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Fun with wirefu and more
Oct. 14th, 2007 11:11 amAmong my various and sundry assorted hobbies, I'm a huge fan of a subgenre of Hong Kong marital arts films made in the 1990s. Granted that I'm a fan of pretty much any film that includes a woman with a sword (who knows how to use it), I adore "Wing Chun" (Michelle Yeoh), "New Dragon Gate Inn" (Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia and Maggie Cheung), "The Heroic Trio" (Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui and Maggie Cheung), "Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk" (the awesome Josephine Siao) and "Swordsman II (more Brigitte Lin, Rosamund Kwan and Michelle Reis). "Wing Chun" has one of the best fight scenes ever (involving a tray of tofu - must be seen to be believed) while Siao's performance in "Fong Sai-Yuk" is a must see (but go for the original not the Disney-dubbed version).
I also like the campier stuff like "Eagle Shooting Heroes" (pretty much everybody big in the genre at the time) and the movie it spoofs, Wong Kar-Wai's "Ashes of Time." For a while there, Tsui Hark (director of most but not all the films noted here) was the HK directing equivalent of Joss Whedon - lots of strong women characters, interesting plots and martial arts sequences to watch with glee. I must've seen close to 100 of them over the past 8 or 9 years, and while I enjoy other HK films ("Rouge," "Peking Opera Blues," "Green Snake," "Chinese Ghost Story," "Mr. Vampire"), the sword flicks remain my favorites. They're fun to watch, and at least to a Western viewer, full of the unexpected, ranging from passing to drag to the ability to call up thousands of snakes at a moment's notice by playing the flute. They influenced Robert Tapert and the other producers of "Xena" as well as Whedon during the "Buffy" years. Before I discovered the HK films, I don't think I'd ever seen women fight effectively on screen as main characters. It's not that there isn't plenty of sexism there but it seems to me that the women aren't automatically assumed to be incompetent or appendages, which makes a nice change from American action films.
Oddly enough, the wildly successful "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which included many of the things near and dear to my cinematic viewing, didn't do it for me. It took itself way too seriously for one thing and for another, the main characters weren't the most interesting ones. I'm still waiting for a movie about Jade Fox and Dark Cloud; that I'd go see in a heartbeat. The wire work and fight choreography was also "been there, done that" but then I've seen a lot of these.
Last night's viewing included "White Dragon" (2004), an amiable little film with some amusing moments. The titular female character does indeed wield a sword, win a fight or two and go on to be knighted by the Emperor. But the wirefu lacked zing and a lot of the fight scenes went to animation of swords crossing, which was annoying. At its heart, it's basically a love story in which our plucky heroine learns to be less petty and materialistic and to see the sterling qualities in her love interest, who is not only blind but somehow functions as an assassin. On the one hand, it doesn't hold a candle to the glory days; on the other, I'm still waiting for an American action film in which Lucy Liu or Scarlett Johanson or Michelle Rodriguez battles her way to knighthood and falls for a geeky but well-intentioned blind hero, but doesn't give up her sword.
I also like the campier stuff like "Eagle Shooting Heroes" (pretty much everybody big in the genre at the time) and the movie it spoofs, Wong Kar-Wai's "Ashes of Time." For a while there, Tsui Hark (director of most but not all the films noted here) was the HK directing equivalent of Joss Whedon - lots of strong women characters, interesting plots and martial arts sequences to watch with glee. I must've seen close to 100 of them over the past 8 or 9 years, and while I enjoy other HK films ("Rouge," "Peking Opera Blues," "Green Snake," "Chinese Ghost Story," "Mr. Vampire"), the sword flicks remain my favorites. They're fun to watch, and at least to a Western viewer, full of the unexpected, ranging from passing to drag to the ability to call up thousands of snakes at a moment's notice by playing the flute. They influenced Robert Tapert and the other producers of "Xena" as well as Whedon during the "Buffy" years. Before I discovered the HK films, I don't think I'd ever seen women fight effectively on screen as main characters. It's not that there isn't plenty of sexism there but it seems to me that the women aren't automatically assumed to be incompetent or appendages, which makes a nice change from American action films.
Oddly enough, the wildly successful "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which included many of the things near and dear to my cinematic viewing, didn't do it for me. It took itself way too seriously for one thing and for another, the main characters weren't the most interesting ones. I'm still waiting for a movie about Jade Fox and Dark Cloud; that I'd go see in a heartbeat. The wire work and fight choreography was also "been there, done that" but then I've seen a lot of these.
Last night's viewing included "White Dragon" (2004), an amiable little film with some amusing moments. The titular female character does indeed wield a sword, win a fight or two and go on to be knighted by the Emperor. But the wirefu lacked zing and a lot of the fight scenes went to animation of swords crossing, which was annoying. At its heart, it's basically a love story in which our plucky heroine learns to be less petty and materialistic and to see the sterling qualities in her love interest, who is not only blind but somehow functions as an assassin. On the one hand, it doesn't hold a candle to the glory days; on the other, I'm still waiting for an American action film in which Lucy Liu or Scarlett Johanson or Michelle Rodriguez battles her way to knighthood and falls for a geeky but well-intentioned blind hero, but doesn't give up her sword.