The kung fu genre is Hong Kong cinema's most unique and significant creation.
My name is La Frances Hui.
I am a film curator at the Museum of Modern Art.
In this video, we will look at the genre closely and discuss the work of Lau Kar-leung,
the great director and actor of kung fu films.
There are mainly two kinds of martial arts films.
Wuxia films and kung fu films.
Wuxia is a Mandarin term combining the words 'martial arts' and 'chivalry'.
One of the most important Wuxia film directors is King Hu, who made some of the most stunning
and artistically original Wuxia films, such as A Touch of Zen, Dragon Inn, and Come Drink with Me.
In these films, the fighting is very stylized, imaginative,
borrowing elements from northern opera traditions.
You see high kicks, intense acrobatics, antigravity and weightless leaps,
supernatural power fully fantasized.
A more recent example is Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
You see how the heroes leap all the way up to the top of bamboo trees, stay there,
perform extended fights, and fly all over the place.
Kung fu, though, is something else.
Kung fu is a Cantonese term.
It literally means 'skill'.
You can call a chef a kung fu master.
In the context of martial arts, it refers to southern martial arts traditions.
Southern kung fu relies a great deal on upper body strength, supported by solid lower body stances.
The movements are closer to the ground.
The kicks are lower, and you see a lot of intricate arm and fist techniques.
The most famous kung fu master is undoubtedly Wong Fei-hung, a late Qing Dynasty figure
who ran a martial arts school in Guangdong, who was an expert of the hung fist School
of Martial Arts, associated with southern Shaolin temple.
His story is so legendary that it has inspired over 100 films, including
The Story of Wong Fei Hung, and King of Lion Dance.
It wasn't until the '70s when the label kung fu film was used to describe the genre.
It was a time when Bruce Lee emerged and took the world by storm, with films like
Enter the Dragon and Game of Death.
The Chinese audience, being experienced spectators of martial arts, wanted to see realistic fighting.
They wanted to see real kung fu fighters doing the real thing.
A whole generation of actors who were actually trained in martial arts became movie stars.
Lau Kar-leung practiced the hung fist tradition under his father,
who was a student of Wong Fei-hung's direct disciple.
In the '60s, he joined the Shaw Brothers Studio as a martial arts instructor,
making short play Wuxia films like One-armed Swordsman and Golden Swallow.
Look, a lot of directors and actors are associated with kung fu genre, but what they deliver
is not strictly kung fu.
Bruce Lee was trained in a southern wing chun style, but he delivered far more than kung
fu in his films.
Look at how he moves in "Way of the Dragon."
The way he bounces left and right; those are steps in western boxing.
You also see judo, taekwondo and he was never shy to say how proud he was to mix different
martial arts styles, reflecting his identity as a Chinese, and a Chinese-American,
truly a global citizen before globalization.
Another action star, Jackie Chan, who is often associated with kung fu, actually studied
Peking Opera, which gave him the acrobatic skills to play kung fu characters,
such as the one in Drunken Master II.
This athleticism makes him a great performer in action films set in modern times.
This is a fight scene in Police Story.
What you see is not really kung fu, but, because of the training Jackie Chan has received,
he is able to choreograph and perform incredible stunts.
These mixed styles are all sensational to watch, and equally hard to execute.
There's no need to privilege one over the other.
But if you want to talk about old school, authentic kung fu, there's no one quite like
Lau Kar-leung.
Lau Kar-leung has a very strong desire to show the audience the holistic beauty of
kung fu, a discipline of body and mind.
He loves showing the making of a kung fu master, a strenuous, grueling process that offers
no shortcuts.
He devotes a huge amount of screen time to training sequences.
"The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" demonstrates this like no others.
In this film, his favorite kung fu star, Gordon Liu, goes through a series of Shaolin chambers
to fine tune each kung fu technique.
You can say it's just a movie, but the laborious training scenes have the feel of a documentary.
No actor can act out the training without going through the actual training itself.
The process is exhausting.
You can't watch it without feeling complete respect for the actor and kung fu artists.
Lau Kar-leung also likes to showcase the teacher student relationship, informed by the Confucian
philosophy of honoring the elders.
The teacher doesn't only pass down the kung fu skills.
He or she is also concerned with the cultivation of the students' moral character.
Lau Kar-leung's films reflect his intimate relationship with kung fu.
His action scenes are meticulously planned, performed and filmed.
He acts in his films often, and works with his favorite kung fu stars,
all of them very well trained, and can perform his style of kung fu.
There are a few close-ups to create distractions.
Medium and wide shots are often used to expose the entire body.
There's nowhere and no way for an actor to hide.
The camera pulls back often to reveal the movements as they are.
Continuity editing is used to make the action and the trajectory of any movement legible
to the audience.
The editing cuts are really not very rapid.
Certainly not like some other action films, such as "Bourne Ultimatum", which is made
up of very quick cuts stitching together actions that appear to be continuous, but most likely
performed in broken fragments on the set.
Here is a great scene from "Martial Club", showing two actors fighting in a very narrow
alley.
What do you do with your limbs in a tight space measuring three or four foot wide,
and how do you film it?
Watching a Lau Kar-leung film is similar to watching an illustrated guide or documentation
of kung fu and its philosophy.
The fight scenes are spectacular.
The performers are top notch.
The films are even funny sometimes.
It's joyful to watch these films regardless of how much you know about kung fu.
Just know that you are watching the works of the most dedicated and authentic exponent
of kung fu and kung fu film — someone who has been hailed the grandmaster.
So those are my thoughts on kung fu films and Lau Kar-leung.
I hope that you have enjoyed watching this video.
What do kung fu movies mean to you?
Let us know in the comments section below what other topics you would like us cover,
and also please subscribe for other videos from MoMA and our Department of Film.
My name is La Frances Hui.
I am a curator at the Museum of Modern Art.
See you at the movies.