THE MASSIVE WONG FEI HUNG MOVIE POST!
Okay, so my recent "STOP COMPARING EVERY KUNG FU MOVIE EVER TO CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON" rant got somebody interested in Wong Fei Hung movies.
This is fun.
Bear in mind that there have been OVER NINETY TWO movies made about the man, making him arguably the subject of more feature-length movies than anybody else, particularly interesting since he was a realy person. He was usually portrayed quite seriously--with some very noteable exceptions--because the real Wong Fei Hung was known not just for being a master of a number of wushu styles, but also as an expert in Chinese traditional medicine and a superb patriot. As such, you'll really not see him kill anybody in the films, at least not in any I can remember.
So, behind this cut I'll give you a brief primer in Wong Fei Hung movies that I am familiar with and where you might want to start. These films are all over the place in quality, awesomeness, actors, age, and so on. Get ready for a ride, 'cause I've got a LOT of YouTube clips behind this cut.
Oh, and go here to download or just stream THE music from Wong Fei Hung films. To get the songs, you either have to click the tiny little play button on the black bar or wait thirty seconds for the gray bar to say DOWNLOAD.
The first one here has no lyrics, and is recognizeable to every Chinese person ever as the WFH theme.
The second one has lyrics and is the main theme to the Once Upon a Time in China movies.
Okay, you gotta start by acknowledging the God Emperor of Wong Fei Hung actors, even if--to my knowledge--none of his solo films are available in their complete form in the US.
Dude was Kwan Tak Hing and he was in seventy-some movies as Wong Fei Hung, with fantastic titles like Wong Fei Hung: Heaven Never Lets the Kind-Hearted Down and Wong Fei-hung's Seven Battles with Fiery Unicorn and How Wong Feihung Fought a Bloody Battle in the Spinster's House.
So, here are a few clips of Kwan Tak Hing in WFH movies:
WONG FEI HUNG'S COMBAT WITH THE FIVE WOLVES (1969):
I don't know which film this is from, but it's a decidedly younger Kwan Tak Hing in one of the HK film staples, the tea-house fight:
Here's Kwan Tak Hing in The Magnificent Butcher, starring Sammo Hung Kam Bo, showing how awesome he was in his late seventies / early eighties. Butcher Wing was one of WFH's best disciples:
Next up is Gordon Liu Ka Fei, better known to US viewers as his role in Kill Bill v.1 as the bald-headed leader of the Crazy 88's and also as Pai Mei in Kill Bill v.2 This is Challenge of the Masters, a rather good 1976 film, more serious than a lot of the more recent films. FAIR WARNING: I seem to remember this being the last fight of the film:
Jackie Chan played WFH twice, once in 1978 in Drunken Master and once in 1994 in Drunken Master 2. Regrettably, the latter is only available in the US in dubbed versions, since the company that bought the US distribution rights refuses to put out the subbed version. You'll see why that saddens me when you hear Jackie's drunken voice.
DRUNKEN MASTER ONE, in which we also see how FUCKING RIPPED Jackie used to be. His muscles had muscles:
DRUNKEN MASTER TWO, in which Chan doesn't remove his shirt, but which has one of the best final battles in all of kung fu film history. Don't worry, this isn't it, but it's still awesome. Dude at the end is Fei Hung's father, who forbade him from practicing Drunken Fist...so when Fei Hung isn't paying attention to who he's fighting...:
Before Chan reprised his role, Jet Li Lian Jie came along and--in a series of films by master directer Tsui Hark--reignited interest in WFH and kick-started the return of the kung-fu epic in the 1990's.
Here's a trailer for Once Upon a Time In China:
And here's a fight scene from OUaTiC 2, which some considering superior to the first, even though it's a very odd mix of humor and seriousness.
Finally, there's the portrayal of a VERY young WFH by a girl--Sze-Man Tsang--in Iron Monkey, a movie which focuses mostly on Wong Kei Ying, WFH's father. He wasn't quite the badass this movie makes of him, but hey, he was WFH's papa.
Oh, and to top it off, here's one of the near-the-end-but-not-the-climactic-battle scenes from OUaTiC 2 with fake subs that crack me up:
Nutshell:
Challenge of the Masters: Above average 1970's quest kung fu film.
Dreadnaught: Never seen it, supposed to be pretty good early-eighties/late-seventies fare.
Drunken Master: Better-than-average-but-still-pretty-standard Jackie Chan movie, with final bad guy and training with drunken Beggar So, et cetera
Drunken Master 2: Incredibly fun, a little bit of wire, but not a lot, Jackie's last great hybrid kung-fu / prop film before he started leaning very heavily on the latter due to his age.
Iron Monkey: One of the bars that I use to compare all other 1990's kung-fu movies to. Incredible.
Magnificent Butcher: More about Butcher Wing, but still one of my favorite Sammo Hung movies and worth it.
Once Upon a Time in China (1-5): Lots of wire-fu, but also lots of Jet Li moving at 153 mph. Plots vary from good to bad, jokes vary from okay to terrible, but they're all worth a watch. Except 4...or was it 3...which didn't have Li as WFH.
There are a number of other good ones, including some parody films, like Jet Li's Last Hero in China and the hysterical (?) Master Wong vs Master Wong, but there are the basics.
Telling somebody what order to watch them in is insane, and I'll politely ask people to keep their disagreements peaceable. I say just start with Once Upon a Time in China and go wherever you want to from there, cool? Maybe do a double-bill of Drunken Master 1 & 2, or...whatever, just know that they're all totally different.
Right, back to the Balvenie 10 year scotch...
b
This is fun.
Bear in mind that there have been OVER NINETY TWO movies made about the man, making him arguably the subject of more feature-length movies than anybody else, particularly interesting since he was a realy person. He was usually portrayed quite seriously--with some very noteable exceptions--because the real Wong Fei Hung was known not just for being a master of a number of wushu styles, but also as an expert in Chinese traditional medicine and a superb patriot. As such, you'll really not see him kill anybody in the films, at least not in any I can remember.
So, behind this cut I'll give you a brief primer in Wong Fei Hung movies that I am familiar with and where you might want to start. These films are all over the place in quality, awesomeness, actors, age, and so on. Get ready for a ride, 'cause I've got a LOT of YouTube clips behind this cut.
Oh, and go here to download or just stream THE music from Wong Fei Hung films. To get the songs, you either have to click the tiny little play button on the black bar or wait thirty seconds for the gray bar to say DOWNLOAD.
The first one here has no lyrics, and is recognizeable to every Chinese person ever as the WFH theme.
The second one has lyrics and is the main theme to the Once Upon a Time in China movies.
Okay, you gotta start by acknowledging the God Emperor of Wong Fei Hung actors, even if--to my knowledge--none of his solo films are available in their complete form in the US.
Dude was Kwan Tak Hing and he was in seventy-some movies as Wong Fei Hung, with fantastic titles like Wong Fei Hung: Heaven Never Lets the Kind-Hearted Down and Wong Fei-hung's Seven Battles with Fiery Unicorn and How Wong Feihung Fought a Bloody Battle in the Spinster's House.
So, here are a few clips of Kwan Tak Hing in WFH movies:
WONG FEI HUNG'S COMBAT WITH THE FIVE WOLVES (1969):
I don't know which film this is from, but it's a decidedly younger Kwan Tak Hing in one of the HK film staples, the tea-house fight:
Here's Kwan Tak Hing in The Magnificent Butcher, starring Sammo Hung Kam Bo, showing how awesome he was in his late seventies / early eighties. Butcher Wing was one of WFH's best disciples:
Next up is Gordon Liu Ka Fei, better known to US viewers as his role in Kill Bill v.1 as the bald-headed leader of the Crazy 88's and also as Pai Mei in Kill Bill v.2 This is Challenge of the Masters, a rather good 1976 film, more serious than a lot of the more recent films. FAIR WARNING: I seem to remember this being the last fight of the film:
Jackie Chan played WFH twice, once in 1978 in Drunken Master and once in 1994 in Drunken Master 2. Regrettably, the latter is only available in the US in dubbed versions, since the company that bought the US distribution rights refuses to put out the subbed version. You'll see why that saddens me when you hear Jackie's drunken voice.
DRUNKEN MASTER ONE, in which we also see how FUCKING RIPPED Jackie used to be. His muscles had muscles:
DRUNKEN MASTER TWO, in which Chan doesn't remove his shirt, but which has one of the best final battles in all of kung fu film history. Don't worry, this isn't it, but it's still awesome. Dude at the end is Fei Hung's father, who forbade him from practicing Drunken Fist...so when Fei Hung isn't paying attention to who he's fighting...:
Before Chan reprised his role, Jet Li Lian Jie came along and--in a series of films by master directer Tsui Hark--reignited interest in WFH and kick-started the return of the kung-fu epic in the 1990's.
Here's a trailer for Once Upon a Time In China:
And here's a fight scene from OUaTiC 2, which some considering superior to the first, even though it's a very odd mix of humor and seriousness.
Finally, there's the portrayal of a VERY young WFH by a girl--Sze-Man Tsang--in Iron Monkey, a movie which focuses mostly on Wong Kei Ying, WFH's father. He wasn't quite the badass this movie makes of him, but hey, he was WFH's papa.
Oh, and to top it off, here's one of the near-the-end-but-not-the-climactic-battle scenes from OUaTiC 2 with fake subs that crack me up:
Nutshell:
Challenge of the Masters: Above average 1970's quest kung fu film.
Dreadnaught: Never seen it, supposed to be pretty good early-eighties/late-seventies fare.
Drunken Master: Better-than-average-but-still-pretty-standard Jackie Chan movie, with final bad guy and training with drunken Beggar So, et cetera
Drunken Master 2: Incredibly fun, a little bit of wire, but not a lot, Jackie's last great hybrid kung-fu / prop film before he started leaning very heavily on the latter due to his age.
Iron Monkey: One of the bars that I use to compare all other 1990's kung-fu movies to. Incredible.
Magnificent Butcher: More about Butcher Wing, but still one of my favorite Sammo Hung movies and worth it.
Once Upon a Time in China (1-5): Lots of wire-fu, but also lots of Jet Li moving at 153 mph. Plots vary from good to bad, jokes vary from okay to terrible, but they're all worth a watch. Except 4...or was it 3...which didn't have Li as WFH.
There are a number of other good ones, including some parody films, like Jet Li's Last Hero in China and the hysterical (?) Master Wong vs Master Wong, but there are the basics.
Telling somebody what order to watch them in is insane, and I'll politely ask people to keep their disagreements peaceable. I say just start with Once Upon a Time in China and go wherever you want to from there, cool? Maybe do a double-bill of Drunken Master 1 & 2, or...whatever, just know that they're all totally different.
Right, back to the Balvenie 10 year scotch...
b