Hollywood's spin on kungfu in movies and TV.

Straits Times , 19 Jan 2003

by Fragrant Virtue

Wuxia movies have been a staple of Asian cinema since the 1920s. But Hollywood's love affair with it began with the chop-socky aspects of martial arts, gongfu. Mr Ng Peng Hui, general manager of Warner Bros-20th Century Fox, which is distributing Hero here, says: "Gong fu is a subset of wuxia. Wuxia is an attitude - it's about self-sacrifice and jianghu. Gongfu is all about action."

Kick-start: The Legendary Bruce Lee introduced kungfu to a mass American audience as Kato in The Green Hornet TV Series.

The first action hero to introduce kungfu to a mass American audience was, of course, Bruce Lee. Spotted at karate tournament in 1964, the Eurasian was cast in the short-lived television series The Green Hornet as the faithful side-kick, Kata, to Van Williams slightly stodgy hero. The 1966 series only lasted a year. But it was enough to make Bruce Lee popular in Asia, earning him more roles in Mandarin movies which made him a superstar and earned him a cult following in the West. Some of the movies incorporated his own fighting philosophy of Jeet Kune Do. But he died of brain aneurysm in 1973 before the release of his most successful film Enter The Dragon.

A more successful Hollywood attempt at capitalising on martial arts exotica was 1972's Kung Fu, which lasted three seasons. The TV series starring David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a half-Chinese, half-American Shaolin priest garnered one Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations. Mr Ng points out that Kung Fu tried to mimic true wuxia. "There was some philosophical babble. But there was no true understanding." The shows dialogue often descended into risible, fortune-cookie style pronouncements like: "Become the calm and restful breeze that tames the violent sea."

Between Bruce Lee and Kung Fu, martial arts flicks remained a cult affair, appreciated mainly by aficionados and cineastes. A whole B-movie niche developed to exploit this. Chuck Norris, who fought Lee in Way of the Dragon, parlayed that role into a thriving B-movie and television career.

With advent of home video, Hong Kong action films won a new generation of fans. These included budding film-makers who paved the way for the 1990s Asian invasion of the Hollywood by talking up their favourite Asian films and directors.

American director Quentin Tarantino, for example, worked in a video store and is an avowed fan of Hong Kong director John Woo, actor Cow Yun Fat and kungfu superstar Jackie Chan. Having championed gongfu action flicks, he has just shoot one himself and in China, no less. His new movie is Kill Bill, starring Uma Thurman as a vengeful bride who goes after Carradine.

Femme Fatal: Carrie Ann Moss' mid air hover in The Matrix has become legend as the Most Copied to Death Gongfu Movie.

American directors-writers Larry and Andy Wachowski  are such fans of Hong Kong action genre that they even read the credits. This resulted in legendary Hong Kong fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping's involvement in The Matrix. The fight scenes in The Matrix combined Hongkong-style wire and stunt work with the latest Hollywood special effects to eye-popping results. Hence, the memorable scene of Carrie-Anne Moss hanging in the mid-air in a classic kungfu pose has been spoofed in everything from kiddie film Cats and Dogs to the latest Datamini ad on television. Zhang Yimous' Hero, in the first 30 minutes, boasts a bullet-time sequence in the duel between Jet Li and Donnie Yen. Hero brings the entire kungfu/wuxia influence full circle, after a fashion.

The increasing  popularity of kungfu movies and Asian stars laid the groundwork for Hollywood's first encounter with a true wuxia pian - Lee Ang's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lee's movie married wuxia genre with Western film-making and story-telling sensibilities. Based on Wang Dulu's book of the same title, which began as a newspaper serial in 1941, it is a straight retelling of the genre's traditional tropes. Ms Irene Tan, senior marketing manager at Buena Vista Columbia Tristar which distributed the movie here, attributes part of its success to its novelty value: "Western audiences have been exposed to all Bruce Lee stuff. But Crouching Tiger had all the flying around on the roof tops. We may have seen them before, but they haven't."

Zhang's Hero, despite its use of glitzy special effects, has its roots planted firmly in the philosophical aspect of the genre. After shadow-boxing with wuxia's poorer gongfu cousin for decades, Hollywood is now encountering the real Touch of Zen.

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