Over the past few years, some of Hong Kong's best action directors
have given Hollywood fight scenes a face-lift.
Yuen Woo Ping, Corey Yuen and Yuen Cheung Yan are legends in the
Hong Kong movie industry, and although their names are hardly known
among the American movie-viewing public, they have used their
high-flying fight marvelry to change the look of movies such as
"The Matrix" and "Charlie's Angels".
The three are hot commodities in Hollywood, which is a bonus for
them because audiences back home in Hong Kong have somewhat lost
their appetites for kung-fu films.
"America is always interested in something new," Corey Yuen told
Reuters, "and Chinese 'wu xia' and 'wu da' films (old-style sword
films with flying and action martial arts films with dangerous
stunts) are new to them, and I'm curious to see how long this kind
of trend will last."
Hollywood's recent fascination with Hong Kong's frenetic
action-style stems from the exhilarating fights choreographed by
Woo Ping in "The Matrix" (1999). He solidified his reputation in
Hollywood as a top action director with his work in "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000).
In
his fight screens, characters defy gravity in flurries of
high-flying kicks and steel-smashing swordplay as they rebound off
objects in aerial displays of human pinball action.
It
is definitely not like the punch, bottle broken over the head and
chair crashed over the back bar-room brawl scene that have been
staples in thousands of Hollywood pictures.
Born in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in 1945 and the
eldest of 12 children, Woo Ping learned Beijing opera and kung-fu
from his father Yuen Siu Tin and was a bit player as a martial
artist in some of the classic Wong Fei-Hong films of the 1960s.
NEW DIRECTION
In
1978, Woo Ping changed the direction of kung-fu films in Hong Kong
when he directed "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken
Master", films which not only featured his father as the old,
gray-haired teacher, but were also the movies which helped make
Jackie Chan famous.
However, it was some of his later efforts like "Iron Monkey"
(1993), "Tai Chi Master" (1993) and "Wing Chun" (1994) that
captured the imagination of the Wachowski Brothers who directed
"The Matrix" and wanted Woo Ping to choreograph the fight sequences
that gave the movie a distinctive look.
"Ironically, when 'Iron Monkey' came out in Hong Kong, that film
style was going down," the film's star Donnie Yen told Reuters.
"But Woo Ping's fight standards are so high."
One of Woo Ping's stalwart assistants over the years has been his
younger brother Yuen Cheung Yen, the action director responsible
for giving wings to the actresses in "Charlie's Angels" (2000).
Working on over 1,100 films, some of Cheung Yen's most acclaimed
choreography can be seen in "Once Upon a Time in China" (1991) and
"Iron Monkey". One scene in "Iron Monkey" was recreated in
Charlie's Angels + the one where star Drew Barrymore fights four
henchmen at the end of the film.
American director Quentin Tarantino has sung the praises of Hong
Kong action films for years. He was largely responsible for
bringing "Iron Monkey" to the United States, where Miramax picked
up the film and released it earlier this month on about 1,000
screens.
"It seems by the time I found out about the Hong Kong films from
the '80s, they were already six or so years old. And now Hollywood
is interested in them. It really just shows how far behind we are
and not how old the movies are," Tarantino said.
EARLY HOLLYWOOD ARRIVAL
Before the arrivals of Hong Kong filmmakers such as Yuen Woo Ping
and director John Woo and actor Jackie Chan doing action direction
in Hollywood, there was Corey Yuen, who started it all off in 1985
when he directed and did action direction for the movie "No
Retreat, No Surrender" that starred Jean Claude Van Damme.
Corey Yuen, no relation to the Woo Ping Yuen, left home at nine
when his parents enrolled him into Beijing Opera School for 10
years and trained with Jackie Chan.
He
began working as a stuntman for Bruce Lee, then a stunt double for
Woo Ping, and has directed over 30 films. His first major success
was winning a top honor in Hong Kong, the Golden Horse Award, for
his action direction in a movie starring Jet Li called "Fong Sai
Yuk" (1993).
Corey returned to the United States to do the martial arts
choreography for "Lethal Weapon IV" (1998) and since then he has
been the action director for "X-Men" (2000), for Luc Besson's "Kiss
of the Dragon" (2001). He also served as the second unit director
for Glen Morgan and James Wang's soon-to-be-released sci-fi action
film "The One".
The rush to embrace Hong Kong action could cause the style to lose
some of its luster in Hollywood, Corey Yuen said.
"The Hong Kong action fad will quickly fade if there is bad work
out there," he said. "So for us Hong Kong directors the challenge
is how to make American actors who don't know how to fight, look
good and make the fights blend in with the feeling of a Western
film and this may take time to find the right blend."
(China Daily October
25, 2001)