"In the 1970's it took the world of cinema by storm" "By the time I started working in movies... almost anyone could have the lead role" "As long as he knew Kung Fu." "It created a new generation of international stars like Jet Li" "I remember the first action movie" "I saw... was Fist Of Fury with Bruce Lee." "It introduced the incomparable Bruce Lee the man who brought Hong Kong to the film-makers of Hollywood" "They really like Hong Kong's unique film style and they want to incorporate this into American films." "It's Hong Kong's unique gift to the history of movie-making" "Kung Fu" "Kung Fu contracts its history to the famous Shaolin Temple... where the monks taught martial arts" "The temple was burnt down in the 17th century... by the unpopular Manchu government for harboring dissidents" "The survivors fled southward... and set up secret martial arts schools notably in the province of Canton" "Weapons were banned" "So the martial artists practised with the fist the foot and the pole" "It was in a Canton martial arts school... that cinema found its first Kung Fu hero" "Wong Fei Hung first hit the screen in 1949" "The leading role in 'The True Story of Wong Fei Hung' was played by the actor Quan Tak Hing" "A part he would subsequently reprise 75 times... so placing the Wong Fei Hung films in the Guinness book of records... as the longest running series ever" "Wong Fei Hung represents a Chinese folk hero." "He's more than just... a Kung Fu master." "Among many heroes... one superhero stands out and that's Wong Fei Hung." "Wong Fei Hung was a real-life character  died in 1924" "He was a famed SIFU or martial arts master a skilled lion dance and a practitioner of Chinese medicine" "In his hometown of Fo Shan in the mainland Chinese province of Canton... a museum and lion dance centre celebrates his memory" "A revealing facet of the museum is a room... entirely dedicated to the actor who originally played him in the movies ...Quan Tak Hing" "Neither, it seems would've been famous without other" "The public always confuse my father with the real Wong Fei Hung" "There were many times he was addressed on the street or... or in a restaurant and in other places as Master Wong ...as for his real name of Quan Tak Hing" "The life of Fei Hung represents righteousness... represents uh, respect to others represents the goodness... not just the martial arts of fighting ...but of being fair" "Always remember the purpose of learning martial arts the very important purpose is to help your country" "At least one should fight the wicked  help the needy" "Quan Tak Hing's opponent was usually played by Sek Kin... who a generation later would play the villain opposite Bruce Lee in 'Enter the Dragon'" "Sek Kin remembers the financial importance of the Wong Fei Hung Brand" "Whenever the film bosses were low on cash, they'd... make Wong Fei Hung film to save from financial crisis" "There'd be Wong Fei Hung 'this' and Wong Fei Hung that" "Just by cashing in on the Wong Fei Hung name ...they could sell the film overseas." "Anyone could make one." "There were so many Wong Fei Hung films." "Such is the popularity... of the Wong Fei Hung character that he's seen many interpretations" "As a clowning Jackie Chan in 'Drunken Master'" "Sit still!" "He appears in this chaotic world" "To fight the wicked and help the needy" "As a cartoon character for children" "And most recently as Jet Li in Tsui Hark's 'Once Upon A Time In China'" "For 50 years" "Wong Fei Hung and with him the whole Kung Fu genre ...has been steadily evolving" "In the beginning though it was all quite haphazard" "At the time there were no martial arts choreographers." "Some actors knew a little about martial arts and we worked from that." "You punch me and I block." "That's the way it was done." "In one wide shot... you'd see Quan Tak Hing and Sek Kin fight for 15 minutes" "And if a director thought it was enough he'd say "cut"" "Later it all started to change... with Chang Che and Lau Ka Leung." "In the early 60's directors began employing real-life martial artists... to choreograph the fights for them" "Credibly as martial arts instructors... they were brought in initially to work on the popular swordplay films;" "working out the moves and teaching the actors how to fight" "Preeminent amongst them was Lau Ka Leung... who choreographed fights for... the great Hong Kong director Chang Cheh" "In time Lau Ka Leung went on to become a director in his own right" "Today on a purpose-built studio lot in Shanghai he's working on his latest movie 'Drunken Monkey'" "He is director, star and choreographer" "Lau is a sifu, or master martial artist" "But not all his actors are expected to be Kung Fu experts" "The pole is very maneuverable." "You block like this like this then you attack." "During breaks in the shooting performers are coached for the next scene" "Shannon Yao the female lead in 'Drunken Monkey'... is learning martial arts for the first time" "Difficult moves can be very time-consuming if the actor is not a martial artist as I have to teach them how to fight." "If the actor is good at martial arts... the filming is much faster." "I'll find out where he's probably come from" "Like, if he do this something like this" "If I just do this you will see no power" "And when I saw him he do it from inside the power like this and then I can feel that... that's the power come from!" "And every movement he would teach me slightly, swiftly, and precisely" "Once I do it, he'd say" "Okay, go'" "Lau Ka Leung is unusual in being both director and choreographer" "He improvises the fight moves on the set... carrying the whole sequence in his head" "Even without storyboards Lau can create extremely complex fights" "It's the way Hong Kong cinema has traditionally worked" "For example when they come to a set like this... they make the fight up as they go along." "No appropriate backgrounds chosen beforehand... or discussed where to position the camera." "It's just a vague concept." "Even if scene like the famous ladder fight in 'Once Upon A Time In China' was created move by move in the studio" "It was very difficult to make." "I remember that... the ending took 8 weeks... to film because nobody had ever done it before." "The ladders were first tied and bound by wires." "After the wiring... we had to learn the speed of the ladders and how to balance on top of them as well as choreographing the fighting." "We all learnt as we went." "The idea came about... from a conversation ...about a video game from the late 80's where you climbed up a ladder then had a fight then climbed up another ladder and had a fight." "In the late 1960's martial arts movies had become..." "Hong Kong cinema's most successful genre" "Run Run Shaw, head of the Shaw Studio... announced a new century of martial arts" "People go to the cinemas they want some excitement and the action is always received well by the people" "The incredible output of movies at this time... from studios like Shaws made Hong Kong film makers ow to learn techniques for working fast" "A director might easily... make five or more films in a year" "It's a joke in the industry that I was making eight movies on the same day." "After finishing the 34th scene of film 'A'" "I'd go to the 38th scene of film 'B' then I'd go to the 15th scene of film 'C'." "Maybe because I was young... and had a good memory" "I could remember all the characters and scenes... from all eight at once." "The pressure to work fast and improvise had an interesting consequence" "A style of directing unique to Hong Kong known as" "'Editing in the camera'" "In feature films elsewhere the actors normally repeat the whole of the action several times" "This allows the director to film a variety of angles" "On the first take a wide shot" "On the second take a mid-shot" "On the third take a close-up" "As the action is identical in each case at any given point the editor will have a choice of three shots" "So the edited version might look like this" "Selecting one picture size then another" "For reasons of time and money Hong Kong directors... would shoot each segment of the fight just once" "Lau Ka Fai actor-brother to Lau Ka Leung... demonstrates a Kung Fu routine" "Now, for the benefit of our camera he shows how the same routine is broken down into one-half takes" "Each one picking up from where the last one left off" "Then cut here" "This is what is meant by 'Editing in the camera'" "Then punch" "What makes Hong Kong film-makers special is that everything is in our minds." "We've got a clear idea of the story design, movements and how it will cut together." "It's all very clear." "By 1970 the passion for swordplay was on the wane... and the craze for Kung Fu had begun in earnest" "Although this was a decade of Bruce Lee  Jackie Chan neither artist typified the kind of Kung Fu films... the Hong Kong audience would soon be watching by the hundreds" "Seventies Kung Fu films had come a long way from the genteel Quan Tak Hing" "The action was violent now... and the plot, vengeful" "They followed popular formats recycling favourite elements over and over again" "Lau Ka Leung's classic film" "Challenge Of The Masters' perfectly illustrates... all the archetypal ingredients of the Kung Fu plot" "To begin with there is rivalry between two martial arts schools... one of whom doesn't play by the rules" "This is the iron ruler" "Next, the hero here played by Lau Ka Fai... is humiliated by being unable... to defend himself" "He is taken in hand by a sifu and becomes his disciple" "I'll take him to the country in a few days and train him for 2 years." "Do you mind?" "The two years' training are spent in seclusion" "The discipline is arduous" "Unicorn Step" "The disciple must always be subservient to the sifu" "The sifu contemptuous of the disciple" "You can't stand anymore!" "Tortuous exercises are a staple ingredient" "But the plot requires a motive" "And the motive is always revenge" "The hero's friend and mentor is killed by... a criminal member of the rival martial arts school using a secret weapon" "Master" "I know who killed him" "Who?" "If I tell you, you can go and find him but I want to avenge his death myself" "The disciple is inspired to even greater efforts... to become the supreme martial artist" "But his thirst for vengeance must be tempered by tolerance" "When you knock down an opponent... you win only a physical match" "Only by giving him... a fair chance can you win his heart" "This is the moral of real Kung Fu" "Finally the hero returns to take his revenge" "But remembers the words of his master" "Forgive and guard against arrogance'" "Ah Hung, you've got to bear this in mind'" "We have Kung Fu morals... which we learn from the master a martial arts ethic." "It's a simple idea" "My sifu tells me... you punch a man" "and you kill him" "He's dead." "Will he have learnt his lesson?" "No." "He's dead." "But if I don't kill him only restrain him don't do it again will he have learned his lesson?" "He will." "Therefore in my martial arts films... there's an ethic." "I try to promote these values of restraint." "Forgive him" "Lau Ka Leung's films lay great stress not just on morality... but on the physical training of the Kung Fu hero" "In 'Eight Diagram Pole Fighter'" "Yang is a soldier who takes refuge in a monastery" "Buddhism forbids the monks from taking life" "So they practise their one martial skill" "Pole Fighting ...on wolves made of wood" "We won't kill" "We would only de-fang them" "No matter how fierce the wolves are... without their teeth they are nothing" "Yang turns his spear into a pole and learns the monks' defanging technique" "No. 5, good poling" "Thank you, abbot" "The practice subsequently proves useful in the showdown with the enemy" "In 'The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin' one of Hong Kong's most celebrated Kung Fu films... the training becomes the story itself" "This is the basic process" "Carry the water up the slope and pour it down to keep it flowing" "The hero San Te learns martial arts at the famous Shaolin Monastery... in order to avenge the death of his family" "He has to graduate from each chamber in turn... where outlandish exercises have been devised to improve his strength and skill" "When the lamp oscillates... you oscillate your eyeballs" "I told you not to move your head" "Again" "The course takes him five whole years" "With both hands held behind the waist ...use your head to push away the sand bags then burn incense before the patriarch" "Yes" "The choreographers of the 70's were first and foremost ...martial artists themselves" "It was often on practices of the martial arts schools and then they made their own elaborations" "In real life martial artists trained on a wooden dummy" "In 'The Challenge Of The Masters' the film-makers added some extras" "Jackie in 'Drunken Master' takes a routine exercise... and adds his own inventiveness" "For example in 'Drunken Master' the training involves sit-ups." "It's about muscles, not water." "We added the water to make it more entertaining." "Domonstrated how to exercise the abdomen muscles" "Oh, this is killing me!" "I show you a fast move" "Kung Fu in the cinema needs to be entertaining" "So it's not the same as real Kung Fu" "Leung Ting has an experience of both" "Today he is Grandmaster of Wing Chun school of martial arts" "In the 1970's he was a top cinema choreographer" "Obviously... if you're making a film you have to think very carefully whether it'll work... on camera because some of the real Kung Fu... doesn't look good on film so you have to leave it out." "Then with some styles of fistfight there's a lot of repetition." "If you filmed this... the audience would be bored to death." "So when you're thinking about the choreography..." "the most important thing is to offer the best visuals to the audience." "In real life the martial arts schools practise a number of different styles" "The pitting of one style against another... was a favourite theme of the Kung Fu film" "The Southern style is quite impressive" "The Northern style is not bad either" "What's that?" "The Stork Technique." "Want to test it?" "And once the real styles were exhausted... the martial arts directors simply invented new ones" "Don't think your breath control... can counter my Sharp Kick" "The Eagle Claws" "Wei Chung, Gibbon Chopping!" "In 'The Five Venoms' the villains practise different styles... named after poisonous creatures" "You have five brothers" "I'll start with the first" "Your eldest brother Zheng Yiao Tian practiced the centipede style" "He was known as 'hundred feet thousand hands' for his swift movements which looked like a centipede" "It was Leung Ting's job to make the styles up" "The centipede was the hardest one to think up." "Actually it doesn't exist" "What was I doing?" "The body is very long and it has many legs" "So I think since Wing Chun is best known as its fast move the actor can use fast hand movments" "When he fights it looks like a centipede with lots of hands and shadows of the hands." "In 'Return To The 36th Chamber' the young hero invents a style all his own" "He is a scaffolder working at the Shaolin temple... who observes the monks at their martial arts below" "Practising while he works he gradually develops his own technique" "When it comes to the showdown with his enemies... they find there are few defenses against scaffolder's Kung Fu" "But despite the inventiveness of the choreographer... the basic fighting style of these Kung Fu films had changed little since the days of Wong Fei Hung" "The combatants parry one another's moves endlessly... with neither actually landing a blow for minutes on end" "No one pretends it's realistic" "But there was another kind of Kung Fu film" "The product of a one-man-phenomenon whose influence on martial arts cinema would be legendary" "The phenomenon was Bruce Lee" "He started the craze for Kung Fu" "He was the first to really bring kicks to the screen the 'Triple Kick'." "It was very concise, to the point there were no gimmicks like nothing of the sort." "Only this... and he hits the target." "It gave the audience a whole new style." "Bruce Lee believed that Kung Fu in Cinema shouldn't be ...any different from the real Kung Fu he practised" "A style of his own making" "He told me he was in America practising Jeet Kune Do." "I asked what is Jeet Kune Do?" "He said it's all about speed... you strike" "and I've to be faster than you." "This is Jeet Kune Do." "I did one film with Bruce Lee ...one scene only." "It was a fighting scene in Fist Of Fury." "I just walked up to him... it wasn't much of a fight because with Bruce Lee it's one strike and you're down." "Every fight's like that." "His contribution to film and Kung Fu is tremendous." "He brought new visual ideas and inspired us." "His perception and theory of martial arts... were very different from the norm." "That is the expression of the human body" "I mean the fi... everything I mean, you know not just the hand" "And when you're talking about combat" "Well, I mean... if it is a sport now you're talking about something else" "You've regulations, you have rules but..." "When you're talking about fighting as it is..." "With no rules" "Uh, real fighting well then baby you better train every part of your body" "And when you do a punch lean forward a little bit hoping not to hurt any camera angle" "I mean you got to put the whole hip into it ...and snap it!" "And get all your energy there ...and make this into a weapon" "He gave us not only his theories about martial arts but also his opinions his ideas about nationalism." "It gave us a lot... to think about." "I remember... the first action movie I saw was Fist Of Fury with Bruce Lee." "I was 11 years old." "Crawl like a dog... and I'll take you in" "In the early movies there was a strong sense of our identity." "All Chinese are good." "All foreigners are bad." "It doesn't matter if they are Japanese or Westerners in the movies all foreigners... are depicted as bad." "Incredibly" "Fist Of Fury was one of only five films... in which Bruce Lee actually starred" "His last finished film was" "Enter The Dragon with Sek Kin" "We had finished the outdoor shooting part." "After the Chinese New Year break... the studio shooting began." "I was in the make-up room." "He came up behind me and sat next to me and suddenly said" "Uncle Kin" "I won't outlive you." "I said, "Why, son?"" "His father is my friend so I call him 'son'" "I said to him "you worked yourself too hard when you were making your living as a martial artist." "Now you're making movies you can afford to take a break."" "He said "Movies are just one more job to me."" "I didn't know what to say to that." "Bruce Lee died in 1973 of a cerebral edema... at the age of 33" "He died so young so he's remembered at his best." "Nobody wants to see an old martial artist." "So I say death is good to Bruce Lee in our minds he is always powerful forever." "But his influence was everywhere" "Chang Cheh, the king of swordplay... now began directing Kung Fu films with the same dramatic realism" "So we started to make real Kung Fu movies." "Actors like Chen Guan tai would appear in that kind of film where each punch is for real... no gimmicks." "But the new realism came at... a price for the actors" "The actors get hurt all the time even more so if the actor doesn't know martial arts or if he does it completely wrong it's the Kung Fu extra who'll suffer." "He could get punched and end up with a broken nose." "Sometimes it's the extras themselves who get too tense when they hear "Camera!"" "They hit out and the actor is too slow to react  his nose gets hit  he ends up with blood over his face" "I remember the first day I acted in 'Dirty Ho' with Wang Yu." "There was one shot... where he had to hit me very hard in the stomach and I needed to react to the punch." "But... there was no protection of any sort such as padding." "I was given the script to put under my clothes." "I remember I was punched over 20 times." "He was hitting me very hard" "I reacted and he punched me away." "I hadn't eaten that day" "I was just drinking water." "After he punched me I went out and threw up ...and then came back to be punched again." "I was hit for several hours and kept bursting into tears." "Apart from the realism of action sequences..." "Bruce Lee had left another legacy in the character of the hero" "Gone now was the gentlemanly philosophic Wong Fei Hung" "Actors like Alexander Fu Sheng portrayed a new swaggering working class hero respectful only of his own fighting talents" "That guy wants to borrow 80 looms." "OK?" "No." "What about you?" "Okay?" "No, too?" "Okay." "Let's fight" "Anyone still want to borrow the looms?" "Fu Sheng was the leading man of the Shaw Studio... and heartthrob of the female audience" "You." "I don't like you" "In 1974 he teamed up with another rising star" "Chen Guantai in 'Heroes Two'" "Chen Guantai was a champion martial artist who started out as a film extra" "In 'Heroes Two' he plays Hung a rebel who fights his way out of the burning Shaolin Temple ...and becomes a fugitive" "A famed martial artist played by Fu Sheng is tricked by the Manchu into capturing him believing him to be a murderer" "You are..." "Strange!" "Why did he stop suddenly during the fight?" "When he finds his mistake he is filled with remorse ...and sets out to rescue Hung" "Who said I won't come?" "Here I am!" "Brother Hung, forgive me." "They fooled me" "I thought you were a cold-blooded killer" "Brother Fang if you can, I can" "You called me... brother?" "Alex Fu Sheng was director Chang Che's favourite actor ...tipped to become the image of Kung Fu star" "But his career was cut short" "While filming '8 Diagram Pole Fighter' in 1983 he was killed in a car accident" "Meanwhile other actors were hoping to step... into the shoes of Bruce Lee" "This one is Lee that one is Lee every Kung Fu extra thinks he's the star." "So they're all going..." "They're all becoming like Bruce Lee." "I remember there was a 'Bruce Lee' phase especially overseas." "There were many 'Bruces'." "Bruce Lee, Bruce Lai Bruce Table, Bruce Chair" "Bruce..., everything Bruce" "Even me" "I was the second Bruce Lee." "On the movie poster there was... second BRUCE LEE, Jackie Chan" "From a distance what you see is..." "BRUCE LEE STARRING;" "but when you look closely you can see it's... 2nd BRUCE LEE Jackie Chan" "It was like that" "Bruce Lee was an impossible act to better" "So Kung Fu directors looked around for an alternative" "All saints, gods and Monkey King" "Please come to help me" "They found it; in comedy" "Monkey King" "It was Lau Ka Leung who led the way... with his first film as director 'Spiritual Boxer'" "I thought I needed to make a film that was different from Bruce Lee's." "I tried to make the Kung Fu humorous." "I didn't know if it was going to work but it was very successful." "Spiritual Boxer' tells the story of a confidence trickster" "A conjurer who claims he becomes possessed by the spirits of the Gods" "Listen, village chief" "I am here." "I am here" "To have peace and good harvest... you must burn incense and worship" "Yes worship" "You must serve the Master with ample food" "Yes" "Provide his travel expenses without fail" "Yes, yes" "But he's an amiable rogue who uses his skill to defend the downtrodden" "Monkey King!" "Liu Te-shui, if you perform any more evil" "I'll use thunder fire to burn your family" "Will you release them or not?" "Yes, yes!" "It's a virtuoso performance by Wang Yu ...and was hugely popular... at the box-office" "Lau went on to make in the same comedy way... in what many consider the one true Kung Fu masterpiece" "'Dirty Ho'" "In 'Dirty Ho' a prince traveling incognito... teams up with a thief who becomes his Kung Fu disciple" "Assassins are out to kill the prince" "A Mongolian battle dress." "Be careful!" "In the scene, one of them masquerading as an antiques dealer... tries to attack the prince while pretending to make a sale" "This is jade of the Tang dynasty" "The carving is exquisite" "The prince feigns not to notice the attack... while simultaneously defending himself" "These complex routines were as close to juggling as to combat" "Excellent!" "Excellent!" "But Lau Ka Leung was not the only one..." "looking for a new kind of Kung Fu after Bruce Lee's death" "I began to think how can I differentiate myself from Bruce Lee?" "I saw him as a superhero." "I am not a superhero." "When he punches he goes and that's great!" "When I punch I go..." "He kicks high..." "I kick low." "So he's done it and that's it, no more." "So I added new elements like somersaults jumping off tables" "and other tricky moves." "'The hero is dead, the clown is born." "This saying refers to two people." "The first is Bruce Lee and the second is Jackie Chan." "If you can't be a hero... why not be an anti-hero or a comic hero?" "Jackie got this point." "Jackie Chan brought clowning and acrobatics to Kung Fu" "His background could not have been more different from Bruce Lee's" "His Kung Fu came not from the martial arts school... but from the theatre" "From the age of eight" "Chan had been trained in a Beijing Opera school" "Apart from learning singing... we also learnt dancing martial arts including punching, kicking swordplay, poling, somersaulting many things combined." "It's like a fusion of Chinese arts." "1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8" "The brutal discipline of the actual opera school... attended by Jackie Chan was recreated in a 1988 movie 'Painted Faces'" "More power from the head" "The part of the sifu was played by Sammo Hung who had been a fellow pupil with Chan" "My memories of school days... are very painful." "We practised martial arts and my sifu was very harsh." "In those days we just trained there was little else to think about." "All you thought about was getting through the day and how to avoid getting beaten by the sifu." "Don't turn or I'll beat you out of shape!" "I forget if it was three strokes or five, but..." "After he finished beating me I was crying like hell ...running all over the place crying 'Papa, mummy' but they weren't there!" "But the discipline training paid off" "Jackie Chan went on to adopt the skills learned... in the opera school to a new style of cinema" "Drunken Master' released in 1978 was his first major box-office hit" "The Crane spread Wings" "Your hand movements are so clumsy how can you learn good Kung Fu?" "This disrespectful take on the Wong Fei Hung story... allowed Jackie to import his own comic invention" "At night we'd sit in a coffee shop with the director to discuss what to shoot the next day." "We'd talk about this and that." "I was very lucky as the director Yuen Woo-Ping always listened to my ideas." "The novelty of the plot was that Chan's character has to learn his inebriated sifu's drunken style of fighting" "As no such style had ever existed... he used the blinds to make it up as he went along" "After everybody else had left..." "I'd be alone in the gym... facing the mirror working out how to do the drunken fighting how to make it elegant" "how to position the hands." "So I'm looking at the mirror it's not like... more like... how to look drunk." "He is opera." "He grew up in an opera troupe." "It's an artistic Kung Fu not martial arts for fighting." "He sings the story like Beijing opera." "A kind of Kung Fu... a kind of art." "Jackie Chan's brilliant slapstick... was to be the final evolution of the Kung Fu films" "While traditional martial arts movies continue to be made..." "Kung Fu fighting took a second course to emerge in modern day action films" "And this time it was Hollywood who'd have to learn from Hong Kong" "Inviting Chinese directors and choreographers to show them how it's done" "These action-packed scenes in X-Men were directed by Corey Yuen... a fellow pupil with Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan from the same Beijing Opera School" "Kung Fu films come uniquely from Hong Kong... where today they're already being made for a third generation of movie-goers" "But they're also" "Hong Kong's gift to the world;" "a wholly original and unique contribution to the history of cinema."