Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (9 page)

Naturally a sequel was called for, and
The Return of the One-Armed Swordsman
appeared in 1969, but not before the director cemented his stardom with two other films during the intervening year —
The Assassin
and
The Golden Swallow
, both starring Wang Yu
. Both movies displayed Chang Cheh
’s priorities: manly men giving, and receiving, hyper-violence. The finale of both films find Wang Yu
covered in blood — both his own and his enemies. But the actor wanted to boil his own blood.

To that end, he wrote and directed
The Chinese Boxer
, which was released in 1970, a full two years before Bruce Lee
got his big Hong Kong break. It established the Japanese-hating, empty-hand martial art sub-genre Bruce revolutionized with
Fist of Fury
. By then, Yu was South China’s biggest action star, beating his Japanese enemies into the ground, as well as his Shaw Studio contract. Bolting for Golden Harvest
almost the moment
Return of the One-Armed Swordsman
was done, he added insult to injury by making
The One
-Armed Boxer
in 1971, followed by what many consider his best movie,
Beach of the War
Gods
(1972), which had him taking on the invading Japanese army single-handedly.

Wang Yu
(aka Wang Zheng-quan
) was born in Jiangsu Province, but little else was revealed in his official biography. Reportedly an avid swimmer and a “skilled student of karate
,” he showed little martial art skill in his films. Far from classically handsome, his screen persona was dark, small, and furtive. To compensate, he filled his films with slaughter and torment, always taking on dozens of attackers who he could wade through with a stiff chop here and a weak kick there. His action choreography looked more similar to American cliff-hanger serials than kung fu.

After grinding out a bunch of less and less distinguished flicks, the renamed Jimmy Wang Yu
replaced Bruce in several internationally co-produced oddities following Lee’s death.
A Man Called Tiger
(1973),
The Man from Hong Kong
(1975), and
A Queen’s Ransom
(1976) had one thing in common: they were all laughably bad. The latter two also featured ex-007 George Lazenby
, and all three also served to display just how good Bruce Lee
had been. Wang’s on-screen charisma and kung fu were negligible.

Yu retreated to Taiwan and into ultra-cheap efforts designed to trade on his previous successes:
One Armed Swordsman vs. Nine Killers
(1976),
Return of the Chinese Boxer
(1977), and, ironically, his most beloved film in the West,
The One
-Armed Boxer
vs. the Flying Guillotine
(aka
Master of the Flying Guillotine
, 1975), which heavily influenced
The Street Fighter
video games.

Meanwhile, Chang Cheh
plunged on with nary a look back. The director seemed relieved to be done with Wang Yu
, replacing him with David Chiang
with hardly a blink. It was Chiang, an ex-choreographer and stuntman, who stared in
The New One-Armed Swordsman
in 1971, as well as at least a half dozen more in between. Chiang was part of a show business dynasty. His father was a popular star while his mother was a well-known actress. Eventually, both his brothers, Paul Chu
and Derek Yee
, would also make their mark in movies.

David was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, on May 11, 1947, and given the name Jiang Weinan. Although educated at Chu Hai College in Hong Kong, no one doubted that he’d follow in his parents’ footsteps, and, by the time he graduated he had already appeared in many films, most notably
The Call of the Nightbirds
(1965). Nevertheless, action called to him, and, once on his own, he presented himself as an agile, clever martial arts instructor on film sets. It wasn’t long before the personable, stylish young man, then known as John Chiang Dawei, came to the attention of Chang Cheh
, who invited him to join the Shaw studio in 1966.

While Chiang may have been even thinner and more diminutive than Wang Yu
, his face communicated a more clever, rebellious, and mischievous demeanor than Yu’s dark, sour expression. To off-set his stature, Cheh teamed him with a tall, majestic actor named Ti Lung
. Born in China in 1946, then educated at the Eton School in Hong Kong, Ti originally went to work as a tailor. But finally, the man born with the name Tan Furong auditioned for a part in Chang Cheh
’s
Dead End
(1968). One look at the tall, sensitive, intelligent, well spoken, handsome young man and Cheh fell in love. Ti Lung was created and nurtured by Chang, who showcased him in dozens of movies — his sincere, imposing yang suitably served to Chiang’s clever, brisk yin.

As the director remembered in his memoir, “Chiang was only [a] supporting actor in (his first Shaws film)
Dead End
, playing a garage repairman, but his ‘cool’ demeanor was second-to-none. So, in
The Duel
(his second Shaw film), Ti Lung
was in the leading role. But in
Vengeance
(his third film), it was Chiang who played the lead….”

Once Cheh decided that David had the “lean and hungry” look he wanted to showcase, the smaller, more angular young man took precedence in the director’s films over the increasingly majestic Ti Lung
. It wouldn’t be long before both men would chafe against Chang’s predilections, but five years in “Cantowood” is like an entire career anywhere else.

Once Chang Cheh
hit his stride, he started producing films by the seasons — four a year (often with the assistance of such co-directors as Pao Hsueh-li
and Wu Ma
). Some flicks, like
Vengeance
(1970), were box-office and critical successes. Others, like
The Anonymous Heroes
(1971) were contrived silliness. But soon the pair of stars and their director were known as “The Golden Triangle.” It’s a mark of Chang’s talent and restlessness that he wasn’t content to leave it at that.

Spotting a martial arts champion named Chen Kuan-tai
, he decided that his forceful presence was made for his movies, and started a string of productions featuring him. Unlike many kung fu film stars, Chen started as a martial artist, not an actor. He began his training at the age of eight, and became extremely proficient in what was known as the “Monkey-King Split and Deflecting Arm” style. So proficient, in fact, that he won the light heavyweight championship at the South-East Asian Chinese Martial Arts Tournament in 1969.

He made his way into movies via
Huang Fei Hong Bravely Crushing the Fire Formation
(the
last Huang movie of the early 1970s), but achieved stardom both in and out of the Shaw Studio system — maintaining his vehement streak of independence throughout his long career. By starring in both Ng See-yuen
’s independently produced milestone
The Bloody Fists
and Chang Cheh
’s
The Boxer from Shantung
in 1972, his fame, and reputation, was ensured. But it wasn’t until Cheh featured all his new stars in 1973’s
The Blood Brothers
that superstardom beckoned to all four.

Based on a classic tale,
The Assassination of General Ma
, it told of a lover’s triangle between two men and a woman as well as three friends. It is set in the mid-nineteenth century during the Taiping Rebellion and is based on actual people and events. Chiang and Kuan-tai are highwaymen until Lung convinces them to join the Imperial Army. As Lung excels, his lust for absolute power begins to corrupt him absolutely. He has an affair with the Kuan-tai character’s wife, then has Kuan-tai killed. Chiang takes revenge for his dead friend on his ex-friend, and then willingly gives himself up and is executed.

Ti Lung
’s conflicted power-monger was perfectly set off against Chiang’s love-sick idealist, with Kuan-tai’s desperate nobility trying to span the chasm. The actors were rarely better, but the result was that they no longer required Cheh’s tutelage, which was becoming stiff with repetition. The director compensated by filling his subsequent films with a multitude of actors — carefully studying them for future stardom. Meanwhile, he used them to continue making crowd-pleasing favorites.

The Water Margin
(1972) and its long-awaited sequel
All Men Are Brothers
(1975) were two more Cheh milestones, based on the classic novel by Shi Nai-an
called
Outlaws of the Marshes
,
written in the fourteenth century. It concerned the 108 Mountain Brothers — a famous band of righteous mercenaries in the eleventh century (Sung dynasty) who fight bad guys where they find them. But Cheh truly found his niche in 1975 with
Five Shaolin Masters
(aka
Five Masters of Death
) —
the fourth in Cheh’s Shaolin series, featuring his new discovery Fu Sheng
. (Alexander) Fu Sheng
was a remarkable actor, having, at different times, been referred to as the Bob Hope
, or Jimmy Cagney
, or even the James Dean
of Hong Kong. He was equally adept as a lecherous comic, a pugnacious, wise-cracking hero, or as a brooding rebel (who, coincidentally, died way too young in a tragic car crash). Like Cagney, he was also a beloved collaborator who elicited nothing but praise from every director and actor he worked with.

As far as Asian critics were concerned,
Five Shaolin Masters
marked the start of Cheh’s decline. As far as American fans were concerned, it marked the start of his ascension. Indeed, he no longer seemed to be looking for relevant images. Now he seemed intent on producing one-hundred-percent superhero entertainment. He seemed to stop taking his movies’ histrionics seriously and got down to some serious mayhem.

The film
was based on a famous story — the Shaolin Temple’s destruction and the survival and vengeance of its escaping students. It teamed Ti Lung
and David Chiang
with Fu Sheng
, as well as two more Cheh hopefuls, a ferret-faced martial artist named Chi Kuan-chun
and a cute-looking fellow named Meng Fei
. Together they take on early eighteenth-century enemies led by actor (Johnny) Wang Lung-wei
— a brutish, mustached presence who was to become one of the most versatile villains in the kung fu genre.

Here is a telling distinction of kung fu movies. Wang Lung-wei
is not a versatile actor; he is a versatile fighter. It is his particular skill that he can make defeats by everyone from Fu Sheng
to David Chiang
look believable. When Wang Lung-wei
is ultimately defeated, whether by a ninety-eight-pound weakling or a hulking muscle man, Johnny makes it work. He ranks as one of the Shaw Studio’s all time greatest villains. To beat him this time, Fu Sheng
and Chi Kuan-chun
learn the Shaolin animal styles, Meng Fei
learns the “rolling” style (a form of wrestling that David Chiang
did in
Seven Blows of the Dragon
),
Ti Lung
becomes master of the bo (aka staff or pole), and Chiang uses the steel whip (he hurls the sharpened point through two men at once during the climactic free-for-all).

Only Sheng, Chiang, and Lung survive at the fade-out, but this film’s success was to lead to many other Shaolin movies made by Chang Cheh
over the next two years — all featuring Fu Sheng
. In a very short time, this personable actor had won over audiences with his boyish, impish charm. Even when playing a serious character, he had a wit and prickly style unmatched by any other action star working. Cheh secured Sheng’s future by starring him in
The Chinatown Kid
(1977) and the
Brave Archer
series (1978-79).

The former film was probably one of the best modern kung fu movies made at that time. In it, Sheng plays an impoverished troublemaker who is forced to flee Hong Kong to an obviously backlot San Francisco. There he slaves in a Chinese restaurant, meeting up with a quiet student (Sun Chien
). Because Fu is such a good martial artist, he runs afoul of two warring street gangs, led by muscular Lo Mang
on one side and sophisticated Kuo Chui
on the other. Sheng is seduced by wealth and power, but when Sun Chien’s character becomes addicted to the drugs supplied by the gang, Sheng attacks his new bosses, killing all, but dying himself.