By Brian Hu
Like most cinephiles too young for the Kung Fu explosion in the '70s, I made my first big screen encounter with the likes of Lau Kar-leung and Chang Cheh during 2003's Heroic Grace series curated by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The series went on to tour the country, bringing Celestial's newly remastered and resubtitled Shaw Brothers prints to giddy fans and potential converts. Since then, the only way to see the new Shaw prints was through hard-to-find region 3 DVDs, since Miramax (evil eunuchs) has the U.S. rights on a dozen or so titles, meaning we (poor peasants) will probably never see them released again.
Enter Heroic Grace II (valiant ones), the archive's newest -- and hopefully not last -- series of martial arts classics, including not only Shaw Brothers but also legendary films from Golden Harvest, Cathay, and more. While the appeal of the original Heroic Grace series was the much-awaited reopening of the Shaw vaults, giving audiences a serious, in-depth look at a somewhat neglected corner of world cinema, the appeal of Heroic Grace II will be more comparative in nature. Watching Shaw classics next to Golden Harvest's Bruce Lee pictures, Ming Xing's The Deaf and Mute Heroine (1971), or King Hu's The Valiant Ones (1975) will reveal that, contrary to the stereotypes of old school martial arts as being one-dimensional, chop socky, and of the “seen one, seen them all” variety, these films are in fact highly heterogeneous in nature and reflect the sensibilities of a number of auteurs and studios, and are involved in tackling very different aspects of Chinese nationalism, gender, and theatrical traditions.
If all goes well, after Heroic Grace II tours the U.S., director Chor Yuen (aka Chu Yuan) will finally get the credit he deserves as one of the indisputable masters of Chinese popular cinemas. His Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan was one of the real finds of the last Heroic Grace series, and this time out, he's represented by the wuxia The Magic Blade, the Cathay production Cold Blade, The Jade Tiger starring Ti Lung, and the classic Clans of Intrigue. I find that Chor's films care more about narrative than his contemporaries King Hu and Chang Cheh (Zhang Che), and they're certainly less overtly flashy, particularly in the action sequences. His films are somewhat more mythological and less theatrical, and though the action scenes are top-notch by any standards, I find myself more engrossed in his films during those moments between fights than I do for those of the other directors. As '70s martial arts begins to be taken more seriously, I suspect fans will gravitate toward Chor, whose films privilege the patient rather than those who fast-forward to the exciting bits of Hu and Chang's films.
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That said, the series will treat us to some Hu and Chang classics. King Hu is represented by The Valiant Ones, one of his most underappreciated films, and easily the most nihilistic. It's been a few years since I last saw it, but what I remember most vividly are the brutal finale and some of the most imaginative (and sometimes hilarious) trick shots in film history. Chang Cheh's The Five Venoms is one of the definitive Chang films, complete with blood brothers, vengeance, and anonymous heroes. Also in the series are Chang's The New One-Armed Swordsman, the third in a series which made Chang an international sensation, and The Boxer from Shantung, highlighting the ferocious fists of David Chiang.
Unlike the first Heroic Grace, which attempted to trace the origins of the genre, culminating with the Shaw masterpieces, this second series focuses on the genre's great auteurs. In addition to the films by Chang, Chor, and Hu, we get Bruce Lee's two best films The Way of the Dragon and Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection), Jackie Chan's immortal Police Story, Ann Hui's The Romance of Book and Sword, Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China, and three by the ever-popular Lau Kar-leung: My Young Auntie, Legendary Weapons of China, and Dirty Ho. Lau's films have endured in part because of the fantastic action choreography, but also in part because of their humor, which I believe is what makes Lau one of the most influential and popular figures in Hong Kong film history. For local audiences, the “new wave” of the '80s and '90s were enchanting because they took a lighter, more self-conscious, and more energetic spin on the serious films of the '70s. Tsui Hark and Jackie Chan's films are prime examples of this combination of action and comedy, and Lau's films can be seen as their forerunners. My Young Auntie is a straight out comedy, a rowdy concoction of Confucian ideals, popular culture, and sexual politics. In addition to having the funniest English title in all of Hong Kong cinema, Dirty Ho has an entire genre's share of deathly staredowns, gratuitous zoom-ins, and absurdly beautiful action sequences, as when Gordon Lau miraculously helps a woman defeat a bewildered enemy. Legendary Weapons of China is in the vein of Lau Kar-leung's classic (and very funny) 36 Chambers of Shaolin series, this time focusing on training students to use 18 legendary martial arts weapons.
Many of Hong Kong's auteurs in the '60s and '70s were expatriates. Chang and Hu were born and raised on the mainland and moved to Hong Kong when the film industry packed its bags after the Communist revolution. What's less known is that studios like Shaws' also gave opportunities to non-Chinese filmmakers. Most prominent perhaps is Japanese director Inoue Umetsugu, who specialized in urban musicals like Hong Kong Nocturne. The Heroic Grace II series is highlighting Korean director Chung Chang-wha, who directed the landmark King Boxer (aka Five Fingers of Death) which became a sensation in the United States. Just announced is that Chung will be present at the screening, a rare treat for fans and researchers alike.
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I wonder if it's coincidental that Chinese nationalism is the most persistent theme throughout all of these films. Bruce Lee's two films are about Chinese communities standing up against foreign aggression (Way of the Dragon deals with the Chinese diaspora in Rome; Fist of Fury confronts Japanese and Western colonialism, symbolized by Lee's famous desecration of the “No Dogs and Chinese” sign in Shanghai). King Boxer, Hapkido, and The Valiant Ones also all posit Chinese against the Japanese, albeit in different ways. Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China and Ann Hui's The Romance of Book and Sword complicate this nationalist and racial picture (Hui's film, based on a Jin Yong novel, complicates the Han vs. Manchu story central to so many wuxia classics). I wouldn't read this necessarily as an evolution of the genre or in Hong Kong culture (for example, Jackie Chan's latest, The Myth, is still wrapped in the idea that Chinese tradition must reign supreme), but a result of two different political projects. Shaw Brothers was the most conservative of popular Hong Kong studios in the '60s and '70s, while “new wave” filmmakers like Tsui and Hui took the stylistic and generic conventions of those films to create a socially conscious cinema, representing the cultural dilemma of '80s and '90s Hong Kong awaiting the 1997 handover. As a result, their solution to external conflict isn't expulsion or murder of outsiders, but a negotiation and coming to terms with difference.
Most of the films are new restorations, and if these Celestial versions of the Shaw films are as ravishing as their previous ones (such as The Love Eterne, screened this summer at the UCLA Film and TV Archive), these 35mm prints will be a real treat. Unfortunately, the Bruce Lee films will be projected from HDcam (did Fortune Star not strike new prints for their recent DVD restorations?), but to make up for that, the archive will be bringing to town Shannon Lee Keasler, Bruce Lee's daughter. Deaf and Mute Heroine will be projected from a digital betacam tape, which according to the program notes, is the only way the film can be screened internationally. Chor Yuen's Cold Blade will be screened from a print missing about 9 minutes of the soundtrack; it's one of only two prints of the film surviving anywhere, and the only one with English subtitles.
As was the case for the first series, Heroic Grace II should be a starting point for further research, programming, and interest. Just as recent traveling Robert Bresson, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Yasujiro Ozu retrospectives sparked new interest and provided fresh perspectives on already famous auteurs, Heroic Grace II ought to get audiences thinking beyond the stereotypes of the genre and discover new angles for analysis: nationalism in martial arts films, studios and their styles, martial arts auteurs. A suggestion for a future retrospective: the films of Chor Yuen. That way we can move beyond the martial arts film and onto his other masterpieces and styles, like his influential Cantonese comedy The House of 72 Tenants.