At the beginning of 2023, Teacher Yu Hai, who held two landmark kung fu stars, passed away.
If you count Ji Chunhua in 2019.
Teacher Yu Chenghui in 2015.
In the phenomenal "Shaolin Temple" that year, the main actors walked almost halfway.
The remaining Jet Li was also already sick and no longer willing to be his kung fu emperor.
If you think about it,
How long has it been since we've seen a Chinese kung fu movie?
If you don't count the big net like "No One in Sight".
A pure-blooded big-screen kung fu action film, the most recent may be traced back to Donnie Yen's "Ip Man 4" in 2019.
But just like Ip Man, who is suffering from cancer in the film, he couldn't help but perform "forbidden surgery": lock throat and kick crotch.
Chinese kung fu films, is it also incurable?
Or, simply, it's dead?
To get this to the point.
Let's start with a movie.
What is the most expensive in the 21st century?
At the beginning of the new century, Zhang Yimou ambitiously filmed a martial arts masterpiece "Heroes".
Many years later, the old man couldn't stop sighing.
To film Donnie Yen's fight with Jet Li in the chess hall, he used the shooting method of "standing up to the sky" and shot it to the end.
The two kung fu stars set up seven or eight moves in one breath, and the clouds flowed.
Zhang Yimou said that only actors who really understand kung fu dare to shoot like this.
Those who can't do kung fu can only rely on quick cuts.
Feng Xiaogang wrote a line to Ge You in "No Thief in the World":
What is the most expensive in the 21st century?
Talent.
Where did the talent of Chinese kung fu films go?
I don't know if you found out.
From the 90s to today, there are still so many people who can carry things.
The child who knew kung fu back then became middle-aged.
The young people who knew kung fu in those years have become middle-aged and elderly.
The middle-aged people who knew kung fu back then were already old and couldn't read:
Some netizens exposed Sammo Hung's appearance of eating strawberries on his 71st birthday, full of white hair.
As one of the representatives of the golden age of Hong Kong kung fu films.
Sammo Hung has long relied on wheelchairs to help travel.
And Liu Jiahui, who is a few years younger than Sammo Hung, has long since passed away.
Later, there was finally a Yuan Xiaochao, who was smashed by the Huayi brothers and prepared to become the second Jet Li.
Now he has also become an uncle.
Talent is disconnected, green and yellow do not connect.
The cliff-like successor of Chinese kung fu film actors is more serious than all of us think.
This is also why the fight scenes in film and television works today, not to mention the rivers and lakes, seem to be unable to even beat the street.
A fancy sword throwing action must also rely on computer special effects.
Wu Jing complained about them, holding a sword like a dancing fire stick.
And once upon a time, our action scenes were still fist to flesh, hard bridge and hard horse.
So, if one day even Xie Miao and Shi Xiaolong can't be moved, can Chinese kung fu movies really live?
Our kung fu films,
Why is there suddenly no talent?
There is no tiger behind him, and there is no anger in his heart
The golden age of Chinese kung fu films originated in the 60s of the last century.
Connected with a riot.
At that time, the British colonial government in Hong Kong oppressed people's livelihood.
Hong Kong citizens couldn't bear it anymore, and then took to the streets to protest, which finally turned into a struggle with heroic blood and tears.
They desperately need to dispel their identity anxiety.
This anxiety was keenly grasped by a filmmaker named Run Run Shaw.
He instructed his Shaw Film Studio to quickly transform from opera films to make martial arts kung fu films, carry forward the spirit of courage and martial arts, and resist the oppression of power.
Coincidentally, it just so happens that opera actors can do kung fu.
Soon, some exciting movies with Chinese cultural characteristics and fierce confrontation appeared in front of the audience.
The Chinese martial arts spirit of hoeing the strong to help the weak, and my life is up to me, has been completely activated in Hong Kong.
When Shaw was at its crazest, almost all of his output was kung fu movies.
Even due to the strong demand, a generation of "kung fu women" such as Zheng Peipei was born.
If the anger and irritability in the heart gave birth to kung fu films.
Similarly, the harsh living environment has also spawned those unique kung fu superstars.
Because of poverty, Jackie Chan was signed by his parents to Liyuan Company when he was a few years old.
Get up at 4 a.m. every day to run.
12 hours of high-intensity practice made him miserable.
Jackie chan
Jet Li lost his father at the age of 2 and his family was poor.
Later, he was sent to the Shichahai Martial Arts School in Beijing early and practiced all over his body.
Including Bruce Lee, who also suffered discrimination as a minority in the United States.
That's right, only people who are hit and pressed by life can shoot those action scenes that are very tolerable.
There is a picture of Jackie Chan's injury on the Internet.
From top to bottom, nowhere is good.
These who dare to go up the knife mountain and the sea of fire are all people who are chased by fierce tigers behind them.
Let me ask, as long as artists can sing and dance rap, they can make a lot of money, who will desperately become a kung fu actor?
The most ruthless kung fu actors and movies you see in the past 10 years are often born in those less developed areas.
For example, Tony Ja in Thailand.
Even Africa, from the savannah, ignited the fire of kung fu.
But it's a "pity", now there is no tiger behind him, and there is no anger in his heart.
Not only the disconnection of kung fu stars, but also the difficulty of finding the mental fulcrum of kung fu movies ourselves.
This is very similar to Donnie Yen in "Ip Man 1" beating the Japanese invaders who bullied Chinese.
"Ip Man 2" He hit the arrogance of the British colonial government.
"Ip Man 3" he beats foreign villains.
"Ip Man 4" He ran to the United States to fight for his children's reading.
The weakening of the enemy visibly with the naked eye.
From a dozen to ten, to overwhelmed.
Chinese kung fu films, dead?
Although kung fu films are born of worry.
But it is the most successful case of modern Chinese cultural export.
At the end of the 80s of last century, Chow Yun-fat, who took the acting route to enter Hollywood, did not really come out for nearly 10 years.
The result is that Jackie Chan and Jet Li, two kung fu superstars, are mixed.
Jackie Chan even left his name on the Avenue of Stars and won the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, becoming a business card of Chinese culture in the eyes of foreigners.
Let's look at one of our most far-reaching Chinese-language films in the Western world.
1973's "The World's First Punch", in which the hardcore kung fu fight made foreigners look stupid, became a super blockbuster ranked among the top ten at the global box office that year.
Among them, the audience with the deepest "poisoning" is the famous Quentin Tarantino.
When I was young, I saw it and missed it.
The alarm-style sound effect he later used in the movie "Kill Bill" is the same as when the male protagonist of "The World's First Punch" amplified his moves.
"The World's First Punch"
"Kill Bill"
It's not just kung fu movies that are popular with Westerners.
After the behind-the-scenes personnel of Hong Kong kung fu films moved to Hollywood, they raised their action movies to more than one notch.
In the past American action movie fights, the old cow punched, emphasizing the strength and not the beauty.
For example, the scene of Schwarzenegger in "True Lies":
But the same toilet battle, "Mission Impossible 6" after inviting the Chinese martial finger, the action is much smoother.
One of the most famous cases is The Matrix.
The joining of Yuan Heping made Hollywood discover for the first time that action scenes can be filmed like this!
Kung fu films were once one of the most important spiritual sustenance for audiences in the Chinese-speaking world.
It is also the most successful "export" product of Chinese films to date.
In the end, it drifted away from the Chinese audience.
Is it dead?
Not necessarily.
Like the cyclical cycle of American hero movies, kung fu movies will one day make a comeback.
But the only thing that can be confirmed is.
As time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer people who dare to fight hard.
Chinese kung fu actors, it is difficult to return to the height of the past.
Text/Vansiri
(Image from Internet infringement deleted)