kungfuology.com

The Hiatus Explained

2008-10-26T17:56:16Z

People surfing into the main site here will probably have noticed something. We got started and then abruptly stopped again. There is a specific reason for this.

It is well documented within the Shanghai community that in the run up to the Olympics there was a freeze on some of the VISA types, among many other things. This sent the project work community into a spin - and it has only just returned to normal as of last week. Cameron has been through this in the worst possible way and is only getting stable again just now.

The end is in sight though, and we look forward to more quality vids in the near future.

Andy Best

Vidcasting: People's Park Tong Bei Quan (pt two)

2008-07-20T07:25:31Z

Kungfuology met up with Taiji teacher Rose Oliver from the Double Dragon Alliance. As Rose explains in part one, Double Dragon help people to come to China and take part in all kinds of cultural exchanges with the focus on kung fu.

After taking one of their Shanghai based teachers, Master Wu Mao Gui, to the UK for seminars, Rose got to see his Tong Bei Quan in detail and started to train it herself. We catch up with them in Shanghai's People's Park on a sweltering summer afternoon for a vidcast set to the sound of cicadas.

Contact editor(at)kungfuology(dot)com for more details.

Vidcasting: People's Park Tong Bei Quan (pt one)

2008-07-18T07:26:25Z

Contact editor(at)kungfuology(dot)com for more details.

Box of Shaw Pt Two: Rivals of Kung Fu

2008-07-03T12:20:27Z

Kungfuology staffer Andy Best recently happened upon a box of 90 Shaw movies in his local store. Follow this feature as Andy 'live-blogs' one a week. Spoiler alert!

Round two, and there's the bell. A quick glance at the box shows the next movie's title, Miss 0. Looks like a potential false start. Let's pop in the disc and see. Feeling good today, finally got my VISA, another year all tied up. And ... yes ... Miss 0, Gold Dig Films 1978. Chow Yun Fat in modern day Hong Kong and a girl with memory loss. A quick sweep of the net doesn't reveal any apparent Shaw connection.

We move onto the next and it's another dissapointment but of a slightly more complex nature ...

]]> ... The 4th movie on disc one is King Gambler (du wang da pian ju), a Shaw produced movie set in modern times, made in 1976. It's set in present times and doesn't appear to be a Kung Fu Movie as such. It pre-dates Wong Jing's God of Gamblers, which is interesting. I'm deciding to go onto the next for now and review this at the end. The tag 'comedy/crime' has put me off.

So, our number two is movie number 5 on disc one, welcome to Kung Fu Rivals.

Credits: The camera runs around a painting of lion dances and traditional drums beat away. Here's the title ... great! Wong Fei Hung yiqu ding cai pao - it's a Wong Fei Hong movie! Shih Chung Tieng is playing Wong and the main bad guy is played by Shih Kien, just a couple of years after playing Han in Enter the Dragon. Lily Li also stars. It's written and directed by Wang Feng.

2.08: Had I not noticed the title in Chinese I would have had Wong Fei Hung by now. He's opened his famous school Po Chi Lam and everyone's coming to visit. There's firecrackers and bunch of congratulations and rituals. Here are two rival business men Boss Wu and Boss Chao, they both want a trophy - the ding cai pao of the title. The title means 'Wong Fei Hong righteously wins the trophy" ... well that's spoiled the ending.

5.57: Ass joke! Boss Chao has an incompetent son, possibly with mental illness it seems - now he's stood up in the bath tub in a room full of ladies. As his cheeks go on view we hear comedy "boing" noises. An angry Boss Chao dubs the son "Bian Tai" (perverted). The director does not share a progressive view of mental illness it seems.

15.01: Exposition overload. But here's the sleight! Rival school head Shen Laoshi scoffs at 5 dollars for his lion dance tribute. Next, Wong is out back and is unaware that Wu Laoban has offered 100 dollars to the next school tribute. Shen finds out, he's not happy.

20.58: Enter local street hustler Little Rat. Together with Shen Laoshi they decide to take revenge on Wong Fei Hong's school by dumping Rat's dead brother's corpse in the clinic and pretending a patient died. There's been a comedy morgue scene and now the body is, in fact, sitting in the clinic waiting room. Wong's school is a clinic too, did I mention?

25.52: It didn't work, the body is clearly days old. A crooked cop tried to put one over on Wong but he's taken a bribe and he's off again.

32.22: Teacher Shen's crew are in the teahouse and they're causing trouble for one of Wong's students. They want him to pay several hundred dollars for their dead canary. It's on, a fight breaks out - action!

33.59: The student, ah-chi, is kicking ass. Shen's henchmen are no match for him. And what's more, ah-chi is a blatant Bruce Lee act.

35:23: Someone's gone over the balcony, senior bad guys are getting involved and here's Wong Fei Hong to save the day.

37.47: Now it's one on one between Shen and Wong. Excellent. A whole school of new bad guys are coming to help Shen! They're running through the lanes in their bright blue uniforms.

39.46: We see Shen's point of view shot as Wong hits him with 4 combo'd kicks to the face.

41.01: Teacher Yuan has arrived, he's a master of Tang fist and wants a one on one with Wong, he obliges.

43.04: Now Wong is fighting Yuan's whole crew, Lam Sai Wing has come to his aid and it's a mass pole fight, it's really going off.

46.11: Yuan cries for mercy! It's all over. Nearly 15 minutes of continuous action.

49.16: The police demand Wong pay 500 dollars in reparations. Chao Laoban will pay him out - as long as he wins that trophy for him.

54.50: Now we have a long comedy interlude featuring the son. Wong is asked to make a man of him. It seems he needs curing of mental illness. What are the symptoms? He likes dresses, wants to be a woman and won't fight - he has a lisping voice too. Oh dear.

59.47: The police chief is corrupt, overwieght and mean. He's taken the money for himself. Now it's the son's wedding day. Boss Wu announces a 1000 dollar prize for anyone who brings him the trophy.

1.08.07: Shen's crew eat traditional hotpot ..oh I'm hungry, there's a place that does that around the corner from my house.

1.16.05: The festival has kicked off and the three teams are suited up - it's going to be a lion dance off. The trophy is a small red tube, a firework. It's been shot up into a big bowl on top of a very large stick. Now they try to climb up.

1.26.08: It's all going surreal. Lam Sai Wing is holding up the two man lion team on a large bamboo pole. He allows them to take down the trophy, they've got it but the bad guys are trying to surround them and pull a fast one. But how? They've clearly won. Wong takes the head of the lion and saves a little girl who nearly got trampled.

1.29.13: Wong can't take it anymore, "you have no shame!". He's going after Shen for a real fight ... and it's all over with a slo-mo roll and kick less than a minute later. In the background, Bruce Lee clone ah-chi kicks a bit more ass.

1.32.57: The bosses are embarrased and apologise for their lack of morals. And here's the son - the wife is pregnant with twins. That was quick. Everyone is happy and the camera zooms on the belly - The End!

Well, that 15 minutes of action in the middle was amazing. What was the director thinking? No other part of the movie had real action at all. The Lion Dance-off was confusing. The interludes were quite offensive to the point of not quite being able to laugh it off. Still worth a watch though. It's a gamble with the lesser directors. The fighting style was clear, interesting and convincing with large dollops of Bruce influence. See you next week.

Box of Shaw Pt One: Human Lanterns

2008-06-15T11:12:40Z

Kungfuology staffer Andy Best recently happened upon a boxed set of 90 Shaw movies in his local store. Follow this feature as Andy 'live-blogs' one a week. Spoiler alert!

And we're off. There's 90 movies in this set but glancing at the box I see some strange titles and repeats too. This blog will be as much about the China DVD experience as the movies themselves. As you might be able to catch in the photo, there's about 7 movies per disc. At one a week it's going to take me nearly two years (with holidays). Jia you!

So the first disc is in my machine, it's a typical Shanghai rainy Sunday and I'm ready to go. I must confess, my wife went into the set before to watch a favourite of hers One-armed Swordsman and it had a choice of original soundtracks and English titles too so I'm quite optimistic about the whole project ...

]]> ... and it's a false start! The first movie on the first disc is a 1988 Wong Jing low-brow comedy calld How To Pick Up Girls (qiu ai gan si dui). It started with the Shaw shield logo and then crudely cut into a typical Wong Jing intro, sassy girls in bright colours and guys with 80s hair. A quick check on the net reveals that this movie somehow got money from Shaw, who were still around and doing TVB. Not on my watch.

And they second movie is a starter, it's Human Lanterns (ren pi deng long). Great, I've not seen this one.

Credits: It's night over an old Chinese house, lightning crackles. There's some bloody wooden machinery and ..a hanging body! It's a horror. Who's in it? Lo Lieh, Chen Kuan Tai, Liu Yung, Tanny, Linda Chu and Lin Hsiu Chin. Directed by Sun Chung. Oh! There a skull masked creature flying all over the place. And, it's in Mandarin with no subtitles or other audio options, poor me.

3.26: Long Gongzi is a flash rich man with an estate, a beautiful wife, and he's handy with that sword too. He's off to a party at Mr Tan's house.

6.05: Tan Sanye and Long don't get on, they've an outstanding dispute over a woman and they jibe each other in front of the guests. Tan jumps down from a balcony landing on some fans then a ruckus almost breaks out.

9.18: Great tracking shot as Long leaves the house and walks the streets, the sets look amazing, just like ancient Chinese towns.

11.42: Long meets Loh Lieh, playing a lantern maker called Zhao Chunfang. We have a flashback to 7 years ago when Long humiliated him in combat and scarred his face. A little later, Chunfang gives us our first Shaw zoom in and sinister laugh/swelling orchestra. Great!

19.28: The demon from the credits is back. He's in the brothel and he's kidnapped the woman that the two guys were fighting about. Perhaps this is where that party was earlier, but then why bring the wife? My Mandarin sucks.

22.51: Now she's tied to a post in the lantern shop basement and ... oh ... he's skinning her! She's still alive too. I think we're pretty certain that it's the wronged lantern seller in a mask.

28.56: Mr Tan's sister is hunting in the woods and here comes the demon. He leaps and bounds in slo-mo and now he's using Kung Fu to put her in a big black bag.

33.07: Struggling in the basement of the lantern shop, the girl rips off the mask to show Zhao Chunfang's face, no surprises there. Now he's got her tied up and he's taunting her by dangling some flaps of skin in her face.

36.44: Tan and Long have both arrived at the police station at the same time to complain about the missing girls. And we have our first showdown. As per the genre, it's a skill face off and not a full fight yet. It's a wine jug challenge and super high jump event! Police chief Fan breaks it up.

46.11: A new challenger enters! We have recently met an assassin for hire, Zhao Chunfang has sent him after Long Gongzi. We get the first real fight of the film in Long's (breath-takingly beautiful) garden. It's the assassin with double hooked tonfas and Long with his straight sword.

46.45: And we get the first amazing Shaw quote of the movie! Friend, your kung fu is really not so bad, it's both fast and fierce, pity you lack accuracy! (pengyou, nide gongfu hen bucuo, goukuai gouhen kexi bugou zhun).

48.00: It's a ruse! While they fight, the demon mask has nabbed Long's wife.

55.43: The assassin has tried to take out Mr Tan and met his end via some hidden blades from Tan's fan.

57.20: Chunfang ambushed Tan's men when they were out burying the assassin's body. It's the morning and their heads are hanging up outside the town teahouse. People in the street are panicing and shouting rentou over and over (severed heads).

1.05.29: Long has been tricked into thinking the assassin came from Tan and now he's round Tan's place for a duel. It's amazing. Long has his sword and Tan has a kind of spear/axe combo. Liu Yung and Chen Kuan Tai go to town ... but really, how can Long Gongzi not have worked out who's the real bad guy yet.

1.07.28: They are still going at it, they get locked up and exchange body blows. Both men are spitting blood. And wait! The demon bursts in and injures Tan, then runs away.

1.12.59: There's Long's wife. She's tied in the basement and still alive ... wait a moment ...oh, he's skinning her. That's the end of her. Meanwhile Long has a flashblack/realization moment, he finally figures out that Zhao is out to get him. To be fair, the character is supposed to be rich, proud and arrogant. It's in character that he'd be blind to the obvious.

1.14.09: There are the lanterns! They are shaped like little female statuettes and painted in bright colours - but made from the skin, of course.

1.16.12: Long is in the workshop. He sees the laterns and blurts out they're beautiful (hao mei). But in the next room, it's his dead, skinned wife hanging from a pole.

1.20.01: It's on! Zhao, in full demon costume, fights Long. A still sickly Tan enters to help ... but he's killed by Zhao! Officer Pan arrives with his men, it's a group brawl but Zhao heads for the basement. Long is wounded.

1.27.30: The house collapsed leaving Zhao and Long trapped in an underground chamber alone. The lanterns crash down and both men are set on fire. Officer Pan is trying to reach them.

1.28.28: It's all over. It's the next week. Long is clearing out his house, Officer Pan is there. Long is scarred from the fire and still sick. He sees the errors of his lifestyle, he's cancelling all debt that others owe him. He's selling the estate and going out to wander the earth.

This was really good. Great cast, nice sets and shots. I was worried about the relative lack of fights for a Shaw movie and the horror stuff but it was fine. I would have preferred Chen Kuan Tai in the Long Gongzi role for more kung fu, but Liu Yung has the looks for that type of character. See you next week.

Vidcasting: Zhongshan Park Kung Fu (pt two)

2008-06-12T13:35:28Z

Kungfuology went down to Zhong Shan Park in Shanghai to see if you really can wander into a park in China and find a Kung Fu teacher. It seems you can. In this two part vidcast, we meet 71 year old teacher Pu Rujie and his student Shaun Hogan. Despite Pu Laoshi's advanced years and Shaun's hip replacement they still get down to the park and train every single day - putting kungfuology's training ethic to shame.

Pu Laoshi is a famed coach and judge for Shanghai's Chang Ning district but now teaches strictly traditional in his retirement years: Shaolin Cha Quan and the traditional Chinese weapons.

Contact editor(at)kungfuology(dot)com for more details.

Vidcasting: Zhongshan Park Kung Fu (pt one)

2008-06-12T13:25:05Z

Pu Laoshi is a famed coach and judge for Shanghai's Chang Ning district but now teaches strictly traditional in his retirement years: Shaolin Cha Quan and the traditional Chinese weapons.

Contact editor(at)kungfuology(dot)com for more details.

Welcome to the site

2008-06-03T05:52:39Z

Welcome to kungfuology.com

We are a web 2.0 blog style site about Kung Fu. Our team are physically based out of Shanghai, China. As well as our features we would like to encourage all readers to get involved. Register an account as a commenter, submit material and eventually get upgraded to a writer. For more infomation check out our pages:

This site is still under construction, although the future changes will only be cosmetic. Are you coming out to Shanghai or another part of Asia soon? Let us know, we can make a feature or vidcast together. Watch this space.