In the spring of 1991, a Chinese story with a subversive temperament was screened in Manhattan for a month.
Accompanied by strong drums and the powerful melody of "The Order of the General", a group of strong men are practicing on the beach, just like the sun at eight or nine o'clock in the morning.
This scene will naturally remind people of Liang Qichao's depiction in "Young China Says" that "the red sun rises at the beginning, and its road is great."
The protagonist is played by Jet Li, a martial arts star who has caused a sensation in the world with "Shaolin Temple". He ushered in a landmark role in the professional landscape after the little monk Jueyuan. Huang Feihong, a far-reaching folk hero in modern Chinese history.
Director Xu Ke will also use this series of films as a package of entertainment to continue to explore the possibilities of martial arts films, and even try to rewrite china's modern history with movies.
Before Jet Li became the new branch Wong Fei Hung, Hong Kong films already had two well-known Southern Fist masters.
The first Huang Feihong was Guan Dexing, who from 1949 participated in the filming of nearly eighty films in the "Huang Feihong" series. With this record, he also became the Guinness World Records holder with the most plays in the same role.
The other is Jackie Chan. In 1978, he played the role of young Wong Fei Hung in the kung fu comedy "Drunken Fist" directed by Yuan Heping, which was also the starting point for Jackie Chan to become famous in Hong Kong and even the world film industry. If Huang Feihong, played by Guan Dexing, is numerous, long-lasting, and influential, the young Huang Feihong portrayed by Jackie Chan wins in completing the transformation and growth of a stubborn teenager, giving him an indomitable character.
Then, Jet Li's Huang Feihong must find another way, not only to make a difference, but also to complete the transcendence. Fortunately, the director Jet Li met was the ghost talent Xu Ke.
Compared with the previous Huang Feihong, Xu Ke wants not only a folk chivalrous guest who understands medical science and can count fists, but also a worry about the world. A historical hero with the personality ideal of "the greatest man".
The reclusive oriental lion had to open his eyes to see the world in the late Qing Dynasty, surrounded by strong ships and cannons. In the face of the impact of Western civilization, where to go, how to inherit and improve traditional Chinese culture? This is the question that modern Chinese must answer. The story of Xu Ke's Huang Feihong series unfolds slowly under such a historical lens.
The thirteen aunts who returned from studying in the UK brought back a foreign toy, a magnesium powder camera, to let the villagers see how to take pictures. She and Huang Feihong are the friends of Qingmei Zhuma, and they are distant relatives who are not related by blood.
The love story that Xu Ke arranged that needs to cross the Chinese ethics will present a kind of Chinese and Western romance through trial, conflict, understanding, fusion, and finally merit throughout the series.
Xu Ke's Huang Feihong is in a specific context, he hopes to Chinese image, young and old, peaceful and heavy, a plain cotton and linen long shirt, a pair of traditional black cloth shoes, both the freedom of folk heroes, but also the elegance of the southern literati.
This outfit is also the same as Xu Ke's evaluation of Jet Li, in his bones is an ancient, natural integration into one, it is easy to gain the audience's good feelings and recognition. In the story, the internal and external troubles that this young man who is not angry and arrogant will face are surrounded by strong enemies at sea, and the officials of the imperial court disregard the interests of the people and are bent on ensuring peace with the officials.
There are constant turmoil around him, not only the Shahe Gang, who always has a personal vendetta, but also Yan Zhendong, a Shandong boxer who is pressing to kick the gym in order to make a name for himself.
In the first part of the "Huang Feihong" series, Jet Li did not have many opportunities to show his skills, and he often even used the original meaning of the word "wu" to "stop the go".
On the contrary, the two little apprentices around me, the silly pork Rong and the sharper Tooth Scraping Su in English than Chinese, can extend any bit of wind and grass into a huge group fight.
In an era of fragmentation and renewal, cartography shows the silhouettes and mental states of Chinese of life at all levels, and is the most successful place to start the series. It is not difficult to find that the English title of the "Wong Fei Hung" series of films directly quotes the reason for "Once Upon a Time in America". Xu Ke wants to use martial arts films to record the "Chinese past" of an era.
The sequel "Wong Fei Hung 2: Boys Should Be Self-Reliant" was released immediately after that. In addition to continuing the general theme of the first part of the family and the world, the contradictions and conflicts are focused on the Chinese and English diaphragm, and the collision of Chinese medicine and Western medicine.
This time, Xu Ke asked Huang Feihong, accompanied by his thirteenth aunt, to take a steamer into the provincial city, cross the tunnel, and eat Western food.
At the Academic Exchange Conference on Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, he taught the meridian principles of Traditional Chinese medicine that foreigners could not understand, and thus became acquainted with Sun Wen, the forerunner of the revolution.
Just when the White Lotus Sect came to the embassy under the banner of fuqing and annihilation of the foreign countries, Huang Feihong decided to help Sun Wen and his colleague Lu Haodong pass on important news and documents. This time, Jet Li finally had a full chance, but he was talented in martial arts skills.
Because he has received solid basic training, his martial arts routine standards are in place, and his movements combine strength and beauty, thus achieving speed, strength and flexibility, the beauty of Chinese martial arts in one of the three, his one move is gorgeous and elegant, showing a kind of quiet elegance, the most typical is the appearance he designed for Huang Feihong. This action also became a virtual step bright palm style that countless kung fu stars competed to imitate later.
The late Qing dynasty minister Nalan Yuanshu was Huang Feihong's most powerful enemy, a villain played by Zhen Zidan who was full of ancient Greek tragedies, while pretending to appease Huang Feihong, instigated the White Lotus Sect to wreak havoc on embassies in the streets of Guangzhou, burn down churches, and even adopt Chinese orphans who studied English in churches.
He has learned both Chinese and Western, has extraordinary martial arts, and should have been the talent with the most room to play in the great change. There is no lack of affection between him and Huang Feihong, but there is no way to change the direction of fate.
The wonderful duel at the end of the film, especially a set of cloth sticks by Naran Yuanshu, undoubtedly represents the highest achievement of martial arts instructor Yuan Heping in the 1990s. This scene has also become one of the most classic action scenes in Chinese martial arts movies.
Perhaps the theme of the first two parts is slightly heavy, but in "Huang Feihong 3 Lion King Battle", the cooperation between Xu Ke and Jet Li seems to have suddenly changed frequency. The venue for their group exercises was changed from the coastal shore to the Noon gate square of the Forbidden City. What they defend in the story changes from the flame of revolution to a gold medal representing the Lion King.
What remains unchanged is that the still robust "Boy When Self-Improvement" and Huang Feihong never use lethal weapons from beginning to end, he either holds a fan or a Western-style umbrella in his bare hands, or simply uses a long shirt and scarf to end and win the battle. In short, he maintained the kingly demeanor of a soldier who surrendered without a fight.
If it were not for the hard horse standing in the first two parts of the story, a young and old Huang Feihong, only afraid that the audience would be in a trance in the third part. This is still not Huang Feihong's story, and it is not so easy to digest the comedic elements such as gags and jealousy that are obviously too heavy compared to the previous two films.
Xu Ke uses the imaginative Foshan Shadowless Foot and the Righteous Hengsheng to easily resolve the contradictions and conflicts in the film. "Huang Feihong", a big IP with its own traffic, has been reconstructed and modified by Xu Ke and has become the favorite national hero in the minds of Chinese film audiences at the end of the twentieth century.
Jet Li became another international movie star after Jackie Chan through "Huang Feihong", while Xu Ke took over the martial arts world after Hu Jinquan with the goal of his home country and the world.