About

Presented in partnership with Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office

Celebrating unique popular action genres, 'Action, Hong Kong Style' is a landmark retrospective of 70 films that traces the genesis of Hong Kong's highly influential action cinema. The program ranges from early wuxia swordplay films with their Chinese opera roots to the Shaw Brothers and the new kung fu cinema of the late 1960s and 1970s, to the 'bullet ballet' of the 1980s and 1990s associated with John Woo and Johnnie To, and beyond to the present day. It profiles cult films and figures such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and Sammo Hung, as well as showcasing lesser known films and actors who deserve broader recognition. A special focus will be presented on Wong Fei-hung, the historical martial arts hero whose life has been more often adapted to film than any comparable figure. Recent cinematic attention to wing chun master Ip Man is also profiled through the inclusion of a number of high-impact features.

'Action, Hong Kong Style' points to the extraordinary reach of signature Hong Kong styles and stars worldwide. This in-depth curated program offers audiences a rare opportunity to appreciate spectacular action choreography and breathtaking physical feats on the big screen, and features recent digital restorations, as well as archival and distributor film prints from around the world.

Discussion
Thu 24 Oct 6.00pm / Cinema A (60 mins)
Join film specialists Sam Ho (United States/Hong Kong) and Professor Mary Farquhar (Australia), together with 'Action, Hong Kong Style' curator Kathryn Weir, Head of International Art and the Australian Cinémathèque, in a lively discussion exploring critical approaches to Hong Kong's unique action cinema styles.

Presenting partner: Hong Kong Asia's World City

QAGOMA thanks the Hong Kong Film Archive, Hong Kong; the Chinese Taipei Film Archive, Taiwan; and National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra for providing film prints for this program. Special thanks to Sam Ho for advising of the gorilla action titles. Program curated by Kathryn Weir, Australian Cinémathèque.

List of Works

• The Original Action Hero: Wong Fei-hung
• Southern Chinese folk hero, doctor and master of hung gar kung fu Wong Fei-hung (1847–1924) has been celebrated in over 100 films since Wu Pang's 1949 The True Story of Wong Fei-hung introduced this larger-than-life figure into the cinema.
• The True Story of Wong Fei-hung, Part One 1949 | Director: Wu Pang
• Wong Fei-hung, King of Lion Dance 1957 | Director: Wu Pang
• Challenge of the Masters 1976 | Director: Lau Kar-leung
• Drunken Master 1978 | Director: Yuen Woo-ping
• Martial Club 1981 | Director: Lau Kar-Leung, King Lee King-chue, Hsiao Ho
• Once Upon a Time in China 1991 | Director: Tsui Hark
• Once Upon a Time in China II 1992 | Director: Tsui Hark
• Once Upon a Time in China III 1993 | Director: Tsui Hark
• Drunken Master 2 1994 | Director: Lau Kar-Leung, Jackie Chan
• Big Ape Double
• Kung-fu legend Wong Fei-hung up against a gorilla? Not to mention King Kong turning up in the Celestial Palace. This surprising furry flurry of gorilla action may be accounted for by the persistent popularity of the original 1933 King Kong in Asia, which would culminate — two years after Wong Fei-hung's gorilla encounter — in Toho Studios' hugely successful King Kong vs. Godzilla 1962.
• King Kong's Adventures in the Heavenly Palace 1959 | Director: Wu Pang
• Wong Fei-hung's Battle with the Gorilla 1960 | Director: Wu Pang
• Shaw Brothers and 'New School' Wuxia
• Come Drink With Me 1966 | Director: King Hu
• Golden Swallow 1968 | Director: Chang Cheh (Zhāng Chè)
• The 14 Amazons 1972 | Director: Cheng Kang, Charles Tung Shao-yung
• Chang Cheh (1923–2002)
• Chang Cheh, one of the most celebrated Shaw Brothers directors in the 1960s and 1970s, is known for his yang gang staunchly masculine world of brutal violence and male bonding. John Woo, who worked with him as an assistant director on a number of films, identifies Chang as a key influence in the development of his own style of choreographic gunplay in the company of men.
• One-Armed Swordsman 1967 | Director: Chang Cheh (Zhāng Chè)
• Vengeance! 1970 | Director: Chang Cheh (Zhāng Chè)
• The Boxer from Shantung 1972 | Director: Chang Cheh (Zhāng Chè), Pao Hsueh-li
• The Five Venoms 1978 | Director: Chang Cheh (Zhāng Chè)
• King Hu (1932–97)
• King Hu is celebrated for his precisely choreographed and finely paced wuxia films which reinvigorated the xia nu, or courageous heroine, found in Chinese opera. On contract with the Shaw Brothers from the late 1950s, his first wuxia film and second film as director, Come Drink With Me 1966, brought him immediate recognition. The director left Shaw Brothers shortly afterwards and moved to Taiwan seeking greater creative freedom.
• Dragon Inn 1967 | Director: King Hu
• A Touch of Zen 1971 | Director: King Hu
• Bruce Lee (1940–73)
• The 'kung-fu craze' of the early to mid 1970s is synonymous with Bruce Lee, the first international martial arts superstar. The emphasis was on 'real fighting' and actors who had real martial arts training, typified by Lee who first studied wing chun kung-fu as a youth with master Ip Man, and later developed his own fighting style, with spectacular kicks developed from French savate and muay thai. Lee's fast, aggressive onscreen action was unlike anything audiences had seen, and — combined with his extraordinary onscreen magnetism — turned him into a global kung-fu cinema icon.
• The Big Boss 1971 | Director: Lo Wei
• Fist of Fury 1972 | Director: Lo Wei
• The Way of the Dragon 1972 | Director: Bruce Lee Siu-lung
• Enter the Dragon 1973 | Director: Robert Clouse
• Lau Kar-leung (1934–2013)
• The endlessly inventive and adaptable Lau Kar-leung began as an action director in the early 1960s, having studied hung kuen kung fu with his father, actor Lau Chan, himself a student of a disciple of Wong Fei-hung. Lau Kar-leung's films are marked by a deep concern with authenticity.
• The 36th Chamber of Shaolin 1978 | Director: Lau Kar-leung
• Legendary Weapons of China 1982 | Director: Lau Kar-leung
• Jimmy Wang Yu (b.1943)
• After his success in One-Armed Swordsman 1967, Jimmy Wang Yu transitioned from swordplay in Chang Cheh's ultra-violent Shaw Brothers wuxia films to unarmed kung-fu hero in his own directorial efforts. He transforms again to slick Bond-style supercop in the Hong Kong–Australian co-production The Man from Hong Kong.
• The Chinese Boxer 1970 | Director: Jimmy Wang Yu
• The Man from Hong Kong 1975 | Director: Jimmy Wang Yu, Brian Trenchard-Smith
• Tsui Hark (b.1950) and New Wave Wuxia
• With The Blade, Tsui Hark — a veteran of wuxia cinema — viscerally revisits a Shaw Brothers classic, Chang Cheh's One-Armed Swordsman. In Last Hurrah for Chivalry and Ashes of Time Redux, John Woo and Wong Kar-wai — better known respectively for 'bullet ballet' triad films and stylish meditations on romantic longing — have each turned their hand to the period wuxia film with remarkable results. Wong Kar-wai returns to the wuxia genre in his latest film about wing chun master Ip Man, The Grandmaster 2013