The Paper's reporter Fan Jialai
Using the water pipe as a sword, a fancy sword play; using a mop as a stick, performing a sonorous stick method; even the festive lanterns can improvise a "nine-section whip" performance. Garden, living room, hallway... Almost every place can be a place to show kung fu fists and feet.
On TikTok, Liang Changxing, a "kung fu daddy" who can start a martial arts performance anytime and anywhere, has successfully circled 1.5 million fans and is a veritable "martial arts star". Today, Chinese martial arts are sparking a new wave overseas, and these "Kungfu Stars" that are active in TikTok range from experts who have been practicing for many years to novice martial arts newcomers. Through their records and sharing, the charm and excitement of Chinese kung fu have been infinitely magnified, and many foreign friends have also been attracted to learn.
Liang Chuanxing's "kick cap" challenge
"Kung Fu Daddy" was originally Jet Li and Wu Jing
In July 2019, on the account of the creator @zaraliang, a unique "kick cap" challenge attracted people's attention: unlike other challengers who kicked open a bottle cap, the protagonist of this video kicked open the caps of three bottles in one breath. With a near-90-degree high leg sweep, three caps flew away from the bottle in an instant, and today, the video has been played more than 8 million times on TikTok.
The protagonist is Liang Changxing, @zaraliang is his daughter's TikTok account. The "Kicking the Bottle Cap" video attracted attention soon after it was released, and many netizens left a message in the comment area to like: "You won this challenge!" "I want a dad like that too." "Are you kidding me? It's shocking. "He took the challenge to a whole new level of difficulty."
Who is Liang Changxing? If you search for his tracks on the Internet, you'll find this amazing kung fu master, a former professional martial arts athlete with an almost legendary resume: he was a proud disciple of the famous martial arts instructor Wu Bin, who won the traditional boxing championship in the national martial arts competition for 7 consecutive times and served as the captain of the Beijing Wushu team. The brothers also include jet li, wu jing and other famous kung fu movie stars.
In 1973, he was sent by his father to the famous Shichahai Sports School to practice martial arts, and was selected by Wu Bin to be selected for the Beijing Wushu Team. When he joined the Beijing team, Jet Li had been in the team for two years. In 1979, they played as teammates in the Fourth National Games, and together they won the national training championship.
Later, Jet Li became popular on both sides of the taiwan strait and three places because of the movie "Shaolin Temple", the national martial arts fever, martial arts athletes became national idols, and many directors came to the martial arts team to pick actors. There was also a Hong Kong director who took a fancy to Leung Chuan-hing and invited him to act in the "New Fang Shiyu Sequel", but was stopped by Coach Wu: "If this continues, the team members will go to be actors, who will win the championship?" After that, Liang Chuanxing also lived up to expectations and won the national shape and intention boxing championship for seven consecutive years.
Liang Changxing, who has a martial arts ideal in mind, has always insisted on not choosing to be from the shadow, and chose to go abroad to live in Melbourne, Australia, and work hard in the local area. In the following decades, he never gave up on learning martial arts, and was committed to passing on the charm of traditional Chinese martial arts to more people.
In Liang Changxing's martial arts videos, kung fu elements are integrated into various life scenes. Chairs, ladders, skirts, chopsticks, keyboards and even Lego bricks can become martial arts action props, on TikTok, many face-blind foreign netizens have mistaken him for Jackie Chan, and even issued a "three-in-a-row" question: "Are you Jackie Chan?" Are you Jackie Chan's long-lost brother? Are you a combination of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee? In this regard, he clarified: "I want to emphasize again, I am not Jackie Chan. Just because I am a Chinese, I can't say that I am Jackie Chan because I Chinese know kung fu. ”
Liang Chuanxing was mistaken by foreign netizens as "Jackie Chan"
Spread traditional culture with "kung fu blockbusters"
"The most important concept of practicing martial arts is to combine movement and static." Liang Changxing mentioned. "If you reach a high level, it is actually a static, static is static, and every action is actually static." So people who really have levels and high levels in martial arts, they are pursuing static movement, although each style is moving, but you can see the rhythm and stability in it. For example, when the train moves fast, but two trains go on at the same time, you can't see how fast it is. ”
On TikTok, Liang Puts these theories more into fun martial arts short videos: for example, playing two characters at home, or performing doppelgangers with special effects, these new and interesting content quickly gained him more than 1.5 million followers. In the comments, a foreign fan sincerely praised: "Every dad is amazing in his area of expertise, but your dad is obviously much better." ”
China's martial arts action movies are not affected by language and culture, and they have long been the business card of traditional Chinese culture. Kung Fu movies have made many foreigners deeply feel the charm of the Oriental country, and Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li have also become world-class superstars because of their successful interpretation of kung fu movies. Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a commercial and artistic extreme for kung fu films.
In recent years, with the advancement of film special effects technology, the older generation of kung fu movie stars have aged, inheriting and promoting Chinese martial arts culture, on the one hand, it is necessary to disenchant it, and to separate Chinese kung fu from the flying sky and knives and guns in film and television culture, and inject it with the breath of life. On the other hand, it is necessary to seize the opportunity for the rise of new forms of communication and content. Short videos have become an important communication channel for traditional culture.
Nowadays, on TikTok, Chinese elements such as Hanfu, Chinese street photography, and National Style songs are sought after by more and more people. For example, the total number of short videos marked as "Hanfu" topics (#hanfu) has exceeded 300 million times, and Hanfu videos are rich and colorful: some bloggers will seriously compare the clothing styles of various dynasties in ancient China, some appear in the costumes of film and television drama characters, and some will mix Hanfu street videos with skateboarding and gymnastics, winning praise from netizens.
Even vogue magazine websites have published articles titled "Deciphering the Rise of Hanfu in China," saying the wave has crossed borders. The article mentioned that from 2017 to 2019, the number of overseas Hanfu groups increased by 46%, and more and more Hanfu culture enthusiasts joined social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.
Use video effects to create martial arts "twins"
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang