Kung Fu martial arts movies are the most famous genre labels for Chinese films.
In a sense, the history of the development of Chinese action films is almost accompanied by the rise and fall of Chinese films.
As the oldest genre film in the history of Chinese cinema, Hong Kong and Taiwan action films have had a huge impact on the world. In particular, the release of the documentary "Dragon and Tiger Martial Artist" some time ago has made many viewers nostalgic for the hong Kong action movies of the past.
From the Xian Xia film "Burning the Red Lotus Temple" in the Republic of China, to the Shaw martial arts films in the 60s and 70s, to the later Hong Kong action films represented by Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Hong Jinbao and Jet Li, and to filmmakers such as Zhen Zidan and Wu Jing, who are still active in the field of action films, Hong Kong and Taiwan kung fu films have developed different genres in different periods, and each generation has a leader.
In the era of Hong Kong action movies, the scenery is unlimited, and there are many kung fu stars, including many actors with real kung fu, such as Liu Jialiang, Yuan Heping, Cheng Xiaodong, Dong Wei and other famous martial arts instructors, who cooperate with martial arts stars on the screen to spread kung fu culture all over the world.
Early kung fu films are usually men's plays, after all, action movies are often keen to show unparalleled strength, speed and rhythm, emphasizing the aesthetics of violence, and martial arts is a chore, pay attention to one minute on stage, ten years offstage, do action actors often have to fight for life, hurt bones and bones and break the face are common things, so female stars are rare in the Hong Kong film circle.
And many of the now known Hong Kong and Taiwan female hit stars themselves are not from the study of kung fu, it is completely after stepping into the film industry to learn art, because of the needs of the drama road to become a screen hit girl, and then with intelligence, studiousness, hard work, barely able to use their skills to channel the red big screen. The hardships paid are not enough for outsiders.
In this issue, the fan film jun will take stock of the 16 female stars who have been on the screen of Hong Kong and Taiwan, each of whom has left a rather brilliant mark in the history of Hong Kong and Taiwan action movies, which is worth remembering by today's audiences.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > money like warblers</h1>
Entry: 1925
Keywords: China's first generation of heroines, Hong Jinbao's grandmother.
There have always been different theories about who is the first generation of female stars in the Chinese film industry.
Some scholars believe that it is qian Xiangying, a female movie star in the Republic of China period, who has a very well-known grandson named Hong Jinbao.
Qian Xiangying was born in 1909, because he was lively and active from an early age, he dressed as a boy at the age of 8 and participated in the Jingwu Sports Club, learning martial arts from his teacher and practicing kung fu. At the age of 16, because Qian's father and Zhang Puyi, the owner of Shanghai Langhua Film Company, were old friends, he was invited to star in the movie "South China Dream" and entered the film circle from then on.
After the release of "South China Dream", the box office income was good, and Langhua Company filmed movies such as "Red Girl" and "Strange Man in the Love Field" one after another, so Qian Xiangying became a well-known "female hit star". In 1930, Qian Xiangying filmed the movie "Jiangnan Woman". It is Qian Xiangying's masterpiece, she makes a gun in the film, so she is called "China's first female hero".
Qian's husband, Hong Ji, was a famous film director who later followed her husband south to Hong Kong and had children, gradually fading out of the show business circle. After the death of her husband Hongji, Qian Xiangying returned to the film world, and due to his old age, Qian Xiangying was willing to be a green leaf and played a supporting role. And in the film often played the role of the mother in the film, in many classic movies have had cameos.
For example, the landlord of the middle-aged Maggie Cheung in "Fancy Years", the adoptive mother who took care of Zhang Guorong in "The Legend of Ah Fei", the grandmother who violently beat star grandpa in the movie "Gamble Saint" and so on.
In 1958, Qian Xiangying sent his playful grandson Hong Jinbao to study art at the drama school founded by Yu Zhanyuan, thus sending an action superstar to the Hong Kong film industry. In 2007, Qian Xiangying died, and director Wong Kar-wai posted a commemorative article saying: Mother Hong's life has witnessed a glorious page in the history of modern Chinese cinema.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="187" > Zheng Peipei</h1>
Entry: 1963
Keywords: Shaw Martial Arts Queen
Cheng Pei Pei is the most senior martial arts actress in the Hong Kong film industry, and was once named "Martial Arts Film Queen" by the Hong Kong media at that time.
She did not come from a martial arts background, but from elementary school ballet, moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the 1960s, moved to the Shaw Experimental Theatre Company, and after graduation, Cheng Peipei signed an eight-year contract with Shaw Film and became a film actor.
At the beginning of the industry, Zheng Peipei actually started by making literary films, and in 1964, starring in the film "Lover's Stone", he was awarded the "Most Promising Film Star Award" by the International Independent Producers Association of the United States, and because she was the first Asian actress to receive this award, she became a film superstar in one fell swoop.
Zheng Peipei was appreciated by the great director Hu Jinquan during his time at Shaw and starred in the martial arts film "The Drunken Man" in 1966.
In the mid-1960s, Shaw proposed the "new century of color martial arts". In the official publication of Shaw at that time, Nanguo Film, an article entitled "New Offensive Head of Colored Martial Arts" was published, which mentioned that Shaw was not satisfied with the form and quality of Hong Kong Cantonese martial arts films at that time, and wanted to innovate Cantonese martial arts films.
After that, Shaw began to learn from the "killing scene" in american western cowboy films and Japanese sword films, and tried to innovate the martial arts style of the old martial arts films that were too dramatic and staged, but to "real knives and real guns, flesh and blood", so that the audience could experience the realism of martial arts actions.
Hu Jinquan took the burden of exploring new martial arts films to shoot "The Drunken Man", which was a great success after its release, becoming the pioneering work of the "New Wuxia" films in Hong Kong and Taiwan. This film also changed the way Zheng Peipei played, in the film, Zheng Peipei played the heroine Golden Swallow heroic, especially the scene of the inn fighting the thieves was very exciting, so that Zheng Peipei successfully played the name of the screen heroine.
Since then, Zheng Peipei has starred in more than ten martial arts films such as "Golden Swallow" and "Yu Luosha". However, when Zheng Peipei was famous, she chose to quit the film industry and went to the United States to get married, until she divorced her husband and then returned to Hong Kong to make a comeback.
For the current audience, the most impressive thing is that Zheng Peipei played some supporting roles in martial arts films in this period, And Madame Hua in Zhou Xingchi's version of "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang", not only to show her fists and feet, but also to cooperate with Xingye to be funny, and the image is quite subversive.
In 2001, Zheng Peipei starred in the martial arts film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" directed by Ang Lee, in which she played the role of the villain "Blue-Eyed Fox", although the role was not much, but she won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Supporting Actress, which made Zheng Peipei famous again.
Since then, Zheng Peipei has been active in the entertainment industry, shaping many classic roles in martial arts dramas, Ling'er Grandma in "The Legend of the Paladin Sword", She Taijun in "Yangmen Female General", and Zheng Peipei in Last Year's Disney movie "Mulan".
Now that Zheng Peipei is 75 years old, she no longer needs to "fight, kill and kill", but the image of the heroine she has created on the screen has been talked about by many viewers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="188" > Xu Feng</h1>
Entry date: 1966
Keywords: a generation of film heroes
Xu Feng, like Zheng Peipei, has the name of a heroine in the film industry.
In 1966, at the age of 16, Xu Feng was admitted to a Film Company in Taiwan, and his debut work was to cooperate with Hu Jinquan, the godfather of martial arts films, and starred in the immortal masterpiece "Dragon Gate Inn" in the history of Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts films, and the real foundation for Xu Feng's position in the film industry was Hu Jinquan's martial arts blockbuster "Chivalrous Girl".
The film is adapted from Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi", Xu Feng plays the daughter of Yang Lian, the leader of the Donglin Party at the end of the Ming Dynasty, because her father was killed by Wei Zhongxian, she was burdened with a deep vengeance in the sea of blood, she learned a martial art on the way to escape, with a resolute look and a lonely posture, with Hu Jinquan's exquisite action editing, so that Xu Feng, who could not do martial arts, staged the most impressive chivalrous image at that time on the screen.
"Heroine" won the "Comprehensive Technology Award" at the Cannes Film Festival that year, in which the heroine Xu Feng swooped down from the bamboo shoots in the film, which can be called the outstanding stunt design and shot editing in martial arts movies, and even influenced the later "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Ten Faces Ambush".
Xu Feng later cooperated with Hu Jinquan in works such as "The Storm of Yingchun Pavilion" and "Legend in the Mountains", and what impressed people was the role of Ding Yanyan in the ancient dragon martial arts film "Sword Flower Smoke and Rain Jiangnan" that she cooperated with Jackie Chan.
In 1984, after Xu Feng remarried, he chose to abandon the film and join the business, founded the Tomson Film Company, transformed into a producer, and launched the famous Chinese film history masterpieces such as "Rolling Red Dust" and "Overlord Farewell", which is the most successful transformation among martial arts actresses.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="189" > Yuanqiu</h1>
Entry time: around the end of the 60s
Keywords: Jackie Chan's master sister, charter wife
Yuan Qiu, whose real name was Zhang Zhuannan, was born in the Peking Opera family, so at the age of ten, he was sent to study art under the Zhanyuan Gate, becoming one of the early members of the "Seven Little Blessings", and was the sister of Hong Jinbao, Jackie Chan, Yuan Biao, Yuan Hua and others, so he entered the industry very early.
At the end of the 1960s, Yuan Qiu entered the industry as a stand-in, and in 1972, with the stage name Lin Xiu, he signed a contract with Dadi Film Company, starring in the action movies directed by Zhu Mu, Standing on top of the sky and Female Police, especially in the police film Female Police, you can see the uninitiated Jackie Chan playing a small, and being subdued by the female policewoman played by Yuan Qiu.
In 1974, Yuan Qiu starred in the 007 series of "The Golden Gun Man", and at the same time also participated in the movies "Five Claws and Eighteen Turns", "Brave Without Fear", etc., but most of the responses were mediocre, but the more well-known was the image of Madame Hu who starred in Shaw's martial arts film "The Legend of the New Flying Fox", which was quite amazing.
Yuan Qiu's development in the film circle was not smooth, at the end of the eighties, when the trend of female stardom was trending, Yuan Qiu had directed a movie "Hot Action", but unfortunately the film was shoddy box office fiasco, which made Yuan Qiu discouraged and faded from the screen.
In 2003, Yuan Qiu, who had retired for many years, was repeatedly invited by director Zhou Xingchi to play the role of the chartered woman in the movie "Kung Fu". Her performance made Xingye and the audience praise, yuan qiu also won the 42nd Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards Best Supporting Actress Award, and her career has since become popular.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="190" > Mao Ying</h1>
Entry: Circa 1970
Keywords: female version of Bruce Lee, the prototype of Chun Li
Among Hong Kong martial arts actresses, Mao Ying's name is not often mentioned because she has very little information about it.
In the early years, the Hong Kong International Film Festival once held an exhibition of Mao Ying's personal works, which can be regarded as letting the current film fans have a certain understanding of her. According to reports, Mao Ying, whose real name is Mao Fujing, was a famous Dao Ma Dan in Taiwan before entering the industry, and entered the Fuxing Drama School at the age of six to study art, studied for eight years, and became the first of the ten WuDan.
In 1970, Mao Ying came to Hong Kong to develop, was selected by the jiahe company in the initial period, starred in the action movie "Tianlong Eight Generals", the film won the ninth highest-grossing Hong Kong film of the year, starring Mao Ying and Miao Kexiu together, became the kung fu martial arts actress won by Jiahe in the 1970s.
Taking advantage of the momentum, Mao Ying starred in a number of very characteristic martial arts action movies, such as "Ghost Fury River" is very filial piety strong and brave Lan Feng, "Aikido" in the fearless and aggressive Yuying, etc., especially the 1972 movie "Iron Palm Whirlwind Legs", Mao Ying's kung fu in the film is very wonderful, the leg technique is fast and powerful, very ornamental.
At the same time, Mao Ying was also arranged by Jiahe and participated in the Bruce Lee movie "Dragon Fight Tiger Fight". Mao Ying's skills are dashing and fierce, she already has a foundation in Peking Opera, and when she was filming the 72-year kung fu film "Aikido", she was taught by the Korean master Ji Hanzai, and practiced Aikido to the level of black belt, which made her martial arts foundation further.
Mao Ying is different from Zheng Peipei, Xu Feng and other screen heroes in the same period, Mao Ying is rarely used on the screen because of her real kung fu foundation, and is known for her fist and foot kung fu of hard bridges and hard horses. It just so happened that Bruce Lee was on fire in the European and American markets, and Jiahe Company pushed Mao Ying to the Western film market, and the name of "female version of Bruce Lee" spread.
Mao Ying basically faded out of the film circle in the 1990s, but her image on the screen has become a classic in the hearts of many foreign action film fans, especially Mao Ying's image of beating women has a far-reaching impact. There is a widely circulated theory that the Japanese once used Mao Ying's classic image in "Breaking the Ring" to create chunli in the famous game "Street Fighter".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="191" > Yang Panpan</h1>
Entry: 1969
Keywords: The golden heroine of the TV circle
Born in an artistic family in Taiwan, Yang Panpan was sent by her father to learn Peking Opera singing and martial arts since she was a child, and studied under peking opera master Pink Chrysanthemum, and many of her brothers are very famous, like Zun Long, who starred in "The Last Emperor", as well as Lin Zhengying, the father of zombie films, and Hui Tianci.
Yang Panpan is a child actor, and at the age of 10, he starred in his first movie role in the movie "Fast Sword". At the age of 13, Yang Panpan joined Jiayi TV as an actor and began to participate in some films at the same time. In 1976, Yang Panpan switched to TVB, ushering in the peak of her career and becoming the royal martial arts actress of WIRELESS at that time.
During the wireless period, Yang Panpan starred in classic martial arts dramas such as "Xianhe Divine Needle", "Book of Swords and Vengeance", "One Sword Tianya", "Thirteen Sisters" and other classic martial arts dramas, and what made her popular was the two Jin Yong dramas in 1983, Mu Nianci in "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter" and Mu Wanqing in "Tianlong Eight Parts", and her heroic and gentle heroine image in the play surprised many audiences.
Yang Panpan himself looks tough and heroic, and in the 1986 Taiwanese version of "Absolute Double Pride", he once played the role of Jiang Xiaoyu. At the end of the 1980s, Yang Panpan followed the trend and joined the film circle, shooting movies such as "Royal Flying Phoenix", "Golden Medal Master Sister", "Royal General of the Sky", etc., and most of them participated in the role of female detectives with capable and heroic posture.
In recent years, Yang Panpan has occasionally made cameo appearances in some film and television dramas, and his most recent work is a cameo in Zhen Zidan's action movie "One Man's Martial Forest".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="192" > Huiyinghong</h1>
Entry: 1977
Keywords: from actress to legendary queen
Among the Hong Kong actresses, the only one who has won the Academy Award three times is Hui Yinghong.
As an actor, Hui Yinghong has been in the industry for more than 40 years, and has so far starred in more than 150 movies, three times after the Golden Film, two times the best supporting actress, and equaled the award record set by Maggie Cheung.
Hui Yinghong is a descendant of the Manchurian Zhenghuang Banner, whose ancestral surname is Yehenara, and moved to Hong Kong with her parents when she was a child. The Hui family originally had eight children, and Hui Yinghong ranked fifth, but because the burden was too great, Hui Yinghong's two sisters and one brother were sent to the Peking Opera School, including Hui Yinghong's fourth brother Hui Tianci.
In order to make a living, Hui Yinghong once danced in nightclubs as a teenager and was accepted as a disciple by Zhen Zidan's mother, the famous martial artist Mai Baochan. Counting up, Zhen and Hui can also be regarded as the relationship between master and brother!
Because of this experience, at the age of 14, Hui Yinghong was favored by Zhang Che, the grandmaster of Hong Kong martial arts films, and became a Shaw actor, and was later adopted by Zhang Che as a dry daughter, and recommended her to play the role of Mu Nianci in the martial arts movie "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter".
Later, Hui Yinghong was promoted by Liu Jialiang, performing kung fu films such as "Rotten Head Ho" and "Crazy Monkey", and won the best actress of the first Hong Kong Film Awards with "The Elder", she is also the only person who has won this honor by playing female image so far, and that year, Hui Yinghong was only 22 years old.
In the following decades, Hui Yinghong starred in dozens of movies as an absolute protagonist, and played a world in the circle of action movie stars who occupy the main market with the image of "dare to fight, can fight, and will fight".
However, with the suspension of Shaw's production in the 1980s, Hui Yinghong's development became very unsmooth, and the image of playing women also limited her play path to a certain extent, and gradually she could only play some supporting roles, and she even suffered from depression for a while after her career stagnated.
At the end of the 1990s, Hui Yinghong was determined to start the transformation, starting from the gold medal green leaves, patiently honing her acting skills, the 2009 movie "Heart Demon" made her win the Academy Awards queen laurel again, and the 2014 small-cost literary film "Lucky Is Me" helped her seal her three times.
In September 2017, the 57-year-old Hui Yinghong was carried to the hospital after filming the action film "Mrs. K", resulting in a permanent disability in her left knee, and after the filming, Hui Yinghong announced that "Mrs. K" would be her last action film and would not shoot again.
Hui Yinghong, who has faded the label of playing women, is no longer the action star who blindly added fists and feet, but has gradually transformed into the acting devil of the Chinese film industry, with a little more background after experiencing vicissitudes and ups and downs.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="193" > Hu Huizhong</h1>
Entry date: 1978
Keywords: the only overlord flower in the Hong Kong film industry
In the Hong Kong film industry in the 1980s, Hu Huizhong was synonymous with the Overlord Flower.
Hu Huizhong joined the Taiwanese film industry in the 1970s, initially a literary and art film actress, starring in the movie "Happy Face" at the age of 20 and became an overnight hit, together with Hu Guanzhen and Hu Yinmeng at the same time, collectively known as the "Three Hus" of the Taiwanese film industry.
In the mid-1980s, Hu Huizhong followed the trend to develop in the Hong Kong film industry, starring in two "FuXing Gaozhao" and "Summer Fuxing" series in the role of Overlord Flower, successfully transforming from a jade girl to a beaten girl.
Therefore, Hu Huizhong took advantage of the victory and starred in the movie "Overlord Flower" tailored for him by Jiahe.
The film invited Jackie Chan to supervise the production, although Hu Huizhong did not have a kung fu background, but under the guidance of Hong Jiabao in his heyday, plus Hu Huizhong was dedicated enough, so there was still a board and an eye on the screen, and many dangerous shots were personally fought, so he successfully created a shrewd and capable, heroic super police flower.
In 1989, when filming "Demon Hunters", the pyrotechnics miscalculation caused the explosion point to detonate in advance, causing actor Hu Huizhong to be injured on the spot and directly blown down from the third floor, almost quitting the film world.
After recovering from his injuries, Hu Huizhong returned to the film world again, but the quality of the films received was not as good as before, although there were also eye-catching characters such as Li Xiaohuan in "Fang Shiyu", but the influence was not as good as before.
In 1992, Hu Huizhong starred in the movie "The Ghost Fox of Liaozhai", and when Hu Huizhong took over this film, he thought it was just a mysterious love film like "Qiannu Ghost".
Unexpectedly, during the filming process, the film side changed the script to a restrictive level, imposing a lot of explicit adult drama, after Hu Huizhong refused to star, the film side finally found an actor as a stand-in to make up for these shots, and after the film was released in Hong Kong, Hu Huizhong's reputation plummeted.
At the end of the 1990s, Hu Huizhong faded out of the film circle, and now the biggest intersection with the show business circle is her identity as Sun Li's aunt and grandmother.
Due to space limitations, this article only takes stock of eight female stars, and please look forward to the second half of the rest of the inventory.