by Meyers, Ric
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.
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.
