy. He rapidly progressed from scripting to assistant directing, then started helming entire productions in 1959. By the time he came to the Shaw Brothers in 1971, he had already directed more than seventy films, setting the stage for his unprecedented assembly-line approach. Within five years he had created his most
successful and renowned films, starting with Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972) — an impressive melding of a softcore erotic and legitimate kung fu film.
Following that, he established what could be called the “no-trapdoor-remains-unsprung” wuxia sub-genre with Killer Clans (1976) — launching an extensive series of like-titled (and like-looking) Jiang Hu tales of inter-family kung fu squabbles in which secret compartments were everywhere and double-crosses were multiplied into veritable quadruple-crosses. That same year he also Shaw-ized an unholy combination of Spaghetti Western and 1940s Hollywood cliffhanger serial into an endlessly malleable series of “sword-slinger” films. In fact, in The Magic Blade (1976), he dressed Ti Lung in much the same serape Clint Eastwood wore in A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and placed his six-shooter-shaped sword in a holster on his hip.
The final ingredient in Chu’s marathon mash-up was novelist Gu Long, whose complex, convoluted wuxia epics served as starting points in the majority of Yuan’s multitude of films. By the time Shaws shuttered its film units in the mid-80s, Yuan had made more than a hundred movies for them, the most popular of which was The Sentimental Swordsman series (1977-1982) and the most ludicrous of which was 1976’s Web of Death — where the villain is a big, obviously fake Halloween-decoration spider filmed with color-tinted lenses. Most, if not all, of his efforts were, at the very least, wild, convulsive fun.
Less prolific, but perhaps more important to the genre, was Sun Chung — possibly the most underrated kung fu filmmaker. Probably the reason for this was that he was so versatile. Like legendary American director Robert Wise, he was great at virtually any genre he attempted, and therefore his fame never quite took public root in any of them. In any case, his kung fu films were always recognizable by his unusually inventive camera work and imaginative approach. Born in 1941, he knew he wanted to work in movies early on, and went to school in Taiwan for it. His first film was a musical (Wild Girl) in 1968. His second film was a comedy (1970s Tops in Every Trade) and a big hit. That brought him to the attention of the Shaw Brothers.
He hit the ground running, treating the studio like a big toy box. He was most lauded for his crime thrillers, but with The Avenging Eagle in 1978, kung fu fans sat up and took notice. Ostensibly a straight-forward revenge tale, Chung elevated it to classic status with a cunning collaboration between his camera crew, cast, and kung fu choreographer (not surprisingly, Sun was the first Shaw director to utilize the Steadicam). Liu Chia-liang’s ex-partner, Tang Chia, was Sun’s go-to action guy (as, in fact, he was for director Chu Yuan as well), and the two worked beautifully together. The two directors also shared a deep appreciation of actors Ti Lung and Alexander Fu Sheng — using both every chance they got.
With the critical and box office success of Avenging Eagle, Sun officially launched an impressive series of fine kung fu films, including Judgment of An Assassin (1977), The Proud Youth (1978), The Kung Fu Instructor (1979), To Kill a Mastermind (1979), The Deadly Breaking Sword (1979), Rendezvous with Death (1980), and The Kid with a Tattoo (1980) — all culminating with his landmark Human Lanterns (1982), a potent combination of a classic kung fu movie and a slasher, body-count, film.
The director seemed to stumble after that, still making fine films, but ones with obvious aberrations. For instance, his hysterical sequel to The Kung Fu Instructor, The Master Strikes Back (1985), is the greatest castration/crotch-shot martial art movie in history. Thankfully he also made A Fistful of Talons (aka Protecting Eagle, 1983) outside the studio, which remains the best film of “Jackie Chan clone” Billy Chong (the personable Indonesian actor who also starred in such nice Jackie knock-offs as 1979’s Crystal Fist, 1980’s Super Power, and the unforgettable Kung Fu Zombie and Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave, both 1982).
The remaining two major Shaw kung fu creators essentially flew under even the Studio’s radar. Ex-actor John Lo Mar’s checkered martial art movie directing career essentially began with the ignominious assignment of helming the sad hack job that was Bruce Lee and I (aka I Love You Bruce Lee, 1976), but he quickly became better known for his comedies and crime thrillers. Every once in awhile, however, he would gather his kung fu friends (including future choreographer superstar Ching Siu-tung) and patch together a story apparently using existing sets and locations. This resulted in several lean, mean, enjoyable fighting films, like Five Super Fighters (1979), Fighting Fool (1979) Monkey Kung Fu (1980).
Then there was Lu Chin-ku. As the Studio grew ever closer to closing its film units, more and more veterans began jumping the sinking ship, while more and more newcomers looking for a lucky break eyed the empty director chairs. Lu came relatively late to the game, but made up for it in flamboyance. Reminiscent of Busby Berkley or Baz Luhrman in his willingness to use a full color palette, wires, trampolines, special effects, and exaggeration, no one could be sure what might happen in his genre films.
Exploding onto the Shaw Scene with The Master (aka 3 Evil Masters, 1982) — the Studio’s attempt to fashion its own Jackie Chan-like kung fu comedy — Lu then eschewed trying to copy others’ successes and carried on with his own unique visions. With The Lady Assassin (1983), Holy Flame of the Martial World (1983), and especially Bastard Swordsman (1983) and Return of Bastard Swordsman (1984), he created his own fabulous fantasy factory. He went out swinging with 1984’s Secret Service of the Imperial Court (remade as 14 Blades in 2010), which featured one of his finest moments, immortalized as “The Eunuch Slap.”
Liu Yung (playing a psychotic, glitzy eunuch who has taken over the Government) is told the painful truth by a wise old counselor. The eunuch rewards him with a slap across the face … which sends the old man shooting through the air, across the room, and into an upper wall, before crashing in a bloody heap to the floor — all in the blink of an eye. That’s Lu Chin-ku for you (as is the moment in Return of Bastard Swordsman when a super-powered warrior grips another under the ribs, causing him to vomit blood like a firehose which paints a gigantic white marble sculpture red).
Finally, there’s Tang Chia himself. Although he avidly avoided the director’s chair for much of his career, as the epoch of the Shaw Studio film units drew to a close, the opportunity to create his own films became more pronounced. Chia tested the waters with Shaolin Prince (1982) and Shaolin Intruders (1984) — two elaborate phantasmagoricals that reflected the independent influence of Yuen Wo-ping, who, when left to his own devices, created similar wire-wrought extravaganzas (but more on that later). Although colorful and imaginative, they came as quite a surprise to audiences used to Chia’s previous, smooth, sophisticated work.
As the sun set on the Shaw’s film units, Chia was no doubt aware that his time in the director’s chair was limited, and that his next choice for a personal project could be his last. For whatever reason, Opium and the Kung Fu Master (1984) was as different from Shaolin Prince/Intruders as Iron Man (2008) was from Iron Giant (1999). Working in tandem with planner Ling Yun from a scenario by Huang Ying, Chia decided to deconstruct the classic Cantonese kung fu action comedy.
Inspired by a tale of the Ten Tigers of Kwangtung leader’s alleged addiction, Chia was going to symbolize the drug culture’s insidious influence by letting its presence in his film destroy everything audiences had come to expect from the genre. As the film starts, all the clichés and stereotypes are in place: from the artificial-looking sets to the goofy Cantonese comedy characters to even the Peking Opera-esque “Mr. Spock-style” eyebrows painted on the hero.
But as the title opiate takes hold, audience expectations begin to break down. The comedy becomes tragedy, the love story is shattered, and the student/teacher relationship is turned upside down. Tang Chia himself plays the kung fu master’s blind sifu, who is forced to become his doctor and counselor as our hero must survive going cold turkey just in time for the emotional, action-packed finale.
To accomplish his goal, Chia called upon many of his friends. There are no fewer than a half-dozen martial art directors on the film, including, of course
, Chia himself, his longtime assistant Huang Pei-chi, as well as co-star Li Hai-sheng (not to mention Yuan Pin, Yuan Hua, and Chiang Chuan). Knowing the end was near may have inspired Chia to give as many associates as much behind-the-camera experience as possible to help them in future endeavors.
And the end was, indeed, near. Liu Chia-liang was in China directing Jet Li’s third movie, Martial Arts of Shaolin (1986) when the official word reached him. The Shaw Brothers Film Units would be terminated, and those who weren’t transferring to the television units were out of a job. The Golden Age of Chinese Kung Fu Films was over. The New Wave had already begun, but it certainly didn’t seem as if there was room in it for such veteran workhorses as Chang Cheh and Liang.
Most of the actors would be fine. Shaw’s most versatile and honored performer, Ku Feng, was too good not to get work. Having played everything from venal martial arts masters (Avenging Eagle) to handicapped cuckolds (as in 1982’s Tiger Killer), and everything in between during more than two hundred and fifty performances, he was ready for more outside the studio walls. The same was probably true of the kung fu stuntmen, villains, and supporting actors. Wang Lung-wei, Kao Fei, Li Hai-sheng, and the rest would be seen again. Likewise for such major stars as Ti Lung, David Chiang, Chen Kuan-tai, Lo Lieh, and Gordon Liu.
But the one man who may have made it all possible pretty much disappeared into that good night. That would be the magnificent I Kuang. Born in Shanghai in 1935, Kuang moved to Hong Kong in the 1960s to pursue a successful career as a science fiction and martial arts novelist. Although several of his books were adapted to movies, his first original screenplay was for The One-Armed Swordsman, and he rapidly replaced Chang Cheh as the Shaw Studio’s top scripter. In addition, his independent contract allowed him to work for other studios and directors — an opportunity he took ample advantage of. Not only did he write the bulk of Chang Cheh’s best films, but also those of Liu Chia-liang, and even Bruce Lee. At last count, Kuang has supplied well over five hundred scripts to studios throughout China, and that isn’t even including the many screenplays he produced under pseudonyms.
