At the 10th Paris Film Festival, as part of a special program entitled "Spotlight on Hong Kong", an award was presented to the outstanding action director of the Hong Kong film industry Yuen Wuping for his contribution to one of the most famous territorial genres. Created in collaboration with the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the program opened on June 29th, showcasing gems of Hong Kong cinema spanning more than half a century.
Yuen took part in the Paris Film Festival festivities, presenting the fruits of his remarkable achievements in the form of several kung fu films he has made over three decades, and held a master class on July 4th. The program featured such films as “Drunken Master” (1978), which made Jackie Chan famous and turned him from a faceless but hard-working stuntman into a movie star, “The Iron Monkey” (1993), in which the director again teamed up with his ex protégé Donnie Yen, and An Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), starring Chow Yun-fat, described by Yuen as having a "romanticized, aesthetically pleasing kung fu style" that would have a direct influence on screen films in the following decade. fights in Chinese-language cinema.
“In the era of Drunken Master, all the on-screen fights took place for real: the actors hit each other in contact, it was really painful.”
- Yuen told The Hollywood Reporter.
“Injuries also happened. But this was at a time when most actors and stuntmen actually knew martial arts. At the same time, this gave me, as a director and producer, maximum freedom in developing action scenes. If I had a new idea, I could just take the actor and discuss with him whether he was physically able to perform the elements I had in mind or not, and sometimes he would share his thoughts with me.”
“Choreography used to be more flexible and spontaneous”
- added the 67-year-old master, whose nickname is “Ba E” (baat ye), translated as “Eighth Grandfather”. In the original, the role of the beggar Su, master Jiu Quan (Drunken Fist), was played by Yuen's father, Simon Yuen (real name Yuen Hsiu-ting), known in the history of Chinese-speaking cinema as the first director of fight scenes. The son followed in his father’s footsteps from an early age, devoting all his time to studying martial arts and Peking opera.
Over the course of more than thirty years, Yuen has seen fighting in Hong Kong films gradually change from a realistic style to one that emphasizes the beauty of movement.
“Nowadays you can’t do without embellishment in battles”
- said the choreographer, who has earned more than one award,
“and the whole process of bringing the battle together is carried out much more carefully and with great attention to detail.”
In addition to changing tastes in action cinema, Yuen also observed the rise and fall of Hong Kong action directors, from simple stuntmen to the biggest names.
“Modern action heroes are not getting any younger, and this also applies to stuntmen. Nowadays it is difficult to find new Jackie Chans or Jet Lis; even Donnie Yen is no longer young. Thanks to his work, he finally achieved the success he deserved."
“Members of Hong Kong stunt teams are also getting a little old for action films with their physical demands. If the majority of Hong Kong youth are much more spoiled than when I was a child, then who will train like we did? In essence, we learned discipline by being thrashed every day by our master mentor. So now I mainly work with people from the mainland."
Thanks to his innovative approach to choreography and fights, Yuen Wuping eventually landed work in Hollywood, where he developed exciting fight sequences that combined hand-to-hand combat techniques for the Wachowski brothers' Matrix trilogy and subsequently Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill two films. and special effects.
“The time has come when we can create the most incredible fights with the help of visual effects.”
, says Yuen, who is willing to accept new offers from Hollywood, but prefers to work in his homeland because the language barrier hinders him. Despite this, the master, whose filmography is full of Tai Chi-themed films including Drunken Tai Chi (1984) and Master Tai Chi (1993), is choreographing the action film Man of Tai Chi, the directorial debut of Keanu Reeves, whom Yuen first met him on the set of “The Matrix” and was admired by his diligence:
“We had to teach him from the very beginning, but Keanu was very hardworking and put in a lot of effort.”
Regarding the Tai Chi fight scenes in the new film, in which Reeves will also play one of the characters, Yuen Wuping said that the film's actor-director is full of ideas, and the end result will be a mixture of different martial arts styles that has never been seen before. I've never seen it on screen.
The 10th Paris Film Festival took place from June 29 to July 10.
Author: Karen Chu
Source: hollywoodreporter.com
Translation: DoD Favorit | EvilDollaR
Everything dies, the action movies of the 90s have died, previously existing masters are now just becoming characters on the screen. There is money everywhere and there will no longer be such masters who dedicated their entire lives to martial arts.
Yeah....but only one of the main and brightest promoters of this habit was who? That's right....Woopin himself
Yes, you can't argue with that.
Correctly noted about Donny, it’s a pity that in the 90s he was not given more opportunities.
As for the new generation, there is none and no one will come from China to replace the old generation. Another 3-5 years and it will be time for the old people to retire, there’s Jackie filming his last full-fledged action film. And along with them, Chinese cinema itself will disappear. The only people who have hope are the Thais, Indonesians and everyone around who fell ill with the Ong Bak epidemic. All hope lies with them and the preservation of the true genre of martial arts.
A great man, I respect him very much.
And he is right about something. Now it wouldn’t hurt to give many “newly-minted pop stars” a good beating for getting used to cables and computer graphics (please do not confuse them with visual effects). And then they complain: “Oh, how hard it is...” We need to change the microphone to nunchucks! Or install microphones in them, and then you can train and sing at the same time. %)