Under The Influence: Modern Hong Kong Action Cinema And The Spirit Of Chang Cheh

If someone were to ask me who I thought was the most influential film maker in the history of Hong Kong Cinema, my money would be on the prolific and much beloved Chang Cheh. Having directed over 90 films in his long and storied career, Chang is the man responsible for popularizing the swordplay genre during the Golden Age of Hong Kong Cinema during the 1970s. Drawing influence from Spaghetti Westerns and Japanese Chanbara movies, he was able to create the genre which would become known to fans as Heroic Bloodshed. Films which emphasize themes such as brotherhood, loyalty, respect and honor. These types of films not only proved to be incredibly popular with local audiences but also became huge hits overseas. Films such One Armed Swordsman, The Heroic Ones, Vengeance and Blood Brothers are just a few of the films he directed that really pushed the idea of that in these films, these characters and their relationships matter just as much as the martial arts action.

With this mentality Chang Cheh was able to not only have films which contained memorable action scenes but equally as memorable characters and stories. As you look deeper into the machinations of Chang's mind, you begin to realize just how much of an impact he had not only on the martial arts genre but Hong Kong film making as a whole. During his days at Shaw Brothers, Chang took on a young assistant director who helped him on films such as Boxer From Shangtung, The Water Margin and Blood Brothers. When it came time for his young assistant to strike out on his own, he was able to apply what he had learned, use these stories and characters and transport them to a more contemporary setting.

That young assistant's name was John Woo.

Having already made over a dozen films as director, Woo felt it was time he brought his mentor's teachings to a more modern setting and ended up creating one of the most popular and most memorable Hong Kong films ever made, A Better Tomorrow. In it we are told the story of discharged prisoner and former Triad Sung Tse-Ho played by Ti Lung (Himself a frequent collaborator with Chang and along with David Chiang they had been known as The Iron Triangle during their days as Shaw Brothers) having been jailed for crimes he committed earlier in the film. Upon his release he finds that his entire world has been turned upside down. His brother Kit played by Leslie Cheung wants nothing to do with him, his best friend Mark played by Chow Yun-Fat (in a role that would single handedly define his career) is a mere shadow of his former self, eking out a living washing cars and living in a parking garage and to make matters worse, his former apprentice played by Waise Lee is now head of the Triad.

From this point in the film we see the hand of Chang Cheh hovering approvingly over it. All the troupes of Chang's work are here and it was with this style of film making Woo was able to become one of Hong Kong Cinema's biggest directors. Woo was one the first to really push the idea of Heroic Bloodshed in a modern setting and make it a hit with audiences. Many producers and film makers attempted to bring their own version of A Better Tomorrow to the screen afterward, all with varying degrees of success. However, the influence doesn't stop there. If you look at the directorial works of Wang Lung-Wei, particularly Hong Kong Godfather. A film which came out a whole year before A Better Tomorrow but is just apparent in were it draws it's inspiration from.

Hong Kong Godfather is an incredibly violent and delightfully mad Triad film which sees three Triad brothers avenge the death of their Uncle. While Wang seemed the lack the more deft touch of Chang. You can see straight away just who he seems to be channeling. Especially toward the end of the film when the violence reaches monumental levels of insanity and blood literally covers the walls. Truly a film was never more deserving to be called Heroic Bloodshed.

The 80's would see a number of Heroic Bloodshed Triad pictures. Mostly drawing inspiration from John Woo. A man who was more then happy to carry on the work of his mentor. Moving into the 90's we would see a resurgence of the Swordplay genre. This time with more fantastical elements brought in, thanks to the truly astounding choreographic work of Ching Siu-Tung. While gangster pictures were still being made, none of them would ever really reach prominence. However in 1995 we saw the beginning of one of the most popular film series of it's time with Young & Dangerous. Directed by Andrew Lau, Young & Dangerous told the story of a small group of young Triad fighting to survive on the streets of Hong Kong. Through the various character interactions and the way it plays out, you know just what Lau was trying to do. Tell those same stories John Woo tried to tell with A Better Tomorrow but re-working them for a more modern audience.

This seemed to cause yet another slew of Triad crime films. All of which featured story lines and characters all distilled from the works of Chang Cheh decades ago. It's amazing when you really start to examine just how far the reach of Chang Cheh goes. Even today, his spirit lives on thanks to film makers such as Wilson Yip and Johnnie To. During a lull of martial arts action pictures in Hong Kong, one film came out which caused shock waves throughout the industry. Directed by Wilson Yip and starring Donnie Yen, Simon Yam and Sammo Hung as well as a real breakout role for Wu Jing, 2005 saw the release of Sha Po Long. A dark martial arts crime film that featured the much anticipated on-screen clash of Yen and Hung. Two figures, despite having been in the industry for a number of years, had never had the opportunity to work together. Featuring a compelling story of a detective pushed to using questionable methods in order to bring down a powerful crime boss, Sha Po Long was able to combine a well written story with engaging characters as well as some incredibly brutal fight scenes. 

It's the central relationship Simon Yam's character has with his fellow officers that you can see that these are a group of men who respect each other, care for each other and would do anything for each other. They share a bond that no one else can understand and it is this bond Yam's character has with his men in that he is able to start really getting underhanded when he thinks it's time he finishes Sammo's crime boss character off, once and for all. Again, we can see here those familiar themes of brotherhood, loyalty and honor. This combination of dark story telling and brutal action would lead to number follow ups such as Flash Point, Fatal Move, Fatal Contact, Legendary Assassin among others. All of which took a leaf from SPL's book and would go on to be moderately successful. If Chang Cheh were alive today, these are the types of films he would be making.

Johnnie To is another director, while not perhaps directly influenced by Chang Cheh, whose work shares a lot of similarities with Chang. If you watch films such as The Mission, Thrown Down, Exiled or the Election films, the true themes of Chang's work immediately leap out at you and while this is in no way intentional on the part of Johnnie To, you can't help but feel that Chang would be proud that his work has had such a profound effect on modern Hong Kong Cinema, especially when you see that with the re-emergence of period war epics, swordplay films and traditional martial arts films, film makers from Hong Kong and even Mainland China are keeping these classic stories alive in their own way. 

Whether you agree with me or not, Chang Cheh is the most influential figure in Hong Kong Cinema history. His talent as a story teller and combining it with great action can be felt even to this day. Next time you find yourself watching SPL or The Mission. Just pay attention to the relationships between the characters and theme of Chang's work will begin to show themselves. Brotherhood, Loyalty, Respect, Honor. It's all there. Trust me.

Mao March Marathon #4: Broken Oath (1977)

We enter the final week of the Mao March Marathon and this week I'll be taking a look at what is arguably one of Angela's most popular movies among fans. It is of course, Broken Oath!

Angela is Liu Jie-Lian, a woman out to avenge the death of her father. With the help of a pickpocket and an undercover Imperial agent, she uses her deadly skills in Kung Fu to do what she does best. Beat the living crap out of anyone stupid enough to go up against her.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Broken Oath is arguably one of Angela's most popular movies and for good reason. With a plot line that owes more then a little to the classic Japanese revenge movie Lady Snowblood and some tremendous fight choreography from Yuen Woo-Ping, it's easy to see why this is such a big hit with fans. Angela plays the type of character she was best know for. An extremely focused, angry and deadly female who can take a beating as well as give one back. She gives it her all and the end result is a performance that is played with complete conviction and is ultimately satisfying to watch.

Supporting her are, as you'd expect, a group of very familiar faces. Liu Jun-Guk plays the mischievous pickpocket helping Jie-Lian in her mission. He was very likable but it was apparent he wasn't a fighter so he didn't really get to fight anyone. Wang Lai plays Jie-Lian's Godmother and gives a very good performance throughout. Also appearing is Bruce Leung as a super kicking Imperial Agent and Chan Wai-Man as the bad guy out to kill everybody. Also Sammo Hung and Han Ying-Chieh turn up as two bad ass bodyguards who get to kick some serious ass during the run time. Everyone fulfills their roles competently and maintains the same level of quality in the other Angela Mao Golden Harvest productions.

Out of all the movies I've reviewed this month, Broken Oath by far has the most varied in terms of the martial arts action. Yuen Woo-Ping not only gives us a number of traditional empty handed fights but a good quantity of weapons fighting is thrown into the mix. Working along side veteran actor/fight director Hsu Hsia both men show that two heads can be better then one and combine their talents to create some truly memorable action scenes. There's a wonderful scuffle in a forest which we see the introduction of one of Angela's character gimmicks in which she uses scorpions to disable and frighten the enemy. I loved this as you never really saw anyone else use this kind of idea in any other movie at the time and it's just one of many great ideas which were used in Broken Oath. 

One thing is immediately noticeable about the action is the speed in which they are choreographed. During this time while fight choreography was incredibly intricate and well executed, Fast is not a word I would normally associate with it. That's not the case here. The movements are incredibly fast when compared to films such as Hapkido or Lady Whirlwind. Not so fast that it becomes distracting in any way but fast in a way that becomes quite impressive to watch. It doesn't take a genius to work out who might of been the champion of going in this direction. Yuen Woo-Ping was always an action director wanting to try new and interesting things with each film he made. Whether it's with traditional Snake Fist martial arts put together with the completely fictitious Cat's Claw Kung Fu in Snake In The Eagle's Shadow or mixing Tai Chi and Drunken Fist in Drunken Tai Chi, Sifu Woo-Ping was always trying to stay ahead of the curve when it came to action film making.

Speed seems to be the thing which we find him experimenting with here. Putting together a complicated sequence of moves is one thing but to push it that little bit further by making a little bit faster and tighter and it gives it just that little touch of realism. Not too realistic, after all this is a 70's Kung Fu picture we're talking about here but enough so that it makes it stand out from the crowd. There are a number of very well done and very memorable fight scenes throughout. A fight which sees Angela use a Bo staff is very good with some good moves shown throughout. Chan Wai-Man goes up against Fong Yau in a fight which sees Chan dish out some nasty looking blows to the head. I liked this one especially as it showed why Chan Wai-Man is one of the more under appreciated Kung Fu stars of this era. Woo-Ping and Hsu Hsia obviously saw something in him that could be put to great use here and he gets to show some very impressive punching combinations that compliment his hard hitting style.

If you ever talk to fans about Broken Oath one thing they will inevitably say is how Broken Oath has one of the best final reel fight scenes of it's time. Having watched it, I would whole-heartedly agree. Everyone involved and I mean everyone gets to really show their stuff. An excellent scene sees Kuo Cheng-Yu fight a fire breathing Han Ying-Chieh. Kung Fu bad guys always had some sort of gimmick during this time. I think it mostly stemmed from the type of Kung Fu action pictures Shaw Brothers were making at the time. Han's gimmick is that he breathes fire but also wears a pair of steel toes caps. It's a short scene but both men get to make a wonderful Kung Fu fight. Angela uses double short swords against a starknife wielding Sammo Hung and this is why Broken Oath has such a good reputation as a weapons film.

You can see both Angela and Sammo really trying to push themselves to do the choreography justice and it's an excellent fight and reminds me while I prefer more grounded swordplay to that of the fantasy style seen in films such as Swordsman II. Not that there's anything wrong with that style of action. Each type have their pro and cons but to me movies like Broken Oath are more to my liking when it comes to on-screen martial arts. If seeing Angela take on Sammo wasn't enough, we have Chan Wai-Man fight Bruce Leung. Broken Oath is a good example of why Bruce Leung, much like Dorian Tan, was one of the more under appreciated boot men of this era and had the talent to hit it big but for one reason or another never did. Leung's fight with Chan is excellent with Chan using some stiff looking kicks and punches and Leung really showing his knack for fancy kicks.

Broken Oath is a fantastic piece of late 70's Hong Kong martial arts cinema and is a definite must see if you like Golden Harvest or Shaw Brothers movies. Having this as the film to conclude the Mao March Marathon has been wonderful and I can only hope that I'll be able to review more of Angela Mao's films in the future. So that's it. Thank you all for coming onto my blog week after week. Be sure to keep checking for more reviews, retrospectives, columns and articles throughout the coming weeks and months.

Jetruary #4: Swordsman 2: Invincible Asia (1992)

For my fourth entry into Jetruary I decided to review what is essentially Jet's first entry into the fantasy martial arts genre. In the sequel to the classic Wu Xia epic directed by King Hu, Jet Li replaces original star Sam Hui as the swordsman Ling in what is seen as a film that not only manages to be a worthy follow up to the original but surpass it in many ways. Ling is a man who has a love for drinking, singing and women. Along with his faithful companion Kiddo (Michelle Reis) they both retreat to the mountains intent on retiring from the martial arts world and lead a quiet life. However they soon get involved in a plan to rescue Master Wu (Yen Shi-Kwan) who has been imprisoned by the mysterious Dawn (Brigitte Lin) who plans on ruling over Asia using his new abilities gained from a powerful scroll granting the user supernatural abilities.

At this point in Jet's career he had mostly done realistic and traditional martial arts action and this is the first time we see him donning wires and flying through the air with all the charm and grace he possesses. The style of action is very different to that of Shaolin Temple or Dragon Fight but it's easy to see why Jet would end up going this route in his later films. While he looked incredible doing more grounded kicking and punching, here we see him doing amazing flying kicks and lightening fast sword displays, it's the type of action that would go on to define his on-screen style well into his career and Swordsman II is where it all started. First of all, his on-screen persona is very different to what he has displayed previously. In Dragon Fight he was very much the stoic hero, down playing his emotions for the most part. Here we see him laughing, smiling, singing and generally just having a good time.

It reminded me very much of the personality he displayed in Shaolin Temple but here he really brings it forward and does an excellent job of differentiating his character to ones he had played previously. He does get more serious as the film progresses, especially in the final act of the film and it's easy to see why he was Tsui Hark's number one choice to play Wong Fei-Hung in the excellent Once Upon A Time In China series. This is definitely a must see for fans of Jet as it allows you as a viewer to see him really getting to grips with how he wanted to portray himself on the big screen.

Jet also gets to work with a great cast of Hong Kong talent. Michelle Reis plays his companion Kiddo. A tomboy sword fighter with a crush on our hero. She does well enough given the material she's working with and looks good in the many sword fights she partakes in, which is impressive as Michelle isn't someone with an extensive martial arts background. Rosamund Kwan plays one of Jet's love interests and gets to kick some serious ass with a bull whip. Sadly she doesn't get to really show off her excellent acting talent but does get to really use those big expressive eyes which I find almost hypnotic at times. Yen Shi-Kwan rocks out as Master Wu and Brigitte Lin plays the role that would define her career as Dawn, a martial artist who goes through a gender transformation in order to become the strongest martial artist in all of Asia.

This is interesting as this type of character is very unique to Chinese cinema. The idea that in order to really become the most powerful of fighters, one must go through such a transformation is an incredibly unique idea that it's odd  it hasn't been explored outside of Asia. Imagine how mad The Matrix would be if in order for Neo to be victorious over Agent Smith he'd have to get rid of his wedding tackle and grow a pair of breasts. As I said this was the role that would define Brigitte's career and she would go on to reprise the role on Swordsman 3 and also play variations on the character in films such as Deadful Melody and Three Swordmen. She does an absolutely stellar job playing Dawn with such conviction that critics did take notice and nominated her for a Hong Kong film award, which she sadly did not win.

These kinds of odd and wild ideas are what help shape the Wu Xia genre as a whole. The fact that these worlds are not constrainted by things such as gravity and allow characters to fly through the air and display techniques which wouldn't work in other genre films. This style of film making is definitely an acquired taste when you compare it to more traditional martial arts films but you'll find that Wu Xia epics are some of the most beautifully put together and visually creative films you'll ever see. It's always nice to see modern Chinese films makers revisit the genre now and again and it seems Jet has strapped on the wires one more time in the upcoming Flying Swords of Dragon Gate which I'm very excited about seeing.

In charge of the fantastical sword play is Ching Siu-Tung, a director and fight choreographer who would go on to be the go to guy for this type of film. It seems he made the transition from doing normal ground based Kung Fu and began his long career in the Wu Xia genre. Here he displays his abilities as not only an incredibly fast story teller but also a brilliant choreographer. The many fights set through out the film are excellent and he uses the sword play style to make all the cast look magnificent. Swordsman 2 is one of the finest examples of the genre and is a great introduction to those who may never have seen this type of film making before.

One thing I would like to address is the relationship between Jet and Brigitte's characters. When they first meet Ling is unaware that Dawn is a man. His outward appearance has given him the feminine looks of Brigette but his voice still has a masculine tone. Ling is unaware of this as Dawn doesn't utter a single word and immediately you can see an attraction between the two. As the story moves along things such as sexuality and morally are called into question and these are very weighty subjects that are being addressed here. Especially given the fact that this a film that features a woman with a bullwhip capable of ripping men limb from limb but the fact that these issues are addressed is what really raises Swordsman 2 above it's predecessor. 

While the original was content on just telling a good old fashioned story of good versus evil, Swordman 2 challenges social taboos by having two male characters fall in love. Sadly, the conclusion to this story didn't reach a particularly satisfying one but Ching Siu-Tung has to be commended for telling such a bold story. It also helps that you have two capable actors in Jet and Brigette. They have good chemistry, even in the early scenes when Dawn is completely silent, the way he looks at Jet you can see that he is slowly becoming enamored by him. Likewise with Ling who seems to be attracted by Dawn's air of mystery. It's without a doubt one of  the highlights of the film and it would be great to these themes explored in more modern Chinese films.

Swordsman 2 is an instant classic that should be viewed by anyone who is a fan of Hong Kong films. We get some crazy action and a fantastic story that really makes it a must see for fans of anyone involved. For those who would be interested in wanting to learn more about Brigette's character and the idea of transsexualism in Asian cinema should read my friend Meredith's review Swordsman 2's Invincible Asia and the tradition of Cross Dressing in Kung Fu movies.

That's it for this week. This was intended to be the last entry into Jetruary but I've decided to review one more film to close out the month so be back next week.