Shadow (2018)

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Shadow (2018)

Zhang Yimou’s return to the wuxia film is also a massive return to form; a delicate, deceptive and deadly tale of warring states which seemed to sneak onto streaming services without much fanfare, in stark contrast to the reception received for the co-produced Chinese-American flop, The Great Wall, which featured Matt Damon fighting a swarm of giant lizards. There is not a single CGI monster in sight in this film – thank god – but there is plenty of what fans of Zhang Yimou’s breakout wuxia successes like Hero and House of Flying Daggers will find more familiar; plotting and subterfuge, romance …

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KFMG Podcast S04 Episode 46: Jason Tobin

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KFMG Podcast S04 Episode 46: Jason Tobin

“To work on a really good TV show in a fantastic role – and, on top of that, to have crossed paths with Bruce Lee [and] play some small role in his legacy – is an absolute dream come true.”

As a lifelong fan of Bruce Lee, the chance to play a starring role in HBO’s Warrior TV series – based on a story by the late kung fu movie star and executive produced by his daughter, Shannon Lee – was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And he relishes every scene in his role as Young Jun; the entitled, violent, and arrogant heir to Chinatown’s Hop …

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Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019)

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Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019)

Fast-paced, star-studded and thorough account of the global reach of kung fu cinema. This Australian documentary looks mostly at the genre’s influence in the west, using the popularity of the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong in the 1960s as its starting point – a time of broiling political unrest which found kinship in Hollywood’s hippy movement. Using a virus analogy, the trend is shown spreading from the New York grind-house into African-American communities, 1970s blaxploitation films, hip-hop and breakdancing. In France, Sebastien Foucan explains how Jackie Chan‘s stunts influenced free-running and later its more stylistic interpretation, Parkour. In Australia, Brian …

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KFMG Podcast S04 Episode 45: Terrence J. Brady

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KFMG Podcast S04 Episode 45: Terrence J. Brady

“Shaw Brothers had so many incredible talents, but Alex was someone that people loved very dearly.”

Alexander Fu Sheng would have celebrated his 65th birthday on 20 October 2019. A poster-boy for Shaw Brothers’ unique brand of high-octane martial arts action films throughout the 1970s and early 80s, Fu Sheng died tragically young at the age of 28 in a car crash on his way to a night-shoot. Like Bruce Lee before him, his young death immortalised him as another tragic martial arts film star, taken too young at the height of his powers. However, unlike Lee, Fu Sheng is largely …

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The Avenging Eagle (1978)

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The Avenging Eagle (1978)

A terrific doubleheader starring Shaw Brothers mainstays Ti Lung and Fu Sheng in one of the best examples of post-modern wuxia cinema and, particularly, its links to the western. Sun Chung’s direction provides a refreshing tonic to Chang Cheh‘s more broody, righteous potboilers, providing full-bodied characters, quirks, great performances, and a truly original vision. His great use of tracking shots, jump cuts and slow motion display new and creative ways of negotiating around the confines of Shaw Brothers’ stifling Movietown studios. Ti Lung plays Chi, one of 13 orphans trained from a young age to be an absolute bastard by …

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The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984)

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The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984)

A near-perfect kung fu film, this wrought, embittered battle for justice is very much the zenith of Lau Kar-leung‘s extraordinary filmmaking talents, and pushes the form into new realms. It tells the story of the noble, pious, pole-fighting Yang family soldiers; they have the respect of the people, but are seen as a menace to the governing Mongol government who see them as a threat to their plans for wide-scale invasion. An ambush is set-up by the traitorous Pai Mei and five of the seven Yang family brothers are slain, causing their master to take his own life. They die standing …

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Disciples of Shaolin (1975)

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Disciples of Shaolin (1975)

Alexander Fu Sheng‘s tragi-comic embodiment of the xiao xi (‘little kid’) persona was never more fully realised than in this triumphant kung fu film. He steals every scene as the rebellious orphan Guan Feng-yi, who arrives in town as a sassy, barefoot bumpkin with exceptional martial arts skills and zero respect for authority. He winds up progressing far at a textile factory because of his fists, rallying his co-workers and protecting the bosses from unscrupulous Manchus intent on taking over the joint. His buddy, another master fighter (played by Chi Kuan-chun), faces his oppressors in a slightly different way, and the …

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Chinatown Kid (1977)

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Chinatown Kid (1977)

A foreboding, moralising melodrama from Chang Cheh about the transformational power of education over a life of crime and consumerism, told through the story of two down-and-out Chinese youths arriving fresh off the boat into San Francisco’s Chinatown. (Well, not quite. Aside from some establishing B-roll footage shot on location, the whole movie is quite obviously filmed at Shaw Brothers’ studios in Hong Kong). One is a well-to-do Taiwanese student sent to the USA on a scholarship (Sun Chien), but in desperate need of income to support his studies; the other is an illegal immigrant (Fu Sheng) who enters San …

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Shaolin Martial Arts (1974)

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Shaolin Martial Arts (1974)

Another passionate potboiler; the third in the so-called ‘Shaolin cycle’ and one of the best. This one not only features a strong, youthful cast of Shaw talent (many of whom – people like Leung Kar-yan, Wang Lung-wei and Gordon Liu – would go on to become huge kung fu stars), but also because of the heavy influence of its fight choreographers, Lau Kar-leung and Tong Gaai. They use Chang Cheh‘s brooding setting to explore the practical applications of specific Chinese martial arts styles. The detail is almost forensic, but told in a playful way, despite its somewhat bleak premise.

The film …

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Five Shaolin Masters (1974)

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Five Shaolin Masters (1974)

A rip-roaring kung fu film, part of Chang Cheh‘s ‘Shaolin cycle’ which boasts a formidable cast, sharp fight choreography from Lau Kar-leung and Tong Gaai, and a tangible sense of space and location, filmed away from the claustrophobic confines of Shaws’ Movietown Studios in the wilds of Taiwan in a bid to make use of foreign capital. The result shows Chang Cheh flexing slightly different muscles, capturing texture and landscape as well as buckets of blood and muscular young boys with their shirts off. Even by Chang’s standards, this is particularly boy-tastic, featuring the full force of his heroic discoveries …

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