Birth of the Dragon

[GeneChing]

A new Bruce Lee biopic. The WJM duel (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?36573-Bruce-Lee-vs-Wong-Jack-Man-fight)again. :rolleyes:

Bruce Lee Biopic Draws ‘Adjustment Bureau’ Director (EXCLUSIVE) (http://variety.com/2014/film/news/bruce-lee-biopic-birth-of-the-dragon-director-george-nolfi-exclusive-1201198747/)

http://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/george-nolfi-bruce-lee-biopic-birth-of-the-dragon.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
Jim Spellman/WireImage
May 30, 2014 | 12:30PM PT
Film Reporter
Dave McNary
Film Reporter @Variety_DMcNary

“The Adjustment Bureau” director George Nolfi has come on board to helm Bruce Lee biopic “Birth of the Dragon” for Groundswell Productions and QED International.

The film will be produced by QED topper Bill Block, Groundswell CEO Michael London, Janice Williams, Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen Rivele. Kelly Mullen of Groundswell exec produces.

London told Variety that producers are aiming to begin shooting next spring.

The film is inspired by the true story of Bruce Lee’s historic 1965 duel with Wong Jack Man, China’s most famous kung fu master at a time when San Francisco’s Chinatown was controlled by Hong Kong Triads. The story of the match is told from the perspective of Steve Macklin, a young disciple of Lee, who ultimately joins forces with Lee and Wong to battle a vicious band of Chinatown gangsters.

The team of Wilkinson and Rivele, whose credits include “Nixon” and “Ali,” came on board last year to write the script.

Lee began appearing in films in the early 1970s before passing away in 1973.

QED is producing Bill Murray’s “Rock the Kasbah” and financed and produced Brad Pitt’s World War II actioner “Fury.” Groundswell productions include “Milk,” “The Visitor,” “Win Win” and “Very Good Girls.”

Nolfi’s writing credits include “Ocean’s Twelve,” “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “Need for Speed” and “The Adjustment Bureau,” which he adapted from the Philip K. **** novel.

Nolfi is also an executive producer on “Allegiance,” a drama about a young CIA analyst that received a series order earlier this month from NBC. Nolfi wrote and directed the pilot.

He’s repped by WME.

[GeneChing]

Bruce Lee Film, ‘Birth of the Dragon’ Gets Financing (http://www.awardscircuit.com/2014/08/14/bruce-lee-film-birth-dragon-gets-financing/)
By Clayton Davis on August 14, 2014@@AwardsCircuit

http://www.awardscircuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Bruce-Lee.jpg

Read the Press Release:
(PR NewsChannel) / August 14, 2014 / LOS ANGELES

Bliss Media Ltd. announced today that it is joining forces with QED International to co-finance and co-produce the upcoming Bruce Lee film, “Birth of the Dragon.”

“We’re excited to work with QED International to bring this story to life,” said Wei Han, president of Bliss Media Ltd. “Bruce Lee was not only a worldwide phenomenon, he helped create and shape a whole new sub-genre of the action film: martial arts movies.”

QED International, which is a leading independent motion picture production, financing and sales distribution company, has been behind A-list films such as: “Fury,” “That Awkward Moment,” “Elysium,” and “District 9.”

Led by experienced industry leaders in finance, production and screenwriting, Bliss Media is dedicated to linking the Chinese Motion Picture Industry with the rest of the world.

“Birth of the Dragon” is inspired by the true story of Bruce Lee’s legendary duel with China’s most famous kung fu master, Wong Jack Man, in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Told from the perspective of one of Lee’s disciples, the film then follows Lee as he takes on a vicious band of Chinatown gangsters.

Utilizing real-life events and characters, the film blends fiction with reality to create an original story that breaks the mold of the traditional biopic.

“Birth of the Dragon” will be directed by George Nolfi (“The Adjustment Bureau,” “Ocean’s Twelve,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”) from a script written by Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen Rivele (“Nixon,” “Ali”).

For more information on Bliss Media, visit www.blissmedialtd.com.
For more information on QED International, please visit http://www.qedintl.com/.

About Bliss Media Ltd.: A fast growing international film corporation that is actively involved in film financing, production, acquisition, sales and distribution, Bliss Media has offices in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The company is led by a team of experienced Hollywood industry players in top equity finance, production and screenwriting, including renowned producers who work exclusively on their dealings in China. Bliss Media is dedicated to pioneering a business model that links the booming Chinese Motion Picture Industry with the rest of the world. I wouldn't call Wong Jack Man 'China’s most famous kung fu master in San Francisco’s Chinatown' - maybe he is now because of the fight, but not back then.

[GeneChing]

http://castittalent.com/Upload/opencall/438071e2-e98c-44de-aaa1-8092670c5b30.jpg

Actor Search for Young Bruce Lee (http://castittalent.com/birth_of_the_dragon)

From the director of The Adjustment Bureau comes
BIRTH OF THE DRAGON
Produced by Groundswell Productions, the producers of The Illusionist, Milk and Sideways, and Kylin Films
Written by the Oscar nominated writers of Nixon and Ali
Casting By: Joanna Colbert and PoPing AuYoung

In San Francisco in the 1960s, a legendary fight took place between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man. It occurred in an abandoned warehouse before twelve witnesses, no two of whom could agree on what actually happened. But it changed the history of martial arts. This story is inspired by that fight.

Submit Your Audition
Follow these steps:
Role : Bruce Lee - Search
Download and read the audition taping instructions and scene / sides provided
Read and follow the video uploading ( Mac and Windows instructions )
Tape your video
To submit:


Cast It Talent FAQs
Bruce Lee - Search
Male. Age 20s - 30s. Young Bruce Lee. An experienced martial artist highly desired. Submit headshot and resumes for now, and a video example of martial arts skills.

IT IS FREE TO SUBMIT THROUGH THIS PAGE.

IF YOU ARE A TALENT REP AND WOULD LIKE TO SUBMIT MULTIPLE CLIENTS AT ONCE YOU MAY SET THEM UP YOURSELF OR INVITE YOUR ACTORS TO CREATE CAST IT PREMIUM ACCOUNTS AT WWW.CASTITTALENT.COM

IF YOU ARE AN ACTOR AND WANT TO SEND
A MORE DETAILED PACKAGE YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR A CAST IT TALENT
PREMIUM ACCOUNT AT WWW.CASTITTALENT.COM
I truly hope a forum member gets cast. Then again, I also truly hope a forum member cures cancer.

[GeneChing]

They must know by now. Maybe it'll be ScarJo. :p


HOLLYWOOD NORTH: Bruce Lee biopic begins filming in Vancouver next month (http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/movie-guide/bruce+biopic+begins+filming+vancouver+next/11365784/story.html)
Scott Brown, Vancouver Sun 09.14.2015

http://www.calgaryherald.com/cms/binary/4648897.jpg
Birth of the Dragon, a long talked-about Bruce Lee biopic, is scheduled to finally begin shooting next month at North Shore Studios.Handout / Files

Birth of the Dragon, a long talked-about Bruce Lee biopic, is scheduled to finally begin shooting next month at North Shore Studios.

The movie, which will be directed by George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau), has been in development limbo for 20 months. A lawsuit filed against Bill Block, one of the film's producers, may have played a part in the delay.

The script, penned by the writing duo of Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele, whose credits include Ali, Nixon and the upcoming Tupac, is described as an "origin story." Instead of being a traditional biography, the movie will tell the story of Bruce Lee's most legendary fight.

"A young, up-and-coming martial artist, Bruce Lee, challenges legendary kung fu master Wong Jack Man to a no-holds-barred fight in Northern California," reads the Internet Movie Database plot description.

There is no word on who will play Lee.

Production for Birth of the Dragon, which is scheduled to be a seven-week shoot, will begin Oct. 28.

[GeneChing]

China, US collaborate on Bruce Lee biopic (http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2015-11/04/content_36979815.htm)
By Zhang Rui

http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20151104/c03fd5566a1d17a408df10.jpg
Pang Hong, CEO of Kylin Pictures, speaks at the U.S.-China Co-production Film Summit held in Los Angeles on Nov.2, 2015. [Photo courtesy of Kylin Pictures]

A Chinese producer of the new Bruce Lee biopic said they will retell Lee's story in an international perspective at a U.S.-China film summit held in Los Angeles on Monday.

"As an internationally well-known Chinese Kung Fu star, Bruce Lee had a legendary life and starred in legendary works," said Pang Hong, CEO of Kylin Pictures, at the U.S.-China Co-production Film Summit, "We are expecting to show Lee's legend from an international perspective no matter what is going on in terms of production team selection or the storyline itself."

"The Adjustment Bureau" director George Nolfi has signed on to direct the biopic. He came to China for early preparations at end of October to research locations, including Lee's ancestors' home in Shunde, Guangdong Province, and study Chinese martial arts of a variety of styles, especially Lee's master Yip Man and his Wing Chun style.

Nolfi learned a lot about Lee and the environment he once lived in, as well as Chinese Kung Fu, in terms of actual combat techniques and philosophy, during his China trip.

Kylin Pictures will collaborate with Groundswell Productions and QED International to produce the film. It was reported that the story is inspired by the true story of Bruce Lee's historic 1965 duel with Wong Jack Man, China’s most famous Kung Fu master at the time when San Francisco's Chinatown was controlled by Hong Kong Triads. The film will also tell the story of Lee's life before he became an international Kung Fu megastar.

Nolfi's writing credits include "Ocean's Twelve," "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Need for Speed" and "The Adjustment Bureau." However, the Lee biopic script is being written by Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele.

Shooting Lee's biopic is also a learning process for Chinese filmmakers, Pang said.

"Though China may soon surpass the North American film market and become the biggest in the world, Chinese films are still a small part of the world market," Pang said, "We have to take care of our own business while we share a piece of the global film market."

Pang said investing in Hollywood projects is not just investing money, but also a chance to get Chinese involved and learn from the veteran Hollywood film industry. "We can then tell the Chinese story to the world by using the industry’s mature techniques," he said.

The film is expected to begin shooting next spring. Chinese actors Jin Xing, Xia Yu and a collection of Chinese martial arts masters will star in the film.

http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20151104/c03fd5566a1d17a4090813.jpg
Director George Nolfi sits in Bruce Lee's old house in Shunde, Guangdong Province during his four-day China trip to research relevant history and locations on Nov. 1, 2015. [Photo courtesy of Kylin Pictures]

http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20151104/c03fd5566a1d17a4090d14.jpg
Director George Nolfi learns Kung Fu techniques from Taichi Kung Fu master Wang Xi'an in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province during his four-day China trip to research relevant history and locations on Oct. 29, 2015. [Photo courtesy of Kylin Pictures]
Tai Chi. No disrespect to GM Wang, but Bruce had no love lost for Tai Chi. :rolleyes:

[boxerbilly]

Tai Chi. No disrespect to GM Wang, but Bruce had no love lost for Tai Chi. :rolleyes:

I hope they do as good a job as Rick Wing did with his fine book- Showdown in Oakland.

[GeneChing]

FILMING TO BEGIN ON GROUNDSWELL PRODUCTIONS’ “BIRTH OF THE DRAGON”
George Nolfi to Direct a Script by Academy Award nominees Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele.
Film Centers around Legendary Fight that Launched Bruce Lee to Martial Arts Stardom; Academy Award nominee Michael London producing through his Groundswell banner.

LOS ANGELES, CA (November 16, 2015) -- Principal photography begins on November 17 in Vancouver, British Columbia, of Groundswell Productions’ BIRTH OF THE DRAGON. George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau) will direct the martial arts action tale, which tells the story behind the legendary 1960s fight between Shaolin Master Wong Jack Man and the young Bruce Lee.

The international cast is headed by Tony Award nominee Billy Magnussen (Into the Woods, Bridge of Spies and the FX pilot Snowfall) as Steve McKee. The film recreates the mid-1960’s fight between Lee and Wong from the point of view of a young martial arts student whose allegiance became torn between Lee and Wong Jack Man. To this day, people still argue about who won the famous fight, but one thing is certain: after his battle with Wong, Bruce Lee reinvented himself and his style of kung fu.

Mainland Chinese actor Yu Xia (In the Heat of the Sun, The Painted Veil) will play Wong Jack Man. The 75-year-old Wong, who remained silent about the fight for many years, currently lives in the Bay Area, and retired from teaching martial arts in 2005 after 45 years.

Hong Kong-born Philip Ng (Once Upon A Time in Shanghai, Vegas to Macau) will play Lee. Ng was raised in Chicago where his family owns a successful martial arts studio. In his early twenties, after obtaining a master’s degree in Arts Education from the University of Illinois, Ng changed his plans and returned to Hong Kong to pursue a career in martial arts films.

Chinese actress Jinging Qu (Old Boys: The Way of the Dragon, Journey Through China) plays Magnussen’s love interest, Xiulan. The movie’s villain, a ruthless crime boss named Auntie Blossom, will be played by iconic Chinese artist, opinion leader and television host, Jin Xing.

The script was written by Academy Award nominees Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele (Nixon, Ali, Ferrari).

The film’s action sequences will be designed by renowned martial arts choreographer Corey Yuen, a graduate of the Peking Opera School. Yuen gained fame in American cinema beginning with the 1998 film Lethal Weapon 4, followed by the 2000 blockbuster X-Men and six of Jet Li’s American works, including Romeo Must Die and The Expendables.

Financed by Kylin Films, BIRTH OF THE DRAGON is being produced by Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Michael London and his producing partner Janice Williams, along with Wilkinson, Rivele and Kylin’s James H. Pang. Leo Shi Young, David Nicksay and Nolfi are executive producers, and Helen Y. Zhong, Jaeson Ma and Joel Viertel (who is also editing the film) are co-producers. Kylin was represented in the financing transaction by Ed Labowitz of Alexander, Lawrence, Frumes & Labowitz, LLP, and Groundswell by David Boyle.


“We’re thrilled to be telling one of the great untold stories in martial arts history, especially at this unique moment when China and Western audiences are opening up to each other as never before,” said London. “To work with a Chinese film company like Kylin on a story that has so much significance in China has been a wonderful collaboration, and, we hope, the first of many.”

Said Nolfi, “BIRTH OF THE DRAGON is a rare opportunity to make an action film with rich characters based on real events and real people. It’s a story about people from the East and West transcending their differences to work together, which is obviously a very timely story.”

#

Groundswell Productions is an independent financing and production company founded by Academy Award nominated producer Michael London. Groundswell has produced 13 films since its inception, including MILK, THE INFORMANT!, WIN WIN and THE VISITOR. Its films have garnered nine Academy Award nominations. SIDEWAYS received numerous honors, including five Academy Award nominations and one Oscar, the Golden Globe for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), the Spirit Award for Best Picture and the Palm Springs Film Festival award for Producer of the Year.

Groundswell’s current releases include TRUMBO, starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, John Goodman, Louis CK, and Helen Mirren; and LOVE THE COOPERS, starring Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Marisa Tomei, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Ed Helms and Anthony Mackie. Critically acclaimed THE FINAL GIRLS opened earlier this fall. Groundswell is in post-production on CONFIRMATION starring Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce. Upcoming projects include DESIRED MOMENTS, the debut of acclaimed commercial and video filmmaker Tom Kuntz.

On the television side, Groundswell is in production on the SyFy series MAGICIANS based on Lev Grossman’s bestselling book trilogy, which will premiere in January 2016. Additional TV projects include the FX pilot SNOWFALL, co-created and directed by John Singleton, and THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB. The half-hour tech comedy BETAS, Groundswell’s first foray into TV, aired on Amazon in 2014.


Kylin Pictures is one of China's leading entertainment companies focused, on producing timeless IP for the global film marketplace. Headquartered in Beijing and Shanghai, and with offices in Los Angeles, Kylin undertakes film and television development, financing, distribution, and talent management. As a well-respected bridge between the American and Chinese film industries, Kylin specializes in the creation and execution of co-productions. Kylin’s CEO & Chairman, James Pang, is one of the leading film producers in China.
Kylin established its international footprint with its first co-production, The Moon and The Sun. A fantasy film set in seventeenth century France, The Moon and The Sun, stars Pierce Brosnan, William Hurt and Fan Bingbing, and was produced with Pandemonium’s Bill Mechanic, the former Fox executive.

Prior to this, Kylin had substantial success domestically in China with its acclaimed fantasy film, Painted Skin: The Resurrection. It became the first Chinese movie to make over 100 million USD at the Chinese box office (over 1 billion RMB.)

Kylin is now developing a slate of co-production films with Hollywood studios and production companies. Its creative development team and investment group are actively seeking U.S. productions to invest in, with ambitions ranging from leading independent films to high-budget family blockbusters.


This is great for Philip Ng. I thought Philip was channeling Chen Zhen in OUaTiS (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67027-Once-Upon-a-Time-in-Shanghai&p=1280611#post1280611).

[GeneChing]

Philip Ng cast as Bruce Lee in Birth of the Dragon (http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/16/philip-ng-bruce-lee-birth-of-the-dragon)
BY OLIVER GETTELL • @OGETTELL

http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/styles/tout_image_612x380/public/1447712732/bruce-lee.jpg?itok=fzudbfEu
(Warner Brothers/Getty Images)
Posted November 16 2015 — 5:45 PM EST

Birth of the Dragon has found its Bruce Lee.

Hong Kong-born actor Philip Ng (Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, Vegas to Macau) is portraying the iconic martial artist in the action tale centering on a fateful fight between a young Lee and Northern Shaolin master Wong Jack Man in the 1960s. Yu Xia is playing Wong, and Billy Magnussen is playing Steve McKee, a young martial artist whose allegiance is torn between the two combatants.

Details of the confrontation have been debated for decades — what prompted it, how long it lasted, who won — but it is nonetheless regarded as a turning point in the development of Lee’s fighting philosophy.

George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau) is directing Birth of the Dragon, which begins principal photography Tuesday in Vancouver, Canada. Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele, whose credits include Ali and Nixon, wrote the script.

“Birth of the Dragon is a rare opportunity to make an action film with rich characters based on real events and real people,” Nolfi said in an announcement about the start of filming. “It’s a story about people from the East and West transcending their differences to work together, which is obviously a very timely story.”

Lee, who died from cerebral edema in 1973, would have been 75 this month. His family is also developing a separate biopic about him.

For those of you who don't recall, Philip used to write for us too. He interviewed Stephan Chow (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/index.php?p=article&article=381) for our May+June 2013 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/index.php?p=magazine&article=318) and wrote about fight choreography for film in Punching to Miss in our July August 2005 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/index.php?p=magazine&article=598).

[GeneChing]

Wong Jack Man versus Bruce Lee Mythology: On Bruce Lee Legends and the forthcoming George Nolfi 'bio-fic' (http://martialartsstudies.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/wong-jack-man-versus-bruce-lee.html)

The origin story of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do hinges on Lee's 1964 fight with Wong Jack Man. This is a crucial event in the martial arts biography of Bruce Lee, because it prompted his subsequent reflections on why he had not won quickly, cleanly and decisively. This caused him to revaluate critically his 'classical' or 'traditional' martial arts training and to begin researching and experimenting with both new theories of combat and innovating with new training methods and techniques.

So far, so good. But what about his opponent, Wong Jack Man? What does the origin story do with him? And, given the fact that Wong is still alive and disputes key aspects of the story, what might this tell us about 'reality'?

In many accounts – both in writing and in film – Wong is said to have challenged Lee to the fight because Lee was offending the Chinese martial arts community by teaching kung fu secrets to white and black westerners. In this narrative, Lee is a representative of an open-minded multiculturalism. If we follow the chain of dominoes that falls down from here, this means that Wong is conversely the representative of an essentially racist and closed Chinese community. If Lee is the future, Wong is the representative of a separatist, hierarchical and racist past. Wong writes his formal challenge letter and has it hand delivered to Lee by a deputy. In some versions, the letter actually comes from the elders and rulers of the Chinese martial arts community tout court, and Wong is their champion.

In these versions, the Chinese community is formal and structured. As such, for the word 'community' we can easily hear the word 'triads'. And the liberal multiculturalist Bruce Lee is accordingly anathema.

Of course, in literal terms, in this narrative, the Lee-Wong fight most frequently becomes a fight to decide Lee's right to teach martial arts at all, never mind to non-Chinese people. The point that is emphasized is that if he loses, he loses his right to teach at all. But, as I have been suggesting, the story has a strongly symbolic or even symptomatic dimension.

Given the symbolic character of the key coordinates of this hugely overdetermined narrative structure, the bits and pieces of information that we have been given about the plot line of the forthcoming 'biopic' on Bruce Lee, directed by George Nolfi, are understandable. As one site writes: 'It will focus, in part, on Bruce Lee's 1965 duel with famous kung fu master Wong Jack Man and the attempts all three men made to stem the influence the Triads had around San Francisco'.

Now, at first I found this laugh-out-loud funny. For what we have here is a total flight of fantasy. Bruce Lee teaming up with Wong to fight the triads?! But in terms of the overdetermined character of the Jeet Kune Do origin myth, this kind of thematic exploration makes a kind of perfect sense. For, if we think about these narratives, the fight takes place at a transitional time: Bruce Lee has yet to escape from his martial arts culture. He's struggling with it. He's an ethnically Chinese man in the US, with a white wife and a burning ambition. But in many respects he's still stuck in 'China'. As Gina Marchetti writes of the intra-ethnic struggle played out by Brandon Lee in Rapid Fire, to become smoothly 'Asian-American', there must be a battle with something 'Asian' that must be vanquished (Marchetti 2006, Bowman 2013). Thus, Lee comes into contact with the representatives of China-abroad, fights and wins. He is now free to renounce and transcend something of his past and embrace the future.

In these narratives, Wong becomes the bearer of all of the negative symbolism of a formal, ancient, traditional, violent, Triad-China. And Lee must beat this, to prove not just 'his' but also modern multicultural US superiority. But what of Wong? In real life, very little attention has been given to what Wong has said very about the fight, although the Wikipedia entry that appears highly in an online search on him is suggestive: 'According to Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce Lee's wife, Lee's teaching of Chinese martial arts to Caucasians made him unpopular with Chinese martial artists in San Francisco. Wong contested the notion that Lee was fighting for the right to teach Caucasians, as not all of his students were Chinese' [accessed 14 December 2015].

Nonetheless, in the films, such as Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, and even supposedly sober documentaries on Bruce Lee, such as one I appeared in (I Am Bruce Lee), Wong is roundly dismissed as a Chinese racist, pure and simple – a kind of capo of the racist Chinese 'authorities'.

As Sylvia Huey Chong has argued in her book, The Oriental Obscene (Chong 2012), the problem with this kind of narrative is that it locates racism related to the Chinese in the US firmly in the Chinese community: the Chinese are racist, because their community is closed and impenetrable, and so on. This means that even the celebratory narrative myths of Lee 'struggling against racism' displace the lion's share of 1960s racism away from the white hegemony and onto the shoulders of the ex pat Chinese community.

Given this, a reconsideration of famous characters like Wong in films like the forthcoming one from Nolfi do not seem surprising. But, on all the evidence we have to date about the likely plot structure, it seems that the film is following film-history rather than the biographical-history of Bruce Lee. But, this is hardly surprising: as Meaghan Morris has pointed out, it is easy to forget that films are primarily about films, at least as much as and before they are about anything else (Morris 2001).

In this light, it seems that George Nolfi's film will be in some sense responding to representations of Wong as typified by films like Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, and undertaking a reflection based primarily on them. And indeed we should ask, whether informed by film or by history: what about Wong? If Bruce Lee learned so much from this fight, what did Wong learn?

Surely both the real and the mythological Wong must have learned from the fight with Lee. And if Lee beat him, then what is the lesson that the mythological Wong might? That Lee's modern 'Western' ways are superior, perhaps even the future… Such a Wong might renounce the triads and indeed 'team up' with the mythological Lee on his ineluctable battle against iniquity, tradition without reason and blind conformity to style, etc.

Of course, I have scanty information about the film at this time. Only time will tell what the film comes to be. But we do have information about Wong, and his fight with Bruce Lee.

Continued next post

[GeneChing]

As mentioned, according to the Bruce Lee Posthumous Myth-Making Machine, Wong challenged Lee because Lee was teaching non-Chinese. However, according to Wong, he did not actually challenge Lee because of this. Indeed, many people have stated that Wong was actually responding (as an individual) to Lee's own open challenge to any martial artist to come and see how good he was. This makes so much more sense than the version peddled by certain members of the Lee family (see I Am Bruce Lee for a good example of this), in which Wong was angry at Lee for teaching white people. Moreover, in some of his few published statements, Wong notes that he was not actually racist at all and was indeed teaching white people kung fu at the time himself. His motivation for the fight was mere headstrong youthful arrogance and aggressiveness, pure and simple.

But why has this never been properly been heard, acknowledged or engaged? Why do people ignore the 'two arrogant young men jostling for position in their own egos' narrative and prefer instead the 'beating Chinese racism' narrative? Doubtless there are many reasons (this is what 'overdetermination' means): because a lot of cultural thinking takes place via symbols, metonyms and stand-ins (Freud regarded 'condensation and displacement' the key aspects of 'dream-work', and this can be applied to the ways that cultures deal with 'issues', such as, say, racism – we dramatize them via stand-ins and proxies, good guys and bad guys); because Bruce Lee supporters, including the family members who have since gone on to rely on Lee's brand for their income, have actively encouraged it; because we want the battles of our heroes to be parables, allegories, and to bespeak larger truths; and so on. Unfortunately, in this mushrooming mythological process, one living individual, Wong Jack Man, has been transformed into an enduring anti-hero, both bad guy and victim.

In the essay, 'Dominici: or, The Triumph of Literature', in Mythologies, Roland Barthes argues that a certain shared type of literary and cultural education became a key part of the prosecution's case against a man accused of murder in post-War France. The prosecution, said Barthes, relied entirely upon the kinds of association one would find in certain genres of literature to convert circumstantial evidence into 'proof' of the accused's 'inevitable' thoughts and behaviours. The case of Wong Jack Man has similar contours. But there is no courtroom for Wong other than the interminable media myth machine. Perhaps the most we can hope is that Nolfi's 'bio-fic' comes to redeem Wong in the mythical realm.

But, we have to wonder, who will them become the new bad-guy? One might suspect, 'Old China', again. Yet, China in 2015/16 is not the same as China in the 1960s, 70s, 80s or even 90s. Reports that in researching his story Nolfi went to China to research the taiji of Bruce Lee's father are tantalizing in this regard. For, if Nolfi is combining a reworking of the Wong Jack Man Fight Myth with an argument that Lee's 'one inch punch' can be traced back to taiji, then this sends out a clear signal that the film has transnational aspirations. For taiji is, of course, in Adam Frank's words, the very symbol of 'Chinese-ness', in both the PRC and indeed for the rest of the world (Frank 2006) – taiji has long been what Douglas Wile called China's cultural ambassador to the world (Wile 1996).

(In this light, if I were to indulge further in this kind of amateur plot diagnosis, I would be inclined to wager that it seems likely that 'the bad element' to be purged in the forthcoming bio-fic will not be 'old China', but rather the abomination/mutation that is 'China abroad', China unanchored, the China that has left China… And although this is surely going to be the Californian Chinese community, it also sounds a lot like the much reviled 'neither here nor there' China-outside-China that has long been played by Hong Kong.)

To my mind, if the film is set to combine the mythologised fight with a claim that Lee's Jeet Kune Do owes a direct causal debt to traditional taijiquan (in the form of a claim that taiji's 'short power' is the source of Lee's 'one inch punch', for instance), then this attests to the transnational ideological alignment of the Bruce Lee Industry and the dominant ideology of the PRC. Transnational-Lee seems likely to be set to work for both Hollywood orientalism and the huge markets of the PRC – when 'PRC' no longer stands for the 'People's Republic of China' and now refers more to the 'Public Relations of China'.



References


Bowman, Paul. 2013. Beyond Bruce Lee: Chasing the Dragon through Film, Philosophy and Popular Culture. London and New York: Wallflower Press.

Chong, Sylvia Shin Huey. 2012. The Oriental obscene: violence and racial fantasies in the Vietnam era. Durham: Duke University Press.

Frank, Adam. 2006. Taijiquan and the Search for the Little Old Chinese Man: Understanding Identity through Martial Arts. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Marchetti, Gina. 2006. From Tian'anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens, 1989-1997. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Morris, Meaghan. 2001. "Learning from Bruce Lee." In Keyframes: Popular Cinema and Cultural Studies, edited by Matthew Tinkcom, and Villarejo, Amy, 171-184. London: Routledge.

Wile, Douglas. 1996. Lost T'ai Chi Classics of the Late Ch'ing Dynasty. New York: State University of New York.

For more, see Bruce-Lee-vs-Wong-Jack-Man-fight (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?36573-Bruce-Lee-vs-Wong-Jack-Man-fight) & Martial-Arts-Studies-Disrupting-Disciplinary-Boundaries-by-Paul-Bowman (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69140-Martial-Arts-Studies-Disrupting-Disciplinary-Boundaries-by-Paul-Bowman)

[GeneChing]

Man, I'm just back from vacation and swamped playing catch-up or I'd give Philip a holler.


Bruce Lee Biopic 'Birth Of The Dragon' Filming In SF This Week (http://hoodline.com/2016/01/bruce-lee-biopic-birth-of-the-dragon-filming-in-sf-this-week)

https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15375/Bruce_Lee_as_Kato_1967.jpg
Bruce lee as kato 1967 Photo: Wikipedia
Thu. January 7, 2016, 10:19am
2015 03 20 at 12.40.55 pm by Geri Koeppel

A new biopic about legendary martial artist Bruce Lee is filming in San Francisco this week. Titled Birth of the Dragon, it's the story of the famed 1965 fight between Lee, then 25, and Shaolin Master Wong Jack Man. George Nolfi, writer of Ocean's Twelve and The Bourne Ultimatum, is directing, with Hong Kong martial arts star Philip Ng as Lee.

According to the San Francisco Film Commission, shooting on the film began yesterday and will continue through Monday. Lincoln Park Golf Course, near the Legion of Honor, was the shooting site yesterday, and will continue today. From there, the production will move to the SS Jeremiah O'Brien-National Liberty Ship Memorial at Fisherman's Wharf. The final shoots will take place in Chinatown—on Spofford Street, one of the neighborhood's alleys, and near Grant Avenue and California Street.

A tweet shows another Dragon-related filming notice, for Leavenworth & Union and Leavenworth & Grant from 7am–2pm Saturday:


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYEADXWUAAA09j9.jpg

Channing Thomson
‏@CHANNINGPOSTERS
Hollywood is shooting a 1960s Bruce Lee biopic near my place this weekend. #SanFrancisco #BirthoftheDragon #BruceLee



According to the notice, vehicles from the 1960s, the era in which the film is set, will be placed in the vicinity.

"The 75-year-old Wong, who remained silent about the fight for many years, currently lives in the Bay Area, and retired from teaching martial arts in 2005 after 45 years," says an article on Comingsoon.net. He'll be played in the film by Chinese actor Yu Xia (In the Heat of the Sun, The Painted Veil), with Tony Award nominee Billy Magnussen (Into the Woods, Bridge of Spies) as Steve McKee, a young martial arts student torn between the two fighters.

[GeneChing]

This would have been fun to see.


Bruce Lee Movie Set Recreates 1960s Chinatown (http://hoodline.com/2016/01/bruce-lee-movie-set-recreates-1960s-chinatown)

https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15436/IMG_9561.1.jpg
Photo: Mahmoud F.
Sat. January 9, 2016, 4:37pm

by Eric Eldon
@eldon

Chinatown location Grant Avenue and California Street, sf, ca

What were all the classic cars and people dressed in vintage clothing doing in Chinatown today?

They were part of the set for Birth Of The Dragon, a biopic about Bruce Lee and his controversial 1965 fight as a young martial arts star against Shaolin Master Wong Jack Man.

https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15442/IMG_9563.jpg

George Nolfi, writer of Ocean's Twelve andThe Bourne Ultimatum, is directing, with Hong Kong martial arts star Philip Ng as Lee. The Chinatown set wraps up a series of shoots that have been happening for the movie around the city.

More details in our earlier post.

And now for additional photos from readers.

https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15446/IMG_2841.JPG
Chinatown resident Wilma Pang (front left) sent in this photo from her part as a background actor on the set.

https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15439/IMG_9558.jpg
https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15438/IMG_9572.jpg
https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15440/IMG_9560.jpg
Above photos by Mahmoud F.

https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15443/12549084_10102068601502803_836636573855981780_n.jp g
Photo by Jennie K.

https://hoodwork-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/story/image/15444/2785176a-7c23-437b-b985-2a7f7ff94c96.jpg
Photos by Alister H.

[GeneChing]

How a Bruce Lee Origin Tale Is Taking Flight With Chinese Money and Abundant Diplomacy (http://variety.com/2016/film/news/chinese-money-fuels-bruce-lee-biopic-1201690044/)

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/bruce-lee.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
MOVIESTORE COLLECTION/REX SHUTTERSTOCK
JANUARY 28, 2016 | 04:01PM PT
James Rainey Senior Film Reporter @RaineyTime

Despite clouds and the threat of rain, San Francisco spreads gloriously before director George Nolfi and the cast and crew of “Birth of the Dragon.” From their perch high atop Twin Peaks, they are shooting the climactic shot of the “kung fu fable” — their Steve McQueen-ish hero riding his motorcycle off to a new life.

When the sun shoots suddenly through the gloom, Nolfi shouts for another take: “Get the motorcycle down here! There’s light on the city!” And, indeed, just as doubles for Billy Magnussen and his girlfriend (played by Jingjing Qu) roar past, sunlight splashes across the panorama and the golden dome of City Hall behind them.

“That was great, right?” the usually more reserved director Nolfi calls across the hillside. “That was bad ass!”

The makers of “Birth of the Dragon” have much to celebrate, beyond Mother Nature’s gift. Their origin tale on the emergence of Bruce Lee as martial arts superstar and cross-cultural role model is nearing the end of its 45-day shoot. They stand ready to capitalize on one of the few figures who could resonate with audiences from Dallas to Hangzhou – promising a shot at box office magic in the two biggest film-viewing nations in the world. And, unusually, the Chinese-American co-production obtained its entire $31 million production budget from a single Chinese company, Kylin Pictures, a rarity in a business in which risk and reward are normally sliced in myriad ways.

The fact that “Birth of the Dragon” arrived at this juncture — with principal photography wrapping in Vancouver this week with Hong Kong-born Philip Ng playing Lee — is a tribute to the tenacity and determination of its producers on both sides of the Pacific. It’s also a case study in the cultural acuity required in still fledgling Sino-American entertainment collaborations.

For director Nolfi that meant traveling to China at the 11th hour, on the eve of shooting, to drink copious baijiu toasts with his producers and other hosts, to dine on live scorpions and to submit to a (literal) throw-down from a martial arts master. For producer Michael London, of Groundswell Productions, it meant making an emergency trip to China over the Christmas holiday, when the Chinese funding spigot threatened to run dry.

“You have a Chinese company funding a movie about one of the great icons of the global film industry and making the first film actually about this icon that will be seen in China and it is being produced by an American company. Now, how cool is that? That is really cross-pollination,” said Andre Morgan, the producer behind the 1973 documentary “Bruce Lee: The Man and the Legend” and longtime China hand.

“Birth of the Dragon” springs from the true story of Bruce Lee’s 1965 showdown with Wong Jack Man, another martial arts master. It is set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s Chinatown and under the shadow of the Hong Kong organized crime triads. Magnussen plays Steve McKee, the audience’s emissary to this emerging world, caught between the two martial arts masters.

The project gained steam with a script from Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele, the team behind two previous winning stories about major historical figures, “Nixon” and “Ali” and then the signing of Nolfi (who helmed the Emily Blunt, Matt Damon-starrer “The Adjustment Bureau”) to direct.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/georgenolfi.jpg?w=670
Director George Nolfi
COURTESY OF GROUNDSWELL PRODUCTIONS

London and the other producers (Groundswell’s Janice Williams, Wilkinson and Rivele, with Groundswell’s Kelly Mullen executive producing) intended to have a mostly Chinese and Chinese-American cast and to shoot in the Middle Kingdom, so it made sense to look for a Chinese financial backer.

The power of the Asian market and financing has been clear to Western filmmakers for years, but myriad deals (investment in Jeff Berg’s Resolution agency, a Legendary Pictures buy-in by Huayi Brothers, for example) have fallen apart before they became final.

The biggest Asian companies did not step forward but Kylin, headed by CEO James Pang and previous funder of 50% of the Pierce Brosnan vehicle, “The Moon and The Sun,” expressed interest. Kylin’s U.S. representative, Leo Shi Young, said the company saw an opportunity in the Lee origin tale to create the kind of breakthrough long desired in China but seldom achieved: a Chinese-themed film that would attract a U.S. and international audience.

“The motivation, the push, is to go to the international, into the U.S. and European market, because China’s domestic film market, alone, is crowded,” said Shi Young. “We want to make good films and the filmmaking standard [in China] is not always high.”

The $31 million commitment, solely from the company, was unusual for such trans-Pacific partnerships that typically have multiple funding sources. It initially was received as both a blessing and a concern by the U.S. partners.

“My reps across the board said, ‘We know you love this project but there have been lot of projects with Chinese financing and you have to assume it will fall apart,’ ” Nolfi recalled. But the director was originally a student of political philosophy and international relations at Princeton and then Oxford, before turning to screenwriting. “Dragon” suited his internationalist sensibilities.

“It’s a film about how those people come into conflict but ultimately make the world better because of their interaction,” Nolfi said, at the end of a day of shooting in San Francisco. “I don’t think there is a more important theme to address in a world that is in the kind of persistent cultural conflict that we are in.”

Nolfi was in final preparations to begin shooting in November when his Kylin partners insisted he come to China to meet luminaries and tour sites important in the development of Kung Fu. Such a junket initially seemed a distraction. “I was very apprehensive about taking a trip two weeks before I shot,” Nolfi said.

But Kylin agreed to give him additional prep days and Nolfi agreed to the tour. His hosts felt it was important that their director see firsthand the birthplaces of tai chi and shaolin, among the disciplines Lee combined to create his own unique fighting style. A contingent of eight or more also joined him in the Shunde district in the southern city of Foshan, where the young Bruce Lee spent much of his youth, after his birth in San Francisco.

At his first stop, in the city of Hangzhou, Nolfi got a demonstration from a tai chi luminary, Master Wang, who promptly put the filmmaker on the ground, in one deft move. “There’s nothing like getting knocked down by a 73-year-old man in front of 30 cameras,” Nolfi said.

Nolfi quickly embraced the tour and the chance to get a better sense of the culture that spawned two of his leading characters, Lee and his rival, Wong Jack Man. The filmmaker met Communist Party officials, local politicians and the press, in droves. In a nation where film publicity is driven, not by paid television ads, but by free media and social media, the American was followed by a horde of journalists. His Kylin hosts alone took more than 6,000 photos.

And each stop included expansive banquets and multiple toasts of potent baijiu liquor. Nolfi tried to make the most of the opportunity. At one stop, he met a bureaucrat who oversees Yuntai Mountain Park. Many Chinese will recognize the nature reserve as sitting on the border of the homes of two competing martial arts traditions.

Nolfi determined that the veritable Mount Olympus was symbolically the perfect locale for an opening scene that features a confrontation between two masters. So, already six potent drinks into an endless lunch, he rose to formally ask the administrator who oversees the park for his blessing to film there. The bureaucrat rose to propose yet another toast. Nolfi accepted. “I haven’t had to drink like that in a long time,” Nolfi said. He expects to be shooting in Yuntai in March.

The filmmaker understood that he had to make his financiers comfortable with his cultural sensitivity. “Kung Fu is maybe the most famous element of Chinese culture to travel the rest of the world,” he said. “They care about how some Western guy is going to portray it.” Nolfi passed the test, said Kylin’s Shi Young. “It turned out to be a very fruitful trip,” said Shi Young. “He understands now, I believe, much better.”

The director’s road trip sealed his relationship with his Kylin. He began filming in Vancouver just days later. But business across the International Date Line can hit unexpected bumps, even after a deal is sealed.

In December, with the Chinese economy stalling and the value of the yuan dropping, the “Dragon” producers became convinced that the Chinese government clamped down on currency conversions to dollars. Why? Because they experienced a sudden and ill-timed interruption in the flow of funds from Kylin, midway through the shoot.

Kylin had asked that London fly to China for a ceremonial press conference, just four days before Christmas. London agreed to go, but wanted assurances that the flow of dollars would resume. Happily, by the time he landed after an 13-hour flight, the money had transferred. The producer could keep paying his cast and crew. “The money showed up,” London said, “because Kylin was able to use its resources and connections to work around the government mandate.”

Now, “The Birth of the Dragon” is cruising toward a wrap. Hong Kong-born, Chicago-raised Philip Ng is amazing the crew with his fighting skills, as the pre-legend Lee. The ebullient Magnussen (Kato Kaelin in the upcoming “The People v. O.J. Simpson”) hugs visitors to the set and occasionally shouts with glee, “We’re making a Kung Fu movie!”

And Nolfi feels he has been given a gift to act as a cross cultural ambassador.

“And it is my sincerest hope that the Chinese American people and our government get closer and closer together, because you cannot solve the world’s problems without them getting together,” says the one-time diplomacy student.

But the film director knows that, to score a real victory, he needs more than just goodwill. “I don’t want to make just an action movie or just a Kung Fu movie,” Nolfi said. “I want to make a film with something to say, but also a movie that is fun and a little fanciful.”



Nothing like baijiu (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?60794-bai-jiu) and scorpions. :D

[GeneChing]

This will surely get U.S. theatrical distribution.


‘Birth of the Dragon’ is ready to deliver… (http://www.impactonline.co/film/9764-birth-of-the-dragon/)
28 Apr 2016/Mike Leeder

http://www.impactonline.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1NEWIMPACT-Birth-750x330.jpg

Philip Ng essays the story of the fateful and controversial encounter between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack-man in a new biopic…

It’s a wrap for Birth of the Dragon, directed by George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau).The movie explores the life of the legendary Bruce Lee, using the much discussed fight between Lee and Wong Jack-man as a jumping off point.

Impact has long championed Philip Ng from (Once Upon a Time in Shanghai) – and who plays Bruce Lee in the movie – and we’re hoping this film opens all manner of doors both locally and internationally for him. The man has the looks, the moves (exceptional martial arts skills both traditional and modern) and a great attitude and we couldn’t see it happening to a nicer guy!

Yu Xia (from Dragon Squad) plays Wong Jack-man, Billy Magnusson, Qu Jingjing, Simon Yin from Man with the Iron Fists 2 and Darren E Scott from Almost Human and Killing Salazar, are also attached to the film. While Corey Yuen (Above the Law, Kiss of the Dragon) has been the films primary choreographer, it sounds as if Ng who is an established choreographer in his own right, has also been involved in putting together some of the action with his fight team that includes Benny Ko from Police Story 2 and Alfred Hsing from Dragon Blade.

The film is adapted from a screenplay by Christopher Wilkinson (Ali) and Stephen J Rivele (Nixon). The fight between Wong Jack-man and Bruce has long been a subject of controversy with Wong’s side claiming it was a very serious physical confrontation that resulted in Lee’s brutal defeat, while Lee’s side has said it was a simple challenge match with very different results. The match has previously been depicted in various Lee biopics, including Rob Cohen’s Dragon the Bruce Lee Story, which saw former Jackie Chan Stunt-team mainstay playing a Wong inspired character who brutally beats Lee to a near crippling defeat.

We’re hoping for a first look at some footage shortly but in the meantime here’s a taste of what Philip Ng is capable of…


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwWruCkAuiI

[Jimbo]

I also hope this opens doors for Philip Ng. IMO, he is truly an 'old-school' talent, and I mean that in a good way. Probably the best up-and-comer in the MA film industry in terms of sheer physical talent, even though he has already been making movies for awhile now. He can be right at home in period or modern settings. I want to see more of his work so I can comment more accurately on it, but what I have seen is impressive.

If he hasn't already, Philip would be a great onscreen match for Donnie Yen. Unless Donnie is moving on from action after Ip Man 3.

[SteveLau]

Has the movie been released in theatre? I would like to view it at least in video.




Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[GeneChing]

I cherry-picked the significant titles of figures mentioned here. Follow the link if you want the full line up.


Toronto Film Festival 2016: Magnificent Seven, La La Land to screen (http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/26/toronto-film-festival-2016-lineup)
Slate also includes new Christopher Guest ensemble 'Mascots,' Justin Timberlake's 'JT + the Tennessee Kids'
BY JOEY NOLFI • @JOEYNOLFI

Posted July 26 2016 — 11:24 AM EDT

The first round of films playing at the 41st Toronto International Film Festival have been announced, with Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven set to kick off the event with a western-infused bang on Sept 8.

Fuqua’s opening night film stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Byung-hun Lee in a tale of seven outlaws recruited by a local woman (Haley Bennett) to do battle with an oppressive industrialist (Peter Sarsgaard) encroaching upon her hometown’s territory.

Other titles screening at this year’s festival include Christopher Guest’s new ensemble comedy, Mascots, in addition to Damien Chazelle’s Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone musical La La Land, Werner Herzog’s Salt and Fire, Ewan McGregor’s American Pastoral, and Nocturnal Animals, Tom Ford’s directorial follow-up to A Single Man.

This year’s star-studded Gala slate features Amy Adams’ Arrival, Mark Wahlberg’s Deepwater Horizon, Ruth Negga’s Cannes drama Loving, the Lyndon B. Johnson biopic LBJ, Nicole Kidman’s Lion, and the Lupita Nyong’o-starring Queen of Katwe, among others.

Closing the annual event’s 2016 edition is The Edge of Seventeen, Kelly Fremon Craig’s directorial debut revolving around the angsty life of a teenage girl (Hailee Steinfeld) grappling with the awkwardness of growing up as her best friend falls in for her popular older brother. The film also stars Woody Harrelson and Kyra Sedgwick.

TIFF spearheads a four-pronged dive into awards season on the festival front as it, along with events in Telluride, Venice, and New York, plays an important part in facilitating the rise of emerging Oscar contenders. As a key precursor in the awards race, all eyes will be on TIFF’s full lineup, which often hosts high-profile premieres of Oscar-bound films, and is set to be revealed in installments in the coming weeks.

As a time-tested launching pad for awards hopefuls, the largely non-competitive festival’s only major accolade is bestowed by festivalgoers themselves, as the TIFF People’s Choice Award is voted on by the public, not a curated jury of industry professionals. Since 2008, seven of TIFF’s People’s Choice Award winners have gone on to either win or be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, including Silver Linings Playbook, 12 Years a Slave, and Precious. Last year’s champion, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, scored four Academy Award nominations, with star Brie Larson winning in the Best Actress category.

The 2016 Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept. 8-18. Additional titles playing at the festival will be announced soon. Check out the just-announced list of Special Presentation and Gala titles playing at TIFF 2016 below.

GALAS:

The Magnificent Seven, Antoine Fuqua, USA - World Premiere
Director Antoine Fuqua brings his modern vision to a 1960 western classic. With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue, the desperate townspeople, led by Emma Cullen, employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns. As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money. Starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-Hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett and Peter Sarsgaard.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

Birth of the Dragon George Nolfi, USA/China/Canada - World Premiere
Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1964, this cross-cultural biopic chronicles Bruce Lee’s emergence as a martial- arts superstar after his legendary secret showdown with Shaolin master Wong Jack Man. While details of the fight are hotly disputed to this day, one thing is clear — out of that epic fight, Bruce Lee emerged as The Dragon, the man who brought Kung Fu to the world. Starring Billy Magnussen, Xia Yu, and Philip Ng.

The Handmaiden (Agassi) Park Chan-wook, South Korea - North American Premiere
A crook-turned-servant falls for the vulnerable heiress she had originally schemed to swindle, in this audacious, visually sumptuous, and highly erotic period piece from writer-director Park Chan-wook. Starring Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo, Cho Jin-woong, Kim Hae-sook, and Moon So-ri.

The Wasted Times (Luo Man Di Ke Xiao Wang Shi) Cheng Er, China - World Premiere
Love, hatred, and betrayal abound in Shanghai during the chaotic, war-torn 1930s. Mr. Lu is ambushed during an important meeting with the Japanese army, but his sister’s husband, Watabe, sacrifices himself to save Mr. Lu. Worse still, the Japanese brutally murder Mr. Lu’s children and sister. To avenge their deaths, Mr. Lu’s mistress attempts to kill the culprit but ends up dead. Years later as the Sino- Japanese war comes to a close, Mr. Lu visits Mrs. Wang, the abandoned wife of his former boss who reveals an astonishing truth about the tragedy. Cast includes Zhang Ziyi, Ge You, and Tadanobu Asano.

[GeneChing]

Is that Wong Jack Man in a monk robe (http://www.martialartsmart.com/45-001.html)?

Click the link below to see:

TIFF (http://tiff.net/films/birth-of-the-dragon/index.html)
FESTIVAL 2016/SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS (FESTIVAL 2016)
Birth of the Dragon
George Nolfi
USA / China / Canada 103 minutes World Premiere 2016 STC COLOUR

Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s Chinatown, this cross-cultural film chronicles Bruce Lee’s emergence as a martial-arts superstar after his legendary secret showdown with fellow martial artist Wong Jack Man.

[GeneChing]

I only cut&pasted the BotD part. I guess we'll know more after next week.


Toronto Hot List: 16 Market Titles Generating Buzz (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/toronto-hot-list-16-market-925813/item/all-i-see-is-you-925840)

6:15 AM 9/6/2016 by Tatiana Siegel
Projects starring the likes of Anne Hathaway ('Colossal'), Natalie Portman ('Jackie') and Christian Bale ('The Promise') will be hoping to get some love from dealmakers and awards-season attention when the fest kicks off Sept. 8.

http://cdn4.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/list_landscape_960x541/2016/09/jackie_-_the_promise_-_split_-_h_-_2016.jpg
Courtesy of TIFF

Just two years ago, the Toronto market hit a high-water mark when the Chris Rock comedy Top Five sparked a fierce bidding war, with worldwide rights selling to Paramount for $12.5 million. But no one is expecting the 2016 edition to reach those heights, at least not for a finished film. As film companies have fallen away (Alchemy, Radius) and others hover under a question mark (The Weinstein Co., Broad Green), no new players have emerged to pick up the slack. In fact, most predict this year will be a buyer's market, especially since 2015's top finished film sale, the thriller Hardcore Henry, failed to justify its $10 million worldwide rights price tag (it only earned $9 million domestically). After all, most of the flashier titles, like Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals, sold long ago. And though Netflix and Amazon continue their buying sprees, the streaming giants increasingly are buying off-market and coming in at an earlier stage. "Buyers like us will have an advantage because some of our competitors are struggling or seem to be off the grid altogether," says Bill Bromiley, president of Saban Films.

But even in a cautious market, a few titles are generating big buzz. These 16 are likely to get buyers to let down their guard:

...

Birth of the Dragon
Special Presentations, Sept. 13 (WME)

http://cdn5.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/list_landscape_960x541/2016/08/birthofthedragon_04-h_2016.jpg
Courtesy of TIFF

DIRECTOR George Nolfi

STARS Xia Yu, Philip Wan-Lung Ng, Billy Magnussen

BUZZ Up-and-coming martial artist Bruce Lee challenges legendary kung fu master Wong Jack Man to a no-holds-barred fight in this finished film.

[GeneChing]

Toronto 2016: Pre-Buys Prized As Festival Gets Underway (http://deadline.com/2016/09/toronto-film-festival-2016-movies-to-watch-tiff-preview-1201815116/)
by Mike Fleming Jr
September 8, 2016 11:08am

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/birth-of-the-dragon.jpg?w=446&h=299&crop=1
Groundswell Productions

The fact that the first major deal at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival is for a film that isn’t here — Focus Features won the untitled ’50s London fashion industry drama that Paul Thomas Anderson will direct with Daniel Day-Lewis — underscores how profoundly the independent theatrical acquisitions has turned toward pre-buys of film packages. Toronto has always been viewed as a terrific place for distributors to launch Oscar-season films, and to supplement their slates with acquisitions of finished films. Deals were sluggish last Toronto: STX made the splashiest deal for Hardcore Henry, Bleecker Street got the top earner in Eye In The Sky and Michael Moore’s docu Where To Invade Next was done in by his insistence on bypassing Netflix for a theatrical release and then being walloped by pneumonia and unable to promote it.

I am getting the impression that buyers are ready to be wowed, and that there will be several large deals either during the festival or right after. If I had any advice, it would be for buyers to consider extending their return trip if it means missing Birth Of The Dragon, which won’t be screened until 3 PM Tuesday at the Ryerson, and probably won’t last until subsequent screenings are set for L.A. I saw the picture, part fact and part fable about a legendary brawl that Bruce Lee fought against Shaolin master Wong Jack Man. The George Nolfi-directed film from Groundswell is a throwback to the spirit of Lee’s ’70s martial arts hits and has real breakout mainstream potential even if the most recognizable stars are the characters of Lee and Steve McQueen.

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/natalie-portman-as-jackie.jpg?w=151&h=224&crop=1
Pablo Larrain

There will also likely be a quick deal for the Pablo Larrain-directed Jackie, the drama that stars Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy as she secures her husband’s legacy in the week following his assassination. The picture got exquisite reviews in its debut at the Venice Film Festival and offers are coming in. Buyers have been primed for the picture since Cannes when promo footage was shown, even though they didn’t bite back then.

That pre-buy restraint is changing. There are plenty of finished films here that are high on buyer lists, but don’t be surprised if some of the biggest sales come in unexpected places. All of the major agents — who preface festival conversations by counting all the pictures launching here that they packaged in pre-buy deals — tell me they’ve got a few plum projects in their pockets. Strong sales candidates not on the Toronto slate include The Leisure Seeker, the Paolo Virzi-directed romp that stars Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland as a couple that takes an adventure in a Winnebago. Another is We Do Not Forget, the Zach Helm-directed drama that stars Daniel Radcliffe and Zachary Quinto in a fictionalized showdown between hacker activists and a ruthless Mexican drug cartel. Other promos buyers will see include the Danny Strong-directed JD Salinger drama Rebel In The Rye with Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Spacey and Laura Dern starring. Others I’m hearing rumors of include the Fernando Trueba-directed The Queen Of Spain with Penelope Cruz.

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/margot-robbie-tonya-harding.jpg?w=301&h=202&crop=1
Rex/Shutterstock/Associated Press

Other possible surprises could include packages like I, Tonya, the drama that will have Margot Robbie playing disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, with Craig Gillespie directing. That picture is looking like a real thing with financier Len Blavatnik circling, with shooting likely to start early next year. There are plenty more where that one came from.

Some reports have painted a picture of caution caused by the hardships facing the record-setting Sundance film The Birth of A Nation following Deadline’s revelation of a 17-year-old rape charge against filmmaker-star Nate Parker (he was acquitted). Buyers and agents don’t expect it to be a factor as they look for slate-filling films. The glare on Parker because of the circumstances of the incident and the subsequent suicide of the woman 12 years later certainly tarnishes the charmed Oscar track the picture was on, but it is a total anomaly. Distributors need quality product and seem willing to pay for it, as evidenced by the way Focus stepped up on the PTA-Day-Lewis film which constitutes roughly twice the financial outlay of Parker’s Sundance film.

The other area worth watching is Midnight Madness, where some of the most profitable genre titles are hatched. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions president Steven Bersch reminds that finding those frightful gems isn’t easy. Bersch is riding high on the genre thriller Don’t Breathe, but the title of his Toronto experience ought to be Don’t Sleep.

“I remember when we bought Insidious,” he said. “It was my second or third Toronto, so I still had the energy, but this was my fifth midnight movie in a row, on a Tuesday night. The reason we got it is, everybody sent junior executives, but I dragged myself there. While everybody was sleeping, we were making a deal, with FilmDistrict doing domestic, and we closed at 6:10 in the morning. Everybody woke up hearing it was pretty good, but by then it was gone. We just announced Insidious 4, so it was worth it, but it isn’t easy.”

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Here are the titles that buyers and sellers are most high on:

BIRTH OF THE DRAGON – Director: George Nolfi. Cast: Billy Magnussen, Xia Yu, Philip Ng. Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1964, this cross-cultural biopic chronicles Bruce Lee’s emergence as a martial arts superstar after his legendary secret showdown with Shaolin master Wong Jack Man. Details of the fight staged in front of a handful of witnesses are still disputed, but it launched Lee’s star and cemented his legacy as the man who brought kung fu to the world.
1st Screening: Tuesday, September 13, 3 PM – Ryerson Theatre

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/colossal_01_web.jpg?w=301&h=202&crop=1
TIFF

COLOSSAL – Director: Nacho Vigalondo. Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson. An aimless party girl discovers a mysterious connection between herself and a giant monster wreaking havoc on the other side of the globe.
1st Screening: Friday, September 9, 9 PM – Ryerson Theatre

JACKIE – Director: Pablo Larraín. Cast: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, John Hurt. After JFK is murdered, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband’s historic legacy.
1st Screening: Sunday, September 11th, 8:30 PM- Winter Garden Theatre

MAUDIE — Director: Aisling Walsh. Cast: Sally Hawkins, Ethan Hawke. Fact-based tale of Maude Lewis, who overcame the physical challenge of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis to become one of Canada’s premier folk artists.
1st Screening: Monday, September 12, 5:30 PM – Visa Screening Room (Elgin)

MESSAGE FROM THE KING – Director: Fabrice Du Welz. Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Teresa Palmer, Luke Evans, Alfred Molina. Mysterious traveler from South Africa combs the Los Angeles underworld for those responsible for the death of his sister.
1st Screening: Thursday, September 8, 6 PM – Visa Screening Room (Elgin)

BRIMSTONE — Director: Martin Koolhoven. Cast: Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Kit Harington. A woman running from her past meets a zealot preacher and an outlaw along the way.

PARIS CAN WAIT – Director: Eleanor Coppola. Cast: Diane Lane, Arnaud Viard, Alec Baldwin. An American woman in a tired marriage finds herself on an unforeseen road trip from Cannes to Paris with a dashing Frenchman. A seven-hour drive unexpectedly becomes a whirlwind two-day road trip.
1st Screening: Monday, September 12, 1:45 PM – Winter Garden Theatre
Second Screening: Tuesday, September 13, 9:45 AM – Scotiabank 4

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/promise.jpg?w=301&h=202&crop=1
TIFF

THE PROMISE – Director: Terry George. Cast: Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon, Christian Bale. Armenian medical student, an artist and an American journalist form a love triangle amid the genocide of Armenia perpetrated by Turkey during WWI.
1st Screening: Sunday, September 11, 9:30 PM – Roy Thomson Hall

THEIR FINEST – Director: Lone Scherfig. Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston. Period comedy-drama follows a group of filmmakers struggling to make an inspirational film to boost morale — and inspire America to join the war — during the London Blitz in World War II.
1st Screening: Sunday, September 11, 3:30 PM – Roy Thomson Hall

WAKEFIELD – Director: Robin Swicord. Cast: Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Garner. A successful lawyer and family man disappears from his own life and observes his baffled loved ones from a hiding place in the attic.
1st Screening: Friday, September 9, 9 AM – Scotiabank 4

ALL I SEE IS YOU – Director: Marc Forster. Cast: Blake Lively, Jason Clarke. Return to Monster’s Ball form for Forster. After a blind woman regains her sight, she and her husband begin discovering uncomfortable details about their marriage and their lives.
1st Screening: Saturday, September 10, 11 AM – Scotiabank 2

CHASING TRANE: THE JOHN COLTRANE DOCUMENTARY
Director: John Scheinfeld.
1st Screening: Friday, September 9, 12:30pm — Tiff Bell Lightbox, Cinema 2

BARRY – Director: Vikram Ghandi. Cast: Devon Terrell, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ellar Coltrane. Set in the backdrop of a true story in 1981 New York City, young Barack Obama tries to find his way as a college student in a new city as he is faced with questions about race, culture, and identity in this inspiring drama centered on a crucial year in the future President’s life.
1st Screening: Saturday, September 10, 6 PM – Ryerson Theatre

CARRIE PILBY – Director: Susan Johnson. Cast: Bel Powley, Nathan Lane, Gabriel Byrne, Vanessa Bayer, Jason Ritter. A brilliant young woman graduates Harvard at 18 but has no street sense and struggles in areas of morality, relationships, sex and leaving her New York City apartment.
1st Screening: Friday, September 9, 2 PM – Ryerson Theatre

CATFIGHT—Director: Onur Tukel. Cast: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone, Craig Bierko, Dylan Baker. A reunion between two old school friends sparks a no-holds-barred war of attrition
1st Screening: Friday, September 9, 6:15 PM – Ryerson Theatre

GOON: THE LAST OF THE ENFORCERS – Director: Jay Baruchel. Cast: Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber. The original hockey brawler pic was a gem. Why not a sequel with Doug “The Thug” Glatt?
1st Screening: Sunday, September 11, 3 PM, Location TBD

THE HEADHUNTER’S CALLING – Director: Mark Williams. Cast: Gerard Butler, Alison Brie, Willem Dafoe, Gretchen Mol, Alfred Molina. Ruthless corporate headhunter in Chicago battles his rival for control of their job-placement firm, until a family tragedy brings his personal and professional lives into conflict.
1st Screening: Tuesday, September 13, 2:15 PM – Scotiabank 3

THE BLEEDER — Director: Philippe Falardeau. Cast: Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts, Elisabeth Moss, Jim Gaffigan, Ron Perlman. Story of the rise, fall and rise of Chuck Wepner, who decked Muhammad Ali and was an inspiration for Rocky.

Distribution will come down to this.

[GeneChing]

It's all about T.I.F.F. now for this project.


Toronto: Bruce Lee Pic ‘Birth of the Dragon’ Eyes Global Theaters (http://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/toronto-bruce-lee-pic-birth-of-the-dragon-eyes-global-theaters-1201855307/)

James Rainey
Senior Film Reporter
@RaineyTime

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/birth-of-the-dragon-tiff.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
COURTESY OF TIFF

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016 | 10:22PM PT
“Birth of the Dragon” — a story about Bruce Lee’s emergence as a martial arts superstar and his epic showdown with another Kung Fu master – has its world premiere Tuesday afternoon in Toronto. Producer Michael London (“Trumbo”) and director George Nolfi (“The Adjustment Bureau”) talked to Variety about the enduring popularity of Lee and the reasons they believe their film, featuring a cast laden with Chinese stars, could become a cross-cultural phenomenon.

Bruce Lee died in 1973 at the age of 32. Why will audiences in 2016 respond to a character from the last century?

London: “Bruce Lee is this iconic figure who represents a sort of meeting of East and West. We are at this really extraordinary moment in history right now, with China opening up to the West and the West becoming fascinated with China. Bruce Lee’s myth endures and it feels like the world will be really open to learning about how he became the mythic figure that he did.”

How did you know that passion for Lee remained high?

Nolfi: “There is not a single place — in China, or the U.S., or Canada or the rest of the world — that people don’t know his name or have an enormous affection for him and for his story…. He did something that was thought impossible in the early 1960s — to be an Asian man who became this major star in the West. And I would say that he remains the most famous martial artist of all time and, at the same time, the most famous Asian person in the West.”

The film centers on a fight between Lee and Wong Jack Man, which occurred in the mid-1960s in the San Francisco Bay Area. Why is this fight, held before just a handful of witnesses, so legendary to kung fu aficionados?

Nolfi: “It’s a fight that is still disputed, as to how and why it happened and even as to the outcome. It was because of this fight that Bruce Lee reinvented his style and arguably invented the whole concept of mixed martial arts. … So the reaction of anyone who knows martial arts is strong and instantaneous. And even many people who are less familiar know that Bruce Lee brought martial arts and kung fu to the West.”

Images of Bruce Lee still appear on T-shirts and posters around the world. With such an indelible impression, it must have been hard to cast the role.

Nolfi: “Probably my single biggest fear in taking on job of directing this film was, ‘How the hell am I going to find somebody with incredible charisma, great martial arts ability, the pure physicality of Bruce Lee and someone who is also fluent enough in English to be able to be funny and compelling…. After months of searching, it became clear that [Hong Kong born, Chicago-raised] Philip Ng was unquestionably our guy. He stepped up to the plate in a way that went beyond anything I imagined. I think Bruce Lee fans will look at this film and say ‘Oh my gosh, that must be what Bruce Lee was like when he was 24.’ “

Hoping for a bump in monk robe sales (http://www.martialartsmart.com/45-001.html). ;)

[GeneChing]

Birth of the Dragon Poster Reveals Legendary Bruce Lee (http://movieweb.com/birth-of-dragon-movie-poster-bruce-lee/)
BYBRIAN GALLAGHER | 2 days ago

The Toronto International Film Festival is currently in full swing, and one of the films making its world premiere next week is director George Nolfi's Birth of the Dragon, which centers on martial arts legend Bruce Lee. The film will have its premiere on September 13, but while we wait for this first ever screening, the first poster has surfaced, featuring Philip Ng as Bruce Lee. While there have been Bruce Lee biopics in the past, this film focuses on a little-known fight that helped him become a world-renowned legend.

Set against the backdrop of San Francisco's Chinatown, this cross-cultural film chronicles {Bruce Lee's emergence as a martial-arts superstar after his legendary secret showdown with fellow martial artist Wong Jack Man, a Shaolin master who had been sent from China to stop Bruce Lee. The film is based on the real-life no holds barred fight took place 1965, a time when San Francisco's Chinatown district was controlled by the Chinese Triad gangs. The script will begin with this martial arts battle, then follow both men as they team up to take on a horde of gangsters. The poster debuted on Deadline ahead of the Toronto world premiere.

Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele wrote the script, continuing their tradition as biopic specialists. They have previously written the scripts for Nixon, Ali, Copying Beethoven, Pawn Sacrifice and this year's Miles Ahead. They are also writing the upcoming remake of A Star Is Born, which Bradley Cooper will direct and star in alongside Lady Gaga, and an upcoming Freddie Mercury Biopic.

Bill Block is producing for QED International, alongside Groundswell's Michael London and writers Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele. George Nolfi directs, marking the follow-up to his 2011 directorial debut, The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. George Nolfi has also written screenplays for The Bourne Ultimatum, Ocean's Twelve, Timeline, The Sentinel and the upcoming Spectral.

The supporting cast includes Billy Magnussen, Terry Chen, Ron Yuan, Vanessa Ross, Darren E. Scott, Darryl Quon and Yu Xia as Wong Jack Man. Birth of the Dragon doesn't have a distributor yet, but that could change after Birth of the Dragon has its world premiere in Toronto. Take a look at the first poster for Birth of the Dragon below.

http://cdn.movieweb.com/img.news/NEx2wDTdKlSuBy_1_1.jpg


Premieres tomorrow. :cool:

[GeneChing]

A poor review. We'll probably see who picks this up soon.


Toronto Film Review: ‘Birth of the Dragon’ (http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/birth-of-the-dragon-review-toronto-film-festival-bruce-lee-1201859875/)
Owen Gleiberman
Chief Film Critic
@OwenGleiberman

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/birth-of-the-dragon-tiff.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
COURTESY OF TIFF
SEPTEMBER 13, 2016 | 09:41PM PT
A Bruce Lee biopic re-enacts a legendary fight Lee had in 1964, before he was a martial-arts superstar. But why did it matter?

Was Bruce Lee actually a good fighter? The question sounds insane, because no one in the history of martial-arts cinema has ever been half as mesmerizing to watch. Plenty of martial-arts stars have speed, but Lee wasn’t just faster than any of then; he had the demonic charisma of speed, a ferocity that charged every jagged movement with expression. His limbs were jackknives on lightning, and his quivering, coal-eyed glower told you how committed he was to every cut and thrust. At the same time, right in the middle of a scene, a part of him hung back and observed it all. That’s why he was the rock star of kung fu, at once in the moment and soaring above it.

But, of course, every time we saw Bruce Lee fighting, he wasn’t really fighting; he was acting. How were his skills in genuine hand-to-hand bloodsport combat? The question is raised — even if it’s not truly answered — in “Birth of the Dragon,” a Bruce Lee biopic set in 1964, two years before “The Green Hornet,” when Lee was an expatriate martial-arts instructor in San Francisco already trying to market himself as a star. (He was born in San Francisco but raised in Hong Kong.) That year, he had a duel — not a fight for show but a real knockdown, no-holds-barred knuckle-bender. His foe was Wong Jack Man, a Chinese master who showed up to challenge Lee. Lee, at that point, was a strict practitioner of the Wing Chun school, but after the bout in question he began to change his method and philosophy of fighting. According to the opening title of “Birth of the Dragon,” this single clash would alter the entire history of martial arts.

That sounds momentous, yet “Birth of the Dragon” is a strange film: It huffs and puffs about what a mythic fight this was, yet it bumbles and stumbles when it comes to showing us what happened, and why it mattered. The director, George Nolfi (a co-screenwriter of “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Ocean’s Twelve”), treats Lee as a coolly stylized character, a kind of laidback Elvis-in-Chinatown version of the invincible warrior he played on TV and in the movies. But, of course, Bruce Lee wasn’t that character — he was actually a real person! — and “Birth of the Dragon,” which merges a fudged version of the facts with lazy whirling iconography, is neither a compelling biographical drama nor an exciting martial-arts bash. It slips right between the cracks of what a good Bruce Lee biopic should be.

You might assume that the film’s central character would be, you know, Bruce Lee. But you’d be wrong. It’s Steve McKee (Billy Magnussen), a rube from Indiana who travels to San Francisco, tries the Beat scene and the free-love hippie scene (really? In 1964?), and then winds up passing out, drunk, in front of the studio where Lee presides over his martial-arts classes. Lee takes him in and signs him up, and the two become friendly. It’s Steve who makes himself into the liaison between Lee and Wong Jack Man (Xia Yu), a disgraced monk from a Shaolin monastery who shows up in a fedora and fuddy-duddy suit and lands a job in Chinatown washing dishes, which is supposed to be his Buddhist penance for a mysterious sin that he doesn’t reveal until much later.

What Wong is quite open about, on the other hand, is his hostility to the fact that Lee’s students include Caucasians. And that’s a potentially fascinating conflict. When Lee became a superstar, he kicked off an international kung fu craze that had a seismic impact. From that moment on, the Chinese no longer owned this discipline, and the notion that they might have been possessive about it is understandable. But “Birth of the Dragon,” having introduced the issue, barely scratches the surface of it. It’s just a signifier of an idea, a way to set up Lee and Wong as adversaries.

Philip Ng, the Hong Kong-born American actor who plays Lee, has the right face, the right haircut, the right physique — and he’s got a puckish gleam of confidence that’s winning in the way that Lee’s was. Yet unlike “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,” the compelling 1993 Lee biopic, “Birth of the Dragon” keeps hitting you with the Lee “mystique” — which is to say, there’s something benignly patronizing about its refusal to allow Lee to become a three-dimensional character. You wouldn’t even know that he was married, and though we see him shooting a low-budget film, and he references the possibility of starring in “The Green Hornet,” what he did to get his showbiz career off the ground remains vague.

Finally, he and Wong have their fight, which didn’t take place in public. In the film, it happens in a warehouse, and it’s as stylized — though not as good — as any fight in a real Lee film. Wong, in orange robes, does the whole flying twirling dancing-on-air Shaolin thing, while Lee, in his bare chest and black pants, meets him with pure Wing Chun force. Who wins? The historical record is a muddle: Some say that the fight lasted for three minutes, others say for 40, and most say that Lee won, though that isn’t definitive. The trouble with the staging is that Nolfi makes the fight “larger than life,” but the whole hook of the movie is that we want to see what Bruce Lee looked — and fought — like before he was larger than life.

There’s a crime plot (more concoction), a fatal romance between Steve — yes, him again! — and the indentured beauty (Melody Peng) he tries to rescue from the San Francisco Chinese underworld, and Lee and Wong become teammates in this endeavor. But what the enlightened martial-arts fan really wants to know is: Why, and how, did the legendary 1964 fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man change Bruce Lee’s fighting style? Other than asserting that it did, “Birth of the Dragon” doesn’t give a clue.

Toronto Film Review: 'Birth of the Dragon'
Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival, September 13, 2016. Running time: 103 MIN.
Production
A Groundswell Productions, Kylin Films presentation. Produced by Michael London, Janice Williams, Christopher Wilkinson, Stephen J. Rivele, James Hong Pang, Leo Shi Young. Executive producers: Helen Ye Zhong, Kelly Mullen, David Nicksay.
Crew
Director: George Nolfi. Screenplay: Christopher Wilkinson, Stephen J. Rivele. Camera (color, widescreen): Amir Mokri. Editor: Joel Viertel.
With
Billy Magnussen, Philip Ng, Xia Yu, Qu Jinging, Jin Xing, Simon Yin, Van Ness Wu, Ron Yuan, Terry Chen.

[GeneChing]

Follow the link to Deadline.com to see their exclusive link to the first promo. It's a full trailer.


‘Birth Of The Dragon’s George Nolfi On The Legend Of Bruce Lee: First Promo (http://deadline.com/2016/09/bruce-lee-birth-of-the-dragon-movie-promo-first-look-george-nolfi-1201819257/)
by Mike Fleming Jr
September 14, 2016 12:32pm

EXCLUSIVE: The acquisitions titles at Toronto’s first weekend was largely prestige films. The festival film with real breakout mainstream potential didn’t premiere until yesterday, and buyers are now figuring out what to do with a throwback martial arts movie built around the iconic Bruce Lee, with worldwide rights available. Birth Of The Dragon uses a still-disputed private brawl between martial arts masters Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) and Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia) in 1964 as the fuel for a San Francisco-set coming-of-age story involving a rough and tumble young white man [Billy Magnussen doing his best Steve McQueen] who matches the feuding fighting legends in the brawl as he pursues a Romeo and Juliet romance with a young Chinese immigrant [JingJing Qu] under the control of the Chinese mob. This mashup of fact and fable was financed by China-based Kylin Pictures, produced by Groundswell’s Michael London and Janice Williams, and written by Christopher Wilkinson and Steven J. Rivele. It is the sop****re directing effort of George Nolfi, the Adjustment Bureau writer-director whose past scripts include Ocean’s Twelve and The Bourne Ultimatum. Here, Nolfi explains why the outcome of the brawl isn’t as important as how it influenced the legend Bruce Lee became, and how Chinese funding could be a salvation for movie heroes not suited up in spandex.

RelatedBruce Lee Pic 'Birth Of The Dragon' Debuts Poster
DEADLINE: You have made a movie about an Asian icon, financed by a Chinese company, on a martial arts legend still relevant in Asia. Is this Chinese infiltration into Hollywood movies a good thing?

NOLFI: I got involved just as Kylin Pictures said they wanted to buy it outright. From a filmmaker’s standpoint and from a future business standpoint, I got to be a very interested observer in a financing company being willing to make a movie that is both about something in a real sense, and not about a brand. Bruce Lee is well known, but that’s not a brand project and it’s in a genre Hollywood hasn’t made movies in for years. When was the last major Kung-Fu movie?

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/birth-of-the-dragon-poster.jpg?w=301&h=202&crop=1
Groundswell Productions

DEADLINE: 45 years ago?

NOLFI: Exactly. So I’m watching this and thinking that if, in the next 10 years of our business, there are Chinese companies willing to support movies like this, made in the Hollywood format and style, with a Hollywood director given creative controls, that’s very good for our business. You enter with a certain degree of cautious optimism but the result has been everything I’d hoped for. When you do business with a foreign company, with a different language, you have learn their customs. But they let me make exactly the movie I wanted to, with zero interference. If this is the future of movies for the next five, 10 years than you can just say unequivocally that this is a godsend to Hollywood because it’s very hard for studios to make movies that aren’t sequels or branded material now. I was very excited to see that Sully was doing well this weekend. There’s a movie that’s about something real, based on a real figure. By all accounts from the reception at Telluride, it was a crowd-pleaser. It’s clearly going to be successful movie.

DEADLINE: Tom Hanks has managed to carve out a career without going the superhero route.

NOLFI: There aren’t very many people like that. Leo, there’s Matt Damon, there’s Tom Hanks. Superhero movies are good for the business up to a point, but when they’re all branded superheroes up to the exclusion of….you know…Sully is a kind of superhero, Bruce Lee is a kind of superhero. If they’re all Marvel and DC superheroes….

DEADLINE: Desmond Doss in Mel Gibson’s movie Hacksaw Ridge, a WWII hero who never picks up a gun.

NOLFI: I think most readers of Deadline are silently hoping for Hollywood to be able, whether with outside financing and studio distribution, or studio financing, to see a return to where a portion of their movies are taking shots on a quality film and seeing if an audience will find it. I just hope that the breadth of moviemaking is supported by whatever happens in the industry in the next 5-10 years. Because it does seem like it’s become narrower and narrower in the last decade.

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/george-nolfi.jpg?w=301&h=202&crop=1
Associated Press

DEADLINE: You have been a writer on big studio films. I always hear things are terrible for writers. The strike happened, it felt like a punitive period followed where studios played hardball with writer quotes, and that was institutionalized following the 2008 crash. How are things now for writers?

NOLFI: It’s really hard for me to generalize about the making a living aspect of it because you only have your own experience. My assessment from conversations with my many friends and the time I spent at the guild is that the middle has dropped out. You have studios looking for the next new writer’s guild minimum quote level writer, or they’re looking for somebody with credits on major films to be the last writer in to push things across the finish line. And that’s kind of it, plus the people transitioning from the first category to the second.

DEADLINE: How has that impacted quality? Summer was criticized for so many derivative sequels, and films like Deadpool thrived because they are different.

NOLFI: Let me answer this in a roundabout way. Because I had a real stark experience coming out the other side of The Adjustment Bureau. I wrote a draft before the strike and because I owned it, I rewrote it during the strike. But I had worked pretty consistently as a writer from 2004 to 2007 on The Sentinel, Oceans Twelve, Bourne Ultimatum. I was on set for all three of those movies. When I would say to my agents, tell me what writing jobs are out there, in 2003, there were all kinds of projects like the ones I did. Cool ideas studio executives said they liked and wanted to get a star and a start date. Then I come out the other side of Bourne Ultimatum, and I bring this Adjustment Bureau script to Matt Damon. He says, I’m interested and we end up getting the money and I go make that in 2009, and that’s two years of my life. After, I say to my agents, let’s see what assignments are out there. I just want to write on a script now and pay my bills. The stark difference between 2003 and 2011 was mind-boggling.

DEADLINE: How?

NOLFI: There used to be a hundred open projects that were based on a cool book or partial manuscript, or a lot of things like Sully, or Hunt For Red October or Lethal Weapon, things with great characters but not rooted in a huge international brands. And by 2011, a huge, huge number of the slots where they were hiring writers were sequels, remakes, superhero movies, giant books. So many fewer were movies that just had that cool spec script we bought, or that newspaper article somebody found. Now, it has become amazing to see something like a film on Sully Sullenberger, or telling the story of the Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden. So many fewer of those. From the snapshot in 2003 to the snapshot in 2011, from an individual fresh new movie point of view, the bottom had dropped out of Hollywood.

I don’t blame any big studio or their corporate bosses for saying, Hey we need to earn 15% or whatever because we’re a public company and we need to make a return. They are reacting to a world marketplace that seems to be demanding this. My hope is, and I think it’s actually incumbent on filmmakers and writers and producers, is to figure out what that new model is, and I hope and think that Dragon fits into that. Which is to say, something that has an individualistic quality, something that is not just driven by marketing and brand concerns. Something that can capture a worldwide audience at a price point that isn’t too risky for major studios to get involved.

DEADLINE: Your movie doesn’t have big stars, but we certainly know the legend of Bruce Lee, and your narrator and the bridge between Lee and Wong Jack Man is a composite of young Steve McQueen. Anyone who tied a white belt across the waist of those white pajamas remembers Lee’s great ’70s karate movies. You have those touchstones audiences seem to want, but this somehow feels fresh, and familiar.

NOLFI: I think about that, a lot. I know a lot of the people that run studios and they’re very intelligent and if you said to them, Hey is your desire here to regurgitate? The answer would be no. But they are in an extraordinarily competitive world with big stakes and other factors. I got my first paycheck as a writer in ’96. There was no vibrant Internet then. People’s eyeballs were not pulled to YouTube and every movie and TV show that is now available to them, along with the latest short video somebody made. The competition for people’s leisure hours has increased a thousand fold. It’s very hard in that environment to make something that can have an all-out reaction of, I’m going to go out this weekend and pay for a babysitter. I’m as desperate as anyone in Hollywood to find that new model that gets past this. I suspect Sully is a perfect example of it, any Coen Brothers or Soderbergh or Paul Greengrass movie would be. They’re trying to be about something, trying desperately not to be a regurgitation. continued next post

[GeneChing]

DEADLINE: Ever took karate?

NOLFI: In third grade, but not in a serious way. I don’t want to dwell on my age, but let’s just say that Jean Claude Van Damme and those other guys came later. It’s cliché but, Bruce Lee movies stuck in my head as a kid, like Star Wars and others, in giving you a sense of what was possible in cinema.

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/birth-of-the-dragon-2.jpg?w=301&h=202&crop=1

DEADLINE: How did you become the director of this when your first film, Adjustment Bureau, was one you crafted for yourself on the page?

NOLFI: Michael London and I were working on another project, and he mentioned this script coming in by Rivele and Wilkinson, and asked could I look at it and tell him what I thought. Somewhere between page 12 and 15, I dashed off an email saying this is incredible. Thanks for letting me read it. I want to direct it.

DEADLINE: What specifically in those pages would prompt a reaction that strong?

NOLFI: Three things. There was some text up front that said this fight had taken place in 1964, that it was one of the most storied fights in all of martial arts history, that it took place in front of a dozen witnesses, no two of whom had the same account of the fight. I thought that was awesome; something that disputed with strong opinions on all sides, means there’s inherent drama. The second thing is the clear sketching of two masters who had very different understandings of what Kung-Fu was.

DEADLINE: And differing philosophies about whether it should be shared with Caucasians?

NOLFI: Right. You had a scene that introduced Wong Jack Man as a Buddhist monk at the Shaolin Temple, which is a fictionalization of who he is. He was a northern Shaolin trained master but he wasn’t a Buddhist monk. Bruce Lee was introduced, making a 16mm film, and it was such a fun and unexpected portrayal of him, not the flow-like-water Buddhist-influenced philosopher martial artist. He was only 24. I liked the notion of Bruce Lee, different than I had seen him before. Still in a very favorable light but not the fully matured Bruce Lee with a clear desire to break the glass ceiling, become a star, and bring Kung Fu to the wider Western world with a belief that it should be shared with white people and not just be kept in China. Here, he had a self-confidence bordering on ****iness that I found really endearing and hysterical. It was obvious this guy was going to go through the transformation from what he was in that first 16mm scene to the end of this movie and something closer to the Bruce Lee that I knew. It was obvious that Wong Jack Man was a total traditionalist, and what I read in those first 15 pages made it clear that it would be antithetical to him to have Kung-Fu taught to white people. He was going to go through a transformation, also. So there were two men, both total masters of this deep important core aspect of Chinese culture, Kung-Fu, with totally different views on it. Who are going to clash in this epic fight that happened in real life that I didn’t know anything about and that everybody disputed. Both men were going to grow from that. It just had all the elements of a great movie. continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/enter-the-dragon.jpg?w=286&h=176&crop=1
Warner Bros

DEADLINE: To say yes at page 15 without even knowing who won that fight? And what if the writers had introduced a serial killer with a hockey mask on page 20?

NOLFI: I knew the work of the writers. They had done Nixon, Ali, and they are the gold standard for writing about historical figures, even though this is a much more mythologized version of a historical figure than Ali or Nixon. I had confidence in Michael London. But if these writers can get me this invested in two characters, about to take off into a fictionalized journey from this historical underpinning, yeah, I was in.

DEADLINE: What about the narrator played by Billy Magnusson, who is clearly a composite of a young Steve McQueen, the actor who trained with Lee later on in life?

NOLFI: That was an invention of the writers. Because I come from writing, it seemed to me to be a very smart decision. The depiction of one fight is hard to make into a satisfying feature film in 2016. The audience needs more plot and more character development. The reality is, Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man did not know each other for a long period before the fight and they weren’t heavily involved with each other after the fight. From a narrative standpoint, you needed eyes on the story that would allow you to have a run up to the fight and…I don’t want to spoil what happens after the fight..but you needed that to get to our third act.

DEADLINE: A third act that invokes the spirit of the fights in those Bruce Lee movies?

NOLFI: Yes, and when I got to that part of the script, I was joyous. But to get there you needed Steve McKee’s eyes on the story. He’s like the narrator in The Great Gatsby. Which is to say, while he has his own story, the largest part of the audience is coming to see what Gatsby’s doing. Here, the audience is coming to see how Bruce Lee evolves, and who is this guy fighting him? But you have to have a narrator who captures your interest on some level. It becomes this triangle of men. They created a character who was naïve, an American Midwestern guy whose own family life had not put him in a position to become a fully formed man. To be able to watch this white guy become a fully formed man, with Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man becoming these surrogate father figures to him, even though they were about the same age…I thought that was very unusual in Hollywood filmmaking. And given the conflict in the U.S. now over immigration, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that people who are not born in America — Bruce Lee was but he was raised in Chinese culture and his family was Chinese — they really enrich our country.

DEADLINE: So your second thought after committing on page 15 had to be, how the heck do I find Bruce Lee?

NOLFI: That was exactly the thing that scared the hell out of me. Some of my closer friends and advisors in the business looked at me going, who’s going to play Bruce Lee? They said, are you sure you want to go down this path? What if you can’t find somebody? By now, I’m like a dog with a bone, though. So it became this six-month-plus long search. I made a decision early that it was important to me to make a movie that felt authentic to serious martial arts fans and to martial artists themselves. I wanted even the highest level of Kung-Fu experts to be able to look at the fights and be impressed. And say, that’s Bruce Lee, using Wing Chun, which is by most accounts what he used during this fight, while Wong Jack Man used northern Shaolin. And then there’s some evolution that happens in the fight. I wanted to get that level of specificity in the martial arts, so we needed someone who was an actual martial artist. We asked for martial arts tapes from anybody who was interested in playing the part. I did look at some pure actors. Some were quite well known, certainly in Asia, but were not actual martial artists. Given the amount of screen time in this movie where Bruce Lee is fighting and the complexity of that fighting, and the epic-ness of the two big fight scenes, I just felt like I couldn’t do it with doubles. I wanted to be able to shoot Bruce Lee in wide shots if I needed them, where you could see his legs. Faking punches is one thing but faking kicks is a whole other thing.

DEADLINE: How did you find Philip Ng?

NOLFI: I narrowed it down first on martial arts ability, and then had actors read scenes. I made Phil do 10 minutes of scenes and then looked for months longer because he’s not a known Asian star. He’s definitely known in Hong Kong, but he’s not a giant name. He was a stuntman. His father has a martial arts studio in Chicago, so he’s been doing this since he was 3 years old and then he moved to Hong Kong. He was born there, and he returned to become a martial arts stuntman and worked his way up to where he was starting to act. He’s known in Hong Kong, somewhat in China, but less so in the wider world. But Phil captured a sort of confidence and exuberance and humor and ****iness that I thought you needed from Bruce Lee. I have eternal thanks to Kylin for backing my decision. I could imagine other financiers saying, no, we have to have somebody who has this box office level in Chinese film. The producer side of my brain understands the need for a so-called movie star. But I’m not the producer of this film and the director side of me believes the movie is what sells and what the audience is going to talk about. And Phil was going to allow us to make the best movie. You’ve seen it and so you see how he embodies Bruce Lee in a way that no one else I’ve seen has.

DEADLINE: When Lee died, all these movies got made with lookalikes with variations on the spelling of his name. But nobody since has replicated what he brought to the screen.

NOLFI: If you think of who became a true international martial arts superstar after Bruce Lee, it’s Jackie Chan and Jet Li. They’re both amazing martial artists, but quite different. Jackie Chan has the humor that overtakes almost everything else and Jet Li is this serious, incredible, beautiful martial artist to watch but he doesn’t have that twinkle in his eye which allows you to really play on that humor that Bruce Lee had. Phil has that. I think Phil is going to be a superstar. He was in every single frame, every time Bruce Lee is on screen fighting, that’s all him. I’d say, let your double do this wide shot and he’d say, no, I’m doing it. I said, Phil, you’re doing martial arts in a wide shot, going up a bunch of stairs, and if you fall and smash your chin, I’m going to go down for it. He said, I’ll be fine. He was just insistent, he was going to do every frame.

DEADLINE: That is a Jackie Chan trademark. Did you send him off to study film of Lee to get his mannerisms down?

NOLFI: I didn’t have to. Bruce Lee is his idol. I would venture to say that Phil did zero studying of Bruce Lee because he had already done it for the first 30 years of his life. I think Phil would say that he found our collaboration to be very much towards broadening his acting skills. I was definitely hard on him, if I wasn’t getting what I wanted. I told him upfront, just like you’re going to make me do the martial arts over when you say some blow isn’t right, if the dialogue could be better, we’re going again and again until we get it. Unlike the martial arts, you’re not going to get hurt from it, but you might do it 25 times. And there were a few scenes that took many. He was the most game actor you could imagine.

DEADLINE: Yu Xia plays Wong Jack Man. Is he also a martial artist?

NOLFI: He’s not, but he’s quite an athletic guy, and I could tell he was a truly great actor even when working in another language in the tape I watched. He has this placid confidence, a wisdom in his face and his mannerisms, that was perfect for Wong Jack Man. So he exuded the part and I thought I had a fighting chance with a Bruce Lee who could do every single frame of fighting. Then it became about the magic of cinema techniques to make Xia Yu look the way we needed. I think we’ve succeeded. In test screenings, we asked which guy was the real artist and which wasn’t. It was about 50/50. My editor has a friend who’s a big martial artist who has seen every martial arts film in existence. We asked him and he said, “Ummm, I think Wong Jack Man is the real one.” I said, OK, we’ve succeeded.
I don't think the WJM followers will be happy with this.

[BSL-Chris]

Just saw the trailer on youtube and have to say I'm not impressed in the slightest.

While I know for the audiences the choreography needs to be modern and flashy to look good I personally thought it has made it a bit of a joke, not only that BUT lets face it this fight was a long time ago and I'm pretty sure we are all old enough to move on from it - the only people who can elaborate properly are the two guys who fought, one is dead and the other has no wish to speak about the encounter.

Think I'll be re-watching a good Donnie Yen flick instead Kung Fu Killer anyone :-)

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbNib_NsVRU

[GeneChing]

I totally agree with what Chow has to say here. I was more annoyed by the Steve McKie character than WJM in monk robes.



https://thenerdsofcolor.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/birth-of-the-dragon-fight-wd.jpg?w=940

Bruce Lee Movie Stars a White Guy Because Of Course it Does (https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2016/09/15/bruce-lee-movie-stars-a-white-guy-because-of-course-it-does/)
PUBLISHED ON September 15, 2016 by Keith Chow

This morning, Deadline unveiled the first trailer for Birth of the Dragon, which recently made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ostensibly, the film depicts the legendary fight between Bruce Lee (played by Philip Ng) and Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia). But because this is Hollywood, the movie is going to be told from the perspective of a white dude.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjnjw2-GMNs

Billy Magnussen plays Steve McKie (basically, Steve McQueen), one of Lee’s students and the one who brings Lee and Wong together. Apparently? Basically, Bruce Lee v Wong Jack Man: Dawn of Jeet Kune Do is just the backdrop for a film described as:


…a San Francisco-set coming-of-age story involving a rough and tumble young white man who matches the feuding fighting legends in the brawl as he pursues a Romeo and Juliet romance with a young Chinese immigrant [JingJing Qu] under the control of the Chinese mob.

Because no one wants to go see a movie in which Bruce Lee battles a legendary martial artist, we have to be stuck with another white savior story? This whole thing reminds me of the lead up to another film featuring a legendary battle between kung fu icons. In 2008, Lionsgate released Forbidden Kingdom, which featured the first time Jet Li and Jackie Chan were in the same movie. And just like Birth of the Dragon, the filmmakers just had to put a white dude in as the audience’s surrogate.

Rather than waste any more headspace on this disaster of a bio-pic (which is a shame because Philip Ng looks to be an excellent Bruce) I’m just going to repost an essay I wrote for Rice Daddies eight years ago that is, sadly, still relevant today.

ASIAN AMERICANS AND MAINSTREAM HOLLYWOOD:
21, FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, AND HAROLD & KUMAR

https://i2.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/51/ForbiddenKingdomPoster.jpg

Originally posted April 18, 2008

I’ve wanted to write this for a while now, so what better time than the opening day of the long awaited Jet Li vs. Jackie Chan duel, The Forbidden Kingdom? All opening within a month of one another, three movies (21, The Forbidden Kingdom, and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay) have significant relevance to Hollywood’s current ideas about Asian American actors and audiences. One movie is a true story about Asian American MIT students. Another features two icons of Hong Kong cinema facing off for the first time. And the third is the big budget sequel to a cult hit about a couple of Asian American stoners. The studios’ approaches to — and audiences’ expectations of — these films are quite telling about the current state of Asian Americans in mainstream Hollywood.

The impetus for writing this post was actually driven by seeing TV spots for the Chan/Li actioner. The film, which is a quasi-sequel/follow up to the classic Journey to the West, has been anticipated with bated breath by both of Jackie’s and Jet’s legions of fans. I had followed some of the news about the movie ever since it was announced last year and was disappointed to learn that a major plot point in the flick involves a white teenager (with a kung fu fetish, of course) being transported back to ancient China. On the one hand, I can understand the premise of the time travel conceit: modern audiences need a readily identifiable character to help navigate the “exotic” fantasyland of China (which is problematic in its own right, but that’s for another post). This is a typical storytelling technique that can be found in Alice in Wonderland, The Neverending Story, and The Matrix. My issue isn’t with the framing of the film in these terms. What I find troubling is the notion that said teenager had to be Caucasian. Here’s the plot synopsis according to IMDB:


In Forbidden Kingdom, American teenager Jason (Michael Angarano), who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kungfu classics, finds an antique Chinese staff in a pawn shop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King (Jet Li). With the lost relic in hand, Jason unexpectedly finds himself transported back to ancient China.

There, he meets the drunken kungfu master, Lu Yan (Jackie Chan); an enigmatic and skillful Silent Monk (Jet Li); and a vengeance-bent kung fu beauty, Golden Sparrow (Crystal Liu Yi Fei), who lead him on his quest to return the staff to its rightful owner, the Monkey King — imprisoned in stone by the evil Jade Warlord (Collin Chou) for five hundred years. Along the way, while attempting to outmaneuver scores of Jade Warriors, Cult Killers, and the deadly White Hair Demoness, Ni Chang (Li Bing Bing), Jason learns about honor, loyalty, friendship, and the true meaning of kung fu, and thus frees himself.

The decision to cast Michael Angarano as Jason is part of the Hollywood tradition to — as movie critic Peter Martin puts it, “experience an exotic locale peopled entirely by ‘others’ through the eyes of a Caucasian character.” As I said earlier, I have no issue with the “fish out of water” premise. However, I think the producers of the film would have been smarter to make the role of Jason an Asian American character. Not only would that have given an opportunity to a young Asian American actor to star in a surefire hit, it might have given the movie a more nuanced message. Again, Martin:


If the producers had dared to cast an Asian, Asian-American, or African-American, that could have opened up all kinds of interesting twists: the young Asian not acquainted with his own cultural history, the Asian-American torn between two cultures, the African-American similarly — but differently — torn.

From a marketing standpoint, many execs still believe that audiences won’t flock to a movie unless the lead is white (more on that later). They’d argue that money, not political correctness, is the motivating factor when casting roles that could otherwise go to actors of color. After all, it’s said that the only color Hollywood sees is green. Therefore, making Jason a Caucasian is viewed solely as a financial decision. Even if that were true, which is debatable, it’s interesting to note that much of the marketing materials for Forbidden Kingdom make little or no mention of Angarano’s participation in the film. Instead, many of the TV spots I’ve seen, as well as the film’s one-sheet, play up the martial arts aspect and focus on the iconography of Jackie Chan and Jet Li. So if shoehorning a Caucasian teenager into the plotline is necessary to attract that demographic to the theaters, why leave him out of the marketing? Well, probably because “Jackie Chan Fights Jet Li — For the First Time!” kinda sells itself. Which brings me back to my original point: how unnecessary it is to make Jason’s character Caucasian, and thus, denying an Asian American actor a plum part in a big film.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/21_(2008_film).jpg

Alas, at least Jason is a fictional character; which can’t be said for 21, another movie with ramifications in the Asian American community. Based on Ben Mezrich’s 2003 book Bringing Down the House, the movie follows a group of MIT students as they use their indomitable math skills to take Vegas casinos for millions. In Mezrich’s book, the students were a multicultural bunch whose leader was revealed to be an Asian American named Jeff Ma. In fact, one of the plot points in the book dealt with how the group used ethnic stereotypes as part of their cover when suckering dealers at the blackjack tables. Apparently, the studio thought a true story about Asian American MIT students would not appeal to mainstream (read: Caucasian) audiences unless the leads were white. Therefore, rather than find a hot, young Asian American actor to portray Jeff’s character, Columbia Pictures cast British Across the Universe star Jim Sturgess. In an article published in 2005, Mezrich discussed the studio’s thought process when casting the movie:


During the talk, Mezrich mentioned the stereotypical Hollywood casting process — though most of the actual blackjack team was composed of Asian males, a studio executive involved in the casting process said that most of the film’s actors would be white, with perhaps an Asian female. Even as Asian actors are entering more mainstream films, such as Better Luck Tomorrow and the upcoming Memoirs of a Geisha, these stereotypes still exist, Mezrich said.

Like the casting of Forbidden Kingdom, Hollywood’s conventional wisdom is that Asians — and more specifically Asian Americans — cannot open big at the box office. This self-fulfilling prophecy, in a strange way, is reinforced by 21’s actual success at the box office (opening at #1 and so far earning over $70 million). Due to the movie’s success, star Jim Sturgess is Hollywood’s latest it-boy and is seeing his star on the rise. Even Jeff Ma, the basis for Sturgess’ character, sees nothing inherently wrong with his story being trans-racialized for the movies. In an interview with AICN, Ma revealed:


For me it wasn’t a big deal, because for about three years people had been asking me who I wanted to play me in a movie and I never was saying like “John Cho” or “Chow Yun-Fat” or “Jackie Chan…” I really wasn’t and I mean if I asked you who you would want to play you in a movie, you wouldn’t be thinking “I want the most similar person,” but you would be thinking ”Who’s cool?” or who do you think would personify your personality or who is a good actor or who is talented, so as much as I think people like to look at it at face value like that, the reality is if you ask anyone who they wanted to play you, it wouldn’t necessarily be “Who’s the most ethnically tied to me?”

It’s telling that Ma, as many Hollywood execs are wont to do, conflates Asian actors (Chow and Chan) with an Asian American actor (Cho). Since 21 is designed to be a star-making vehicle for its leads, it makes sense that Columbia would want a “cool” actor for the role. The assumption, though, is that there isn’t any “cool” Asian American actor (other than John Cho, of course) capable of playing Jeff on screen. Never mind actors such as Masi Oka, Parry Shen, Dante Basco, Roger Fan, Sung Kang, Ken Leung, or James Kyson Lee, just to name a few. Not to mention the thousands of up and coming actors of Asian descent who are still waiting for that big break. (It must be said, though, that 21 features two Asian Americans — Aaron Yoo and Lisa Lapira — in the cast. However, their parts are minor at best, and according to EW.com’s Youyoung Lee, “buffoonish” at worst.) If any of the above mentioned actors had been cast as the lead in 21, it’d be safe to say that the myth of Asian Americans being unable to open a movie would be officially rendered moot; which brings me to Harold & Kumar.

https://i0.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Harold_and_Kumar_2_poster.jpg

The 2004 stoner flick, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, was a modest success in theaters. Grossing over $23 million worldwide, more than doubling its production budget, White Castle went on to make millions more on DVD, in the process, becoming an instant cult hit and ultimately leading to the buzzed-about sequel that’s set to open on April 25. The revolutionary thing about Harold & Kumar was its ability to portray its Asian American leads as real, complex individuals — who happen to really love pot. John Cho, in an interview with Angry Asian Man, summed it up thusly:


I think there’s something, from a racial standpoint, an attitude that feels accurate… And I think it might be the fact that it addresses race as we do — as people of color do — that we’re aware of it, that we live with it, but it doesn’t consume us. And sometimes, white media thinks that we’re obsessed with it, and then Asian American films… we make films that obsess over her our race. It’s an hour and a half of people talking about what it means to be Asian.

But Harold and Kumar addresses it, then doesn’t, then addresses it, then kind of addresses it, then laughs at it… and then somebody smokes pot.

To New Line Cinema’s credit, the studio bet against Hollywood conventional wisdom and backed the movie with a significant marketing push and theater saturation. And while the stoner comedy as a genre is known for featuring people of color (see Up in Smoke and Friday), Harold & Kumar proved a major motion picture starring charismatic Asian American leads could be successful. Thanks in large part to the film’s success, which by all accounts entered the pop cultural zeitgeist on a speeding cheetah, Cho and co-star Kal Penn became household names able to translate their popularity into mainstream success. Since White Castle, Penn has starred on the TV hit House M.D. and Cho recently landed the coveted role of Sulu in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot.

All three of these films demonstrate in different ways where mainstream Hollywood is in regards to Asian Americans, and where it still needs to go. With Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay poised to out-gross (in more ways than one, natch) its predecessor, the hope remains that Hollywood’s ill-conceived perception about Asian Americans will change. Though I’m not holding my breath.

Heck, I hope this gives our monk robe sales a boost (http://www.martialartsmart.com/45-001.html).

[GeneChing]

This article offers no insight, but it does have a nice shot from TIFF.


'Birth of the Dragon' Spoilers, Release Date, News & Update: US Launch Still Uncertain; Debate for True Winner Continues (http://www.gamenguide.com/articles/47255/20160918/birth-of-the-dragon-spoilers-release-date-news-update-us-launch-still-uncertain-debate-for-true-winner-continues.htm)
Sep 18, 2016 08:33 PM EDT | By Dannel Picaccio Camille Perez Lozano

http://images2.gamenguide.com/data/thumbs/full/40316/720/0/0/0/birth-of-a-dragon-tiff-premiere-and-after-party.jpg
Bruce Lee's life as depicted by the film 'Birth of the Dragon' is still filled with mystery. One other unanswered question is the film's US release.
(Photo: Photo by Sonia Recchia/Getty Images for Kylin Pictures)

The "Birth of the Dragon" movie is certainly one that is bound to give fans of martial arts a full-on treat. However, the world is yet to see the full film, as a release for the US territories still seems to be a blur.

Some spoilers may be indicated below for "Birth of the Dragon."
As some may have already witnessed "Birth of the Dragon" from where they stand, the rest of the world is yet to witness the upcoming martial arts flick. As far as concepts are concerned, the title is already looking at what could be the next best interpretation of the Hollywood icon.
According to Now Toronto, "Birth of the Dragon" has already made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival not so long from the time of this writing, but the US is yet to receive their share. Nonetheless, some of those that have already laid eyes on the film have spoken out on what the film depicts.
As per Collider, the said action-drama film aims to portray the true story of a showdown many years ago between Jeet Kune Do Creator Bruce Lee (Philip Wan-Lung Ng) and Shaolin legend Wong Jack Man (Xia Yu). The most intriguing part of the said clash is that two different ends of the story has been told to the world, which is yet to be potentially interpreted in "Birth of the Dragon."
Albeit the trailer of "Birth of the Dragon" slowly identifying the protagonist from the villain, the contradictions on who won is still debatable. The lack of footage to justify has since led to a two-sided tale.
On one end, the side of Bruce Lee alleged that the fight ended after about three minutes in with Wong Jack Man not being able to land blow onto Lee. The opposition, however, claims that the match lasted up to about more than twenty minutes, though no clarification has emerged on who the victor really is, which may be the case for "Birth of the Dragon."
Who will prevail in the historic showdown that "Birth of the Dragon" aims to deliver? Stay posted for more updates and news here at Gamenguide.

There's also this (you must follow the link because I can't cut&paste this one):
Philip Ng of 'Birth of the Dragon' poses for a portrait at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival (http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/philip-ng-of-birth-of-the-dragon-poses-for-a-portrait-at-news-photo/605331754#philip-ng-of-birth-of-the-dragon-poses-for-a-portrait-at-the-2016-picture-id605331754) Getty Images Portrait Studio at the Intercontinental Hotel on September 13, 2016 in Toronto, Canada.

[GeneChing]

...leaked by this issue's cover master, Phil Ng.


straightblast5 Chicago, Illinois
Follow (https://www.instagram.com/p/BKrRDC0g7ol/)
Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine (November / December 2016 issue) www.kungfumagazine.com #KungfuMagazine #KungfuTaichiMagazine @jedinitekrew.emperor
9,384 likes
3d
straightblast5Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine (November / December 2016 issue) www.kungfumagazine.com #KungfuMagazine #KungfuTaichiMagazine @jedinitekrew.emperor


https://scontent.fsnc1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14368793_10154071658053315_6479057275017240073_n.j pg?oh=4698c8b5c6fb12fb793637bd966fa056&oe=587DBF4E

[GeneChing]

The Table of Contents for our NOV+DEC 2016 issue (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1316) are online now.

http://www.kungfumagazine.com/admin/site_images/KungfuMagazine/images/mcover//KFTC2016-06-December.jpg

[GeneChing]

They say teh Steve Mckee character is loosely inspired by Steve McQueen. I wonder if the reaction would be different if it was based on GM Al Novak (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=862)? Prolly not now. Whitewashing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66153-yellow-face-white-washing) is such a hot button topic in film nowadays.


ASIAReviews For the Bruce Lee Biopic are Out and Asians Should Be ****ed (http://nextshark.com/reviews-bruce-lee-biopic-asians-****ed/)
By Ryan General Posted on October 3, 2016 1

http://cdn.nextshark.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1-17.jpg

The early reviews for the Bruce Lee biopic “Birth of the Dragon” are out and, understandably, Bruce Lee fans are angry for burying Bruce Lee and all the other Asian characters in the background.

Audiences are ****ed after seeing Bruce Lee, played by Hong Kong actor Philip Ng, depicted as a dumbed down, ****y and one-dimensional character who takes a subdued role in his own biopic in favor of a white guy.

Bruce Lee fans who were expecting a film about the Jeet Kune Do master’s earlier years in America and his legendary fight with Kung Fu master Wong Jack Man were largely disappointed. Who would’ve known a movie titled “Birth of the Dragon” would be centered on the tired White Savior Trope?”

Undeniably, Caucasian character Steve McKee is the star of the movie and audiences are to follow his adventures in learning kung fu and winning the heart of an Asian girl instead of watching Bruce Lee discover himself and develop into the legendary “dragon” that people recognize him to be.

http://cdn.nextshark.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/3-2.jpg

User reviews on IMDB reverberate with disgust over what this film has brought to the big screen. Here are some of them.

User Bawlife calls it “Hollywood racism galore”:

“Film reduces Bruce Lee into a side character in his own story to force a white guy into the lead. Why is the main focus of the trailer on this silly white American dude? Asian males can never take the lead role. Only the sidekick even in their own movie. It is disgusting. White people, would it kill you to stop inserting yourselves into everything?

“And of course the white guy is dating the Asian girl. Can you stop socially engineer Asian girls to only see white guys as acceptable dating partner? Stop shoving this down our throat. A white guy kisses an Asian girl. Every movie. It’s like they want to brainwash us that Asian girls belong to white men. This turns into a sickening Asian fetish in real life.”

Consciouskendrik complains that the film is nothing but “a disrespectful appropriation of Bruce Lee”:

“Hollywood is racist. This movie disrespects the legacy of Bruce Lee. I highly recommend everyone to boycott this movie. The movie serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes regarding Asian women, men, and the culture.

“It’s perspective forces the viewer to indulge in racism against people of color. The racism is very subversive and is spread by more than just one movie. Movies like these are bountiful in Hollywood(denigrating Asian culture).

“I noticed a very disturbing pattern in Hollywood. They do not want Asian men in the lead role even in their own biopic.”

Nightmarephoenix is just angry:

“I never write reviews for anything, but this time I absolutely had to. THIS IS NOT A FILM. IT’S ANTI-Asian PROPAGANDA. Yellow Peril, 2016 version.

“This entire film is a carefully hidden propaganda piece that portrays Lee as some unsexual, angry, kung fu loser who accomplishes nothing.

“Meanwhile, a white guy actually stars as the main character of the movie, gets the (Asian) girl, and wins the day.

“What? What just happened? A film about Bruce Lee that ISN’T actually about Bruce? This propaganda piece focuses on stereotyping, dehumanizing, and denigrating Asians and Asian culture.

“Of course, that’s no surprise. If you google ‘kulturemedia’ , you’ll find a bunch more examples where western media wages war against Asians in this century. Highly recommend people to avoid this film, and watch ‘The slanted screen’ instead.”

For Udemypreview, the movie is trash.

“I wanted to watch a movie about the legend Bruce lee. Not another white washed movie deleting/altering/hiding his history and Again disrespecting Asians with another white male Asian female interest. Truth is movies spread lies and it hurts societies. In this case. Asian men.

“the lies that Hollywood continues to spread must be stopped. You are creating racists with everyone who watches it. Bruce lee is a legend and you are trying your best to take everything away from him and his people. When will it end? Trash.”

Other reviews reflected the same disappointment and anger toward how the movie missed the opportunity of telling a compelling biopic that is worthy of Bruce Lee’s legacy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrFhIz1GLMo

This largely fictionalized film was directed by writer-filmmaker George Nolfi who explained to Deadline why they decided to center the story using young Steve McKee’s character:

“The reality is, Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man did not know each other for a long period before the fight and they weren’t heavily involved with each other after the fight. From a narrative standpoint, you needed eyes on the story that would allow you to have a run up to the fight and… I don’t want to spoil what happens after the fight… but you needed that to get to our third act.”

[GeneChing]

BRUCE LEE VS. WONG JACK MAN: FACT, FICTION AND THE BIRTH OF THE DRAGON (http://fightland.vice.com/blog/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon)
FIGHTLAND BLOG
By Charles Russo

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59785/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon.jpg
Illustration by Andrew Strawder

In late autumn of 1964, Wong Jack Man piled into a brown Pontiac Tempest with five other people as the sun set on San Francisco Bay. The group departed Chinatown and traveled east over the Bay Bridge to Bruce Lee’s new kung fu school on Broadway Avenue in Oakland. After weeks of back-and-forth messages and rising tensions, high noon had finally arrived.

The showdown that occurred that night in front of just seven people behind locked doors was a legendary matchup by just about any standard. It posited two highly dynamic 23-year-old martial artists who shared a compelling—almost yin/yang-like—symmetry between them: the quiet ascetic and the boisterous showman, traditional against modern, San Francisco vs. Oakland, Northern Shaolin against Southern. The fight that ensued would affect the remainder of both of their lives. And even still, this symmetry would persist: one would silently endure the fight’s long shadow for decades, while the other would boldly become a global icon before passing all too soon.

Far more than just some youthful clash of egos, the incident has a much wider relevance. Not only did it shape the fighting approach of the man who would become the world’s most famous martial artist, but the match itself was a key moment in a battle of paradigms. If Bruce Lee is indeed a philosophical godfather of modern mixed martial arts competitions, then his fight with Wong Jack Man was a qualifying moment, a crucible that tested the validity of martial techniques much in the way that early UFC fights would in the late 90s, tearing back the curtain to bluntly expose what was effective and what was mere hype.

Yet this context has mostly gotten lost in the shuffle over the past half-century, as the showdown seems to permanently teeter between absurd urban mythology and obsessive hero worship of Bruce Lee. With Hollywood gearing up to release its latest sensationalized rendering of the fight, a new wave of misinformation is already starting to take hold. George Nolfi’s hyperbolic new film Birth of the Dragon will frame Wong Jack Man as a Shaolin Monk on pilgrimage who eventually teams up with Lee to battle the mafia. This movie will file in alongside the often-maligned 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, which framed the fight as a dungeon battle in front of some kind of elder ninja counsel, concluding with Wong cheap-shot kicking Bruce in the spine.

By simple contrast, the factual history is infinitely more compelling than the mythology.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59786/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-castro.jpg
A young Bruce Lee with key Oakland-era colleagues Ed Parker (center) and James Lee in Ralph Castro's kenpo school in November of 1963. Bruce had found a very likeminded group of martial artists within James Lee's orbit in Oakland, and would soon relocate from Seattle to continue collaborating with them. (Photo courtesy of Greglon Lee)

Oakland

By the early 1960s, the San Francisco Bay Area was home to a robust martial arts culture that was populated by a diverse array of talented practitioners, who hailed from southern China, Hong Kong and Hawaii. Bruce dropped out of college, and abruptly left a good situation that he had built for himself in Seattle, to participate in this pioneering scene in the Bay Area.

Most notably, he took up residence in the city of Oakland to collaborate with James Lee (no relation), a blue collar local who was twice Bruce’s age, who had a lingering reputation for his youthful days as a no-nonsense street fighter and body builder. Yet James was also a brilliant innovator for the martial arts in America, and was already enacting the sort of martial arts future that Bruce was just beginning to envision. James was publishing his own books, designing his own workout equipment, and running a very modern training environment out of his garage. He quickly introduced Bruce into his orbit of talented and progressively-minded colleagues, which included innovative jujitsu master Wally Jay and early American kenpo karate pioneer Ed Parker. In 1963, James would produce Bruce’s first book—Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense—through his self-run publishing company.

Altogether, Bruce very much found what he had wanted in Oakland: a unique martial arts think-tank laboratory where he could practice and discuss martial arts 24/7 among experienced and likeminded collaborators. These Oakland days encapsulated key milestones in Bruce’s life, including the creation of the only book he ever published in his lifetime, getting noticed by Hollywood, his fight with Wong Jack Man, and his initial development of Jeet Kune Do. However, this era typically gets minimal attention in most biographical works, despite its formative significance. In keeping with that trend, Birth of the Dragon will not only omit the likes of James Lee from its storyline, but also completely drop Oakland from this history, and instead set the entire era within San Francisco, where things were very different for Bruce.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59787/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-TY-Lau.jpg
Lau Bun (left) and TY Wong governed the martial arts culture within San Francisco's Chinatown for three decades. Most descriptions of the Bruce Lee/Wong Jack Man fight have little context for Chinatown's martial arts culture and how it factored into the affair. (Photo Courtesy of UC Berkeley) continued next post

[GeneChing]

Chinatown

Across the water from Oakland within the city of his birth, Bruce Lee was perpetually at odds with the martial arts culture of Chinatown. In fact, there is a laundry list of little-known incidents and tensions that occurred between Bruce and Chinatown martial artists dating back to when he first returned to America in the spring of 1959. As Bruce quickly learned, San Francisco’s martial arts culture operated in very different fashion from the one he experienced in Hong Kong as a teenager.

For about three decades, Chinatown’s kung fu culture was presided over by two longtime local tong enforcers—Lau Bun and TY Wong—whose trailblazing careers have mostly fallen into obscurity. In the 1930s, Lau Bun opened Hung Sing, which is likely the first public school of the Chinese martial arts in America. He maintained a rigid discipline over his students and other martial artists within the neighborhood. For years, Lau Bun did not allow Chinatown to devolve into the sort of daily youth violence that Bruce Lee grew up around on the streets (and rooftops) of Hong Kong during the 1950s, where students from rival martial arts schools regularly challenged each other to fights.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59788/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-hung-sing.jpg
Lau Bun (center) with senior students in Hung Sing, his basement training studio off of Portsmouth Square in San Francisco's Chinatown. In 1959, 18-year-old Bruce Lee would have a little known run-in with this crew. (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley)

TY Wong arrived to San Francisco in the early 1940s. As a junior tong member to Lau Bun, it often fell to TY to clean up rowdy and drunken behavior around the neighborhood’s Forbidden City nightclubs. The name of his school—Kin Mon—translated to mean “the Sturdy Citizen’s Club.” And like Lau Bun, TY expected a specific code of conduct.

Word of Hong Kong’s challenge culture and the tenacious reputation of its Wing Chun practitioners had preceded Bruce Lee to San Francisco. Bruce had spent his teen years learning Wing Chun kung fu within Ip Man’s school in Hong Kong, where he enthusiastically embraced the simple and streamlined nature of the style. Economical, swift and direct, Wing Chun emphasizes in-fighting along the opponent’s center line, employing short kicks and rapid punches in close proximity. The style had a reputation for being results-oriented, and on the streets postwar Hong Kong, that was a crucial distinction.

Not long after arriving to San Francisco in 1959, Bruce Lee had a heated incident with Lau Bun and his senior students in Chinatown. “When Bruce came to Hung Sing, he didn’t know anything about San Francisco,” recounts Sam Louie, one of Lau Bun’s senior students at the time. “There were seven or eight of us in class. He came down to show off some hands, and tried to say to us that Wing Chun was the best. So our sifu threw him out.”

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59789/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-book.jpg
A comparison of technique stills from TY Wong's 1961 book, Chinese Kung Fu Karate, alongside imagery from Bruce Lee's 1963 book, Chinese Gung Fu. TY, Bruce and James Lee would all package insults into their books from this era, aimed between Oakland and San Francisco.

Instantly then, Bruce had gotten off to a bad start within Chinatown. These tensions would only build over time as he increasingly became a vocal critic of traditional approaches to the martial arts, which—in his minimalist Wing Chun mindset—he saw as heavy on flair but short on effectiveness. One of the most pointed examples of Bruce’s criticism is hidden in plain sight within Chinese Gung Fu…, where in a photo-by-photo case study, Bruce is seen dismantling specific techniques that are put forth in one of TY Wong’s earlier books. This is featured in a section titled “Difference in Gung Fu Styles,” in which Bruce distinguishes between what he sees as “superior systems” (namely, his own) versus “slower…half-cultivated systems” (that of TY Wong and other “more traditional” masters like Lau Bun). Bruce’s book was readily on sale within Chinatown, and the insults were not lost on locals. So when TY Wong subsequently characterized Bruce Lee as “a dissident with bad manners,” it was a view shared by most martial artists within Chinatown.

At about the same time of Bruce’s book being published, Wong Jack Man showed up to Chinatown, and quickly made a name for himself as a dedicated and highly skilled practitioner. He was the first to bring a northern style to the neighborhood, and he proved “elegantly athletic” in demonstrating it. In many ways, his style appeared to be an inverse of Wing Chun: expansive, acrobatic, and oriented around long-range attacks. Chinatown was quickly impressed with Wong Jack Man, and embraced him in every manner that they had shunned Bruce.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59790/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-kin-mon.jpg
TY Wong (standing, 2nd from right) with his teenage students in his Kin Mon Physical Culture studio on Waverly Place in Chinatown. Notice his one white student (Noel O'Brien) on the top right, who followed Al Novak in a steady stream of non-Chinese students that TY taught throughout the 1960s. (Photo courtesy of Gilman Wong)

“Chinese-Only…?”

The long-held rationale for Bruce Lee’s fight with Wong Jack Man has asserted that top brass in Chinatown took exception to Bruce teaching non-Chinese students kung fu, and sent Wong Jack Man over to Oakland as an enforcer to settle the matter with fists. This theory, which was rendered in heavy-handed fashion in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, has always been completely void of details as far as who exactly took exception. If anyone in Chinatown was to make this call, it would likely have come down from Lau Bun or TY Wong. Yet, there is not only scant evidence to support this, but developments at the time prove highly contrary to this perspective.

When asked about the idea that Chinatown sought to reprimand Bruce for teaching non-Chinese, Al Novak—a hulking WWII veteran and close friend of James Lee—shrugged it off, “I think that’s mostly made up.” Novak would know, because by 1960 he was a white student regularly training with TY Wong at Kin Mon in Chinatown without incident. A few years later, TY took on Noel O’Brien, a local Irish teenager. In Hung Sing, Lau Bun was training a Hawaiian named Clifford Kamaga, and also showing no open opposition to his senior student Bing Chan, who was accepting all types of students at his own newly-opened school just a couple blocks away in Chinatown.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59791/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-lau-bun-marysville.jpg
Lau Bun (2nd from top right, with glasses) standing with Hop Sing Tong members and a Lion Dance squad in Marysville, California, during Chinese New Year celebrations in 1961. Lau Bun's Los Angeles colleague and noted kung fu master Ark Wong (2nd from top right) would eventually give a formal interview to Black Belt Magazine in 1965 expressing that he was open to teaching all types of students, regardless of race. (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley)

Of course, the situation was not without nuance. Bruce Lee’s early classes, particularly in Seattle, were indeed groundbreaking for how diverse they were, in terms of both race and gender. And the Chinese-only martial arts code was a very real policy that existed for decades, and one that had surfaced against Bruce at various early points in his life. Yet the code was in its final throes by the 1960s. In fact, in early 1965 (very shortly after Bruce’s showdown with Wong Jack Man) Ark Wong, a well-respected kung fu master in Los Angeles, gave a high profile cover story interview to Black Belt Magazine in which he said in explicit terms that he was open to taking on any type of student willing to learn from him.

So for as tangible as the exclusion code had been, martial artists from the Bay Area—including many of Bruce’s colleagues—widely express skepticism at the idea of it being the core reason for that particular fight.
“It was never about that,” says Leo Fong, a versatile veteran martial artist who knew the landscape well. “It really had to do with Bruce’s personality.”

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59799/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-long-beach2.jpg
Bruce Lee's demonstration at Ed Parker's inaugural Long Beach Tournament in August of 1964 is typically cited as a key moment in his career (in which he first get noticed by Hollywood), but is typically sanitized to omit the critical lecture he delivered to an international crowd of martial artists. (Photo courtesy of Barney Scollan)
continued next post

[GeneChing]

The Dissident

By the start of 1964, Bruce began to double-down on his earlier criticism of “ineffective” styles and techniques, and began given lecture-heavy demonstrations featuring stinging rebukes towards “dry-land swimmers” practicing the “classical mess.” By contrast, he referred to his own approach as “scientific street fighting,” and made a habit of demonstrating other styles and then methodically explaining why they wouldn’t work in a street fight. One of the styles he liked to perform and then dismiss was Northern Shaolin, and he began to air these viewpoints to some very large and qualified audiences.

At Ed Parker’s inaugural Long Beach Tournament in August, Bruce delivered a scathing lecture that disparaged many existing practices, including such common techniques as the horse stance. “He just got up there and started trashing people,” explains Barney Scollan, an 18-year-old competitor that day. Although Bruce’s showing at Long Beach is often painted in glossy terms, many of those in attendance corroborate the polarizing nature of his demonstration, in which half the crowd perceived him as brash and condescending. As longtime karate teacher Clarence Lee remembers it: ““Guys were practically lining up to fight Bruce Lee after his performance at Long Beach.”

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59793/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-bruce-diana.jpg
In late summer of '64, Bruce accompanied Hong Kong starlet Diana Chang Chung-wen ("the Mandarin Marilyn Monroe") on a promotional tour of the U.S. west coast in support of her latest film. This brought them to the Sun Sing Theater, in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown where Bruce's demonstration and critical lecture would infuriate the neighborhood's martial arts practitioners. (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley)

A few weeks later before a capacity crowd at the Sun Sing Theater in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown, Bruce gave a similar demonstration, and even went as far as to criticize the likes of Lau Bun and TY Wong by declaring “these old tigers have no teeth.” It was a considerable insult coming from a young martial artist towards two highly-respected members of the community.

At this point, a confrontation wasn’t surprising…it was logically inevitable, especially when considering that Bruce had been challenged for similar reasons in Seattle a few years earlier on far less provocation. That fight was also predicated on the content of Bruce’s demonstrations at the time, when local karate practitioner Yoichi Nakachi took issue with Bruce’s martial arts worldview and loudly issued a challenge. Yoichi pursued him for weeks. When the two finally fought, Bruce obliterated Yoichi with a rapid series of perfectly places punches and a knockout kick in an 11-second fight that left him unconscious with a fractured skull. Oddly enough, the entire affair tends to get shrugged off as meaningless; when really, it should be seen as a case study.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59794/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-oakland.jpg
Bruce Lee with student Barney Scollan in east Oakland, where Bruce eventually relocated his school into James Lee's garage. An earlier formal location on Broadway Avenue—where the Wong Jack Man fight took place—proved to be short-lived. (Photo courtesy of Barney Scollan)

“Made to Fight”

One of the most enduring questions that still remains difficult to answer, is—“Why Wong Jack Man?” Of all the practitioners in Chinatown to step forward to issue a challenge, why was it a recent transplant that had never even met Bruce Lee before?

There are two main theories on this. The first is that because Wong Jack Man was poised to open his own martial arts school in Chinatown, he stepped forward in an opportunistic moment to generate some publicity. Local tai chi practitioner David Chin asserts that Wong said as much when he signed a challenge note to be delivered to Bruce. Yet a more popular theory professed by many local sources from that era is that Wong Jack Man was duped into fighting Bruce, essentially the new kid on the scene goaded into a schoolyard brawl without grasping the stakes.

But who were those five people that drove over to Oakland with Wong Jack Man? In the front seat with Wong were David Chin and Chan “Bald Head” Keung, two martial artists that frequented the Ghee Yau Seah (The Soft Arts Academy), a sort of tai chi social club that had been established within Chinatown in the early 1930s. In the back seat, were a trio of hanger-on troublemaker types, with no strong connections to the neighborhood’s martial arts scene: Ronald “Ya Ya” Wu (whose nickname reflected his constantly yammering mouth), Martin Wong, and Raymond Fong. As Wong Jack Man would later put it, this group was “only there to see the hubbub.”

No one in the car was a student of TY Wong’s Kin Mon or Lau Bun’s Hung Sing, but tied instead to the Ghee Yau Seah. In fact, Lau Bun’s senior student Sam Louie remembers his school mates abiding by Lau Bun’s code of conduct and admonishing this crew as they riled themselves up that day prior to the fight: “We said, ‘It has nothing to do with Hung Sing.’ And we explained to them, ‘You go into someone’s studio…it’s no good. Whether you win or lose…it’s no good.’”

In Oakland, Bruce would only have two witnesses: his recent bride Linda Lee (who was 8 months pregnant at the time) and his close colleague James Lee (who had a loaded handgun nearby in case things spiraled out of control). This made for a total of nine people in the room, only three of whom are alive today. With a couple of very rare exceptions, Wong Jack Man has stayed perennially quiet on the matter. Linda Lee and David Chin, who were on opposing sides of the conflict, give a generally similar account: the fight was fast and furious, spilling wildly around the room. The exchange was crude, and far from cinematic. After landing an opening blow on Wong’s temple, Bruce struggled to decisively put away his evasive opponent like he had in Seattle a few years earlier, and quickly found himself heavily winded by the encounter.

Eventually Bruce’s relentless advance caused Wong to stumble over a small step, into an untenable position on the floor where Bruce hollered “Do you yield?” in Cantonese over and over while pummeling him repeatedly. Having lost his footing, Wong had no choice but to concede. “From there, he said he gives up and we stopped the fight,” recalls David Chin. “The whole thing lasted…not more than seven minutes.”

As with any good schoolyard fight, the exaggeration soon took on epic proportions. Storylines of Bruce slamming Wong’s head through a wall, or of Wong having Bruce in a headlock and ready to knock him out when the cops arrived, are just a couple among many. Perhaps the most absurd of the hyperbole, which is now a regular storyline in the press surrounding the upcoming release of Birth of the Dragon, is that the fight lasted for 20 minutes, a notion which is not only wholly inconsistent to the accounts of all proven eyewitnesses, but contrary to all basic sense for the nature of a street fight.

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59800/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-long-beach.jpg
A rare image of Bruce Lee demonstrating techniques the night before the first Long Beach Tournament, in the summer of 1964. (Photo courtesy of Barney Scollan)

In the fight’s aftermath a war of words took place in local Chinese newspapers, in which both Bruce and Wong denied starting or losing the fight. In time, the urban mythology surrounding the incident would cite that Wong issued a call for a rematch in his article, though the exact wording suggests otherwise: “[Wong] says that in the future he will not argue his case again in the newspaper, and if he is made to fight again, he will instead hold a public exhibition so that everyone can see with their own eyes.” Although not an exact quote from Wong, the wording is curious—made to fight—and hints at the idea that Wong was indeed manipulated into the affair.

What is generally agreed upon is that Bruce Lee’s messy victory—light years from his precise 11-second win over Yoichi in Seattle—was a catalyst for him to finally overhaul his approach. For a martial artist who all year long had been so loudly professing the effectiveness of his technique against the inferiority of others, Bruce found the Wong Jack Man fight to be a sober reality check, in which both his technique and his conditioning came up very short of his expectations.

The timing was right for Bruce to begin tangibly forming his new system, Jeet Kune Do. He had already been synthesizing many of the influences that he had been exposed to in recent years—from James Lee’s street-fighter sensibility to Wally’s Jay’s propensity for innovation—to form an integrated system personalized to the individual. In creating Jeet Kune Do, Bruce incorporated elements of Wing Chun, fencing, and American boxing into a minimalist-based approach with a philosophical orientation.

Yet among the more egregious historical liberties that the new film appears to be taking, Wong Jack Man’s character will literally explain core Jeet Kune Do principles to him, as if it wasn’t the fight itself that impacted Bruce, but Wong’s personal martial arts wisdom. continued next post

[GeneChing]

+ + +

http://assets.fightland.com/content-images/contentimage/59796/bruce-lee-vs-wong-jack-man-fact-fiction-and-the-birth-of-the-dragon-oakland2.jpg
Bruce Lee (back row center) with one of his early Oakland-era classes operating out of James Lee's (bottom row, third from left) garage, circa '65. Bruce's time in the Bay Area was was essential to his evolution as a martial artist, yet remains a largely obscure period of his iconic life. (Photo courtesy of Greglon Lee)

Today, when Bruce Lee is cited as “the godfather of MMA” it shouldn’t be merely for his sense of mixing styles (after all, others had done this in notable ways prior to him ever learning martial arts), but rather, for his emphasis on effective technique, and the constant evolution that is required to maintain it. This is the takeaway that gets lost amid the petty debates over the particulars surrounding the Wong Jack Man fight.

However, one of the most interesting postscripts (and there are many) to Bruce’s fight with Wong Jack Man falls to David Chin, the young martial artist who drove the Chinatown crew over to Oakland in late ’64. Despite standing that night with those opposed to Bruce Lee, David Chin is crystal clear on what he regards as the big picture: “The things Bruce was saying back then were true. I disagreed with him at the time, but he was right.”

Charles Russo is a journalist in San Francisco. This article contains information that is excerpted from his book - Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of Martial Arts in America.

If you haven't read Russo's Striking Distance (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69708-WINNERS-Striking-Distance-by-Charles-Russo) yet, I highly recommend it.

[GeneChing]

In all fairness, Philip never told the haters to "F— Off". He would if he meant to do so. He dropped a couple F bombs in the interview we did for the Nov+Dec cover story (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1316) (none of which I carried over to print, and I'm debating on how to handle it for the web exclusive).

I follow Philip's Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/straightblast5), but I never saw these posts. :confused:



ENTERTAINMENT Lead Actor For Bruce Lee Biopic Politely Tells All The Haters to F— Off (http://nextshark.com/philip-ng-defends-bruce-lee-biopic-birth-of-the-dragon/)
ByMax Chang Posted on October 5, 2016

http://cdn.nextshark.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Screen-Shot-2016-10-05-at-1.47.19-PM.png

It’s no secret that not many people in the Asian community are excited about the Bruce Lee biopic “Birth of the Dragon” after watching the trailer. While audiences are expecting a film depicting the epic fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man, the trailer makes it look like it centers around a white character, Steve McKee.
Early reviews of the film on IMDB have been extremely brutal — like mercilessly brutal.
“Film reduces Bruce Lee into a side character in his own story to force a white guy into the lead. Why is the main focus of the trailer on this silly white American dude? Asian males can never take the lead role. Only the sidekick even in their own movie. It is disgusting. White people, would it kill you to stop inserting yourselves into everything?” one user wrote.
However, Philip Ng, who plays Bruce Lee in the film, has come forward to give his personal thoughts on Facebook. He says that the IMDB reviewers have most likely not seen the film yet, and are basing it off of the trailer they saw.

http://cdn.nextshark.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/14463291_10154643912000530_7302486161615853692_n.j pg
http://cdn.nextshark.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/14495301_10154643912060530_6983200848329875200_n.j pg

NextShark attempted to reach Ng to get more details, but he declined to comment beyond what he already posted on Facebook.
Patrick Lee, the founder of Rotten Tomatoes, also gave his two cents in a Facebook post:

“I’m pretty sure the majority of the user reviews on IMDB referenced in the article are from people that haven’t actually seen the movie. Most likely they saw the trailer and decided to post negative reviews of the movie to hurt its score. The movie isn’t even out yet!!! As far as I know it’s only been screened at the Toronto International Film Festival so far. If you want a more accurate assessment of the film, check out the Tomatometer score (shameless plug) to see what the critics think when the movie actually comes out. Or better yet, WATCH THE MOVIE AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF!”

“The cast is almost completely Asian and features two Asian leads — Philip Ng as Bruce Lee and Yu Xia as Wong Jack Man. This is a movie that Asian Americans should be coming out in droves to support, not badmouthing and trying to boycott. If Hollywood makes a film with a nearly all-Asian cast and we boycott it and it bombs, guess what? We prove that “Asians aren’t bankable” and they stop casting Asians in any lead roles.”

While it’s completely fair that people should judge the movie without seeing it first, why did the makers release such a grating trailer, especially right now with the prevalence of Hollywood whitewashing Asian characters?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrFhIz1GLMo

Based on the negative reactions so far, it clearly doesn’t evoke positive feelings from Asian consumers. I guess we’ll just have to watch the whole film and see for ourselves.

[gaoshou]

http://filmcombatsyndicate.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/shannon-lee-responds-to-birth-of-dragon.html?m=0

[Phantom Dreamer]

This just doesn't look very good. What a shame and such a missed opportunity.

[GeneChing]

Here's the direct link to Shannon's facebook post (gaoshou's Film Combat Syndicate article post derives from this). It's a little ironic because the family endorsed both Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?46431-Dragon-The-Bruce-Lee-Story) and that CCTV mini-series The Legend of Bruce Lee (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48376-The-Legend-of-Bruce-Lee), and both of those were also highly fictionalized. That part is really all about estate royalties it seems.



Bruce Lee (https://www.facebook.com/BruceLee/photos/a.184478615633.250170.184049470633/10157542903475634/?type=3&theater)
Like This Page · 22 hrs ·

https://scontent.fsnc1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/14590075_10157542903475634_3356620126995065272_o.j pg

A great number of you have written to me with your concerns about Birth of the Dragon. I share your concerns and want to make it clear that Birth of the Dragon was made without my family’s consent or involvement. I have seen the film (out of necessity alone) and, in my opinion and the opinions of many (see link), this film is a travesty on many levels. I think this film is a step backward for Asians in film not to mention that the portrayal of Bruce Lee is inaccurate and insulting. I am disappointed that such a project would be funded and produced. Shannon

Article: http://www.asamnews.com/2016/09/29/birth-of-the-dragon-biopic-enrages-bruce-lee-fans-buries-asians-in-favor-of-a-white-guy/

Image posted contains highlights from the article referenced above.

Ironic too that Quartz's coverage would run a pic with Betty Ting Pei.

WHITEWASH
A new Bruce Lee biopic portrays the martial arts legend as little more than a white guy’s sidekick (http://qz.com/803238/a-new-bruce-lee-biopic-birth-of-the-dragon-portrays-the-martial-arts-legend-as-little-more-than-a-white-guys-sidekick/)

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/bruce-lee-chinese-film-e1473146488138.jpg?w=3200
Former Hong Kong actress Betty Ting poses in front of the statue of Hong Kong martial arts movie star Bruce Lee during the statue's unveiling ceremony, on Lee's 65th birthday, in Hong Kong November 27, 2005. Lee died in Ting's home in 1973. Ting will publish a book on the story of Bruce Lee, in future.
Whitewashed. (REUTERS/Paul Yeung)

WRITTEN BY Echo Huang Yinyin
OBSESSION Glass
October 07, 2016

Fans of Bruce Lee are slamming an upcoming biopic of the martial arts legend. His daughter Shannon Lee calls the film “a travesty on many levels.”
“Birth of the Dragon,” which premiered recently at the Toronto Film Festival, tells the story of Lee’s fight against kung fu master Wong Jack Man in Oakland in 1964. It was a formative event that has received minimal attention in the mythology surrounding Lee, as Charles Russo wrote on Vice—but the film is not entirely historically accurate. Deadline calls it a “mashup of fact and fable.”
American actor Billy Magnussen, who plays Lee’s fictional friend Steve McKee, dominates the film. McKee’s character shares equal time with Lee in the trailer, and Lee doesn’t appear until 30 seconds into the trailer.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrFhIz1GLMo

Shannon Lee said the movie was made without consent from her family, and that the portrayal of her father was inaccurate and insulting.
Fans are livid. “You turned a biopic about Bruce Lee (a real Asian person) into a ridiculous story about a fictional White guy,” wrote Reddit user Killingzoo. “Hollywood social engineering trash. Again with the White man save the world trope. This movie is so cliché. Even Bruce Lee is sidelined to make way for a White guy,” wrote another commenter.
It’s the latest racial controversy in Hollywood, which has come under fire for whitewashing movies by casting white actors in non-white roles, such as Leonardo DiCaprio as Persian poet Rumi and Scarlett Johansson in a Japanese role in an anime adaptation.
While Hollywood is getting the blame, “Birth of the Dragon” was financed by a Chinese company, Kylin Pictures. And even though Lee’s importance is diminished, some fans of the Asian actors in the film—Hong Kong actor Philip Ng, who plays Bruce Lee, and Chinese actor Yu Xia who plays Wong Jack Man—have expressed admiration for them on Weibo, China’s Twitter-esque social media platform.
“This is more Bruce Lee than the real Bruce Lee,” commented Weibo user Winnie under Ng’s Weibo post. Another wrote, “Oh Yu Xia is so cool and I didn’t anticipate that Bruce Lee would look like a street gangster” (links in Chinese, registration required).

The trailer has well over a million views now, mostly due to this controversy. ;)

[GeneChing]

Here's our first meme from the NOV+DEC 2016 issue (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=999). When Philip was cast in this film, it was an opportunity for me to put him on our cover as I really respect what he has been doing in Hong Kong film. We went to press prior to the release of the trailer, ahead of the whitewashing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66153-yellow-face-white-washing) controversy. I'm saddened to see that spoil Philip's opportunity to get exposure in the west, and somewhat worried it might affect newsstand sales of the issue (but it doesn't seem to have so far). Whatever becomes of Birth of the Dragon, I sincerely hope Philip gets the respect he deserves as a genuine Kung Fu man in film today and stand behind the cover story.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwRFay6UkAA2wNd.jpg:large

More to come...;)

[GeneChing]

Exclusive ezine extra from our NOV+DEC 2016 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1316). Read Philip Ng on Making it in Martial Arts Movies (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1326) by Gene Ching.

[GeneChing]

It's like the Curse of the Little Dragon that so many have spread rumors about...so surreal


ALPS Served A Stranger In Bruce Lee Movie Suit, Co. Says (https://www.law360.com/articles/871259/alps-served-a-stranger-in-bruce-lee-movie-suit-co-says)
By Kat Sieniuc

Law360, New York (December 9, 2016, 9:17 PM EST) -- A Beijing-based film production company suing an entertainment lawyer over a soured deal for the rights to a Bruce Lee biopic fought back in Virginia federal court on Friday against a bid for default judgment by the lawyer’s insurer, saying BigLaw’s ALPS served the wrong person.

The Attorney Liability Protection Society asked the court to declare it wasn't liable for covering or defending attorney Bennett Fidlow related to claims brought by Chinese company Kylin Network Movie and Culture Media Company Ltd. over a rights deal gone bad for a movie about martial arts star Bruce Lee.

But Kylin says that an affidavit meant for its CEO “Pang Hong,” also known as “James Pang" was instead delivered to a “Mr. Leo Shi Young,” who is neither an employee of Kylin nor authorized to accept service. Since its CEO was never served, Kylin said, the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to hand out the default judgment ALPS is looking for.

“When service of process is ineffective, a court does not acquire personal jurisdiction over a party, and a default judgment resulting from such defective service is void,” Kylin said in its motion, quoting another case.

The Chinese company added, “there is no evidence that the service on Mr. Young, an unrelated person and party, constitutes good service under California law.”

Counsel for ALPS did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.

ALPS brought its lawsuit in May seeking to duck coverage for Kylin’s suit against Fidlow. According to ALPS’ request for a “no coverage” declaration, Fidlow had a falling out with its client Kylin going back to at least April 2015.

That was when Kylin notified the lawyer of its intention to sue him over an alleged conflict of interest and fraud in a deal he helped broker for the rights to produce “Birth of a Dragon,” according to the complaint.

The company alleges that Fidlow, formerly of Virginia firm Schroder Fidlow PLC, first notified ALPS of the likelihood of a lawsuit on July 28, 2015, less than two weeks after his one-year ALPS policy coverage period began.

But the company said Kylin had previously warned Fidlow that a malpractice suit was forthcoming. That previous notification precludes coverage for Kylin’s suit filed in September, according to the company.

Because the lawsuit “is outside the coverage afforded by the Schroder Fidlow policy, ALPS is entitled to a declaratory judgment in its favor … declaring that the Schroder Fidlow policy does not afford coverage for the underlying suit and ALPS has no duty to defend and/or indemnify Fidlow,” the filing said.

The underlying California state suit revolves around a 2014 deal struck between Bliss Media Ltd. and Kylin on the financing and production of the Bruce Lee movie, according to the original complaint.

After execution of a partnership agreement, Fidlow jointly represented Bliss and Kylin in their efforts to obtain the rights to the movie, the documents say. The partners and another entity, QED Pictures, also executed a financing deal in which Kylin paid QED $1 million for certain rights to the production, according to ALPS.

Kylin alleges that it was advised months later that QED never held any rights to the movie, and the actual holder was a separate entity called QED Holdings LLC. Kylin said it was able to retrieve funds from QED but was refused the return of a separate $1 million paid to Bliss.

ALPS is represented by Timothy Baird and Jeremy Williams of Kutak Rock LLP.

Kylin is represented by J. Chapman Petersen and Stephen P. Pierce of Surovell Isaacs Petersen & Levy PLC.

The case is ALPS Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Fidlow et al., case number 3:16-cv-00276, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

--Additional reporting by Andrew Strickler. Editing by Mark Lebetkin.

[ThatGuy]

But Kylin says that an affidavit meant for its CEO “Pang Hong,” also known as “James Pang" was instead delivered to a “Mr. Leo Shi Young,” who is neither an employee of Kylin nor authorized to accept service. Since its CEO was never served, Kylin said, the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to hand out the default judgment ALPS is looking for.


http://www.kylinpicturesus.com/about.html

The plot thickens..

[GeneChing]

I've been wondering what was up with this project.


Bruce Lee-Wong Jack Man Brawler ‘Birth Of The Dragon’ To Land At BH Tilt & WWE Studios (http://deadline.com/2017/02/bruce-lee-birth-of-the-dragon-wong-jack-man-bh-tilt-wwe-studios-george-nolfi-1201899704/)
by Mike Fleming Jr
February 1, 2017 9:42am

https://cfmedia.deadline.com/2017/02/birth-of-dragon.jpg?w=446&h=299&crop=1

EXCLUSIVE: After the Sundance avalanche of movie sales, a splashy title that unveiled last fall at Toronto is securing a wide distribution deal. BH Tilt and WWE Studios are close to a pact for a wide North American theatrical release of Birth Of The Dragon, the George Nolfi-directed drama about the emergence of Bruce Lee as a martial arts icon. The film is set against the backdrop of 1960s San Francisco, and was inspired by the epic true-life showdown between the brash newcomer Lee long before Enter The Dragon and the Shaolin kung fu master Wong Jack Man. Lee is played by Hong Kong action star Philip Ng, Wong by Chinese star Xia Yu.

https://cfmedia.deadline.com/2017/02/dragon.jpg?w=301&h=202&crop=1
BH Tilt
The outcome of the 1964 fight, held in private with few witnesses, has long been in dispute. Nolfi uses it as the jumping-off point for a coming-of-age story not only of Lee, but also a young Steve McQueen-inspired character who is the link between the two masters and makes possible the East meets West collision. The young man (played by Billy Magnussen) has his own subplot, a Romeo and Juliet romance with a young Chinese immigrant (JingJing Qu) under the control of the Chinese mob. He enlists the masters in his own conflict, in a mashup of fact and fable that captures the spirit of Lee’s ’70s martial arts films. The cut I saw before the film unveiled in Toronto has been finalized. They’ll set a release date after closing the deal.

https://cfmedia.deadline.com/2017/02/enter-the-dragon.jpg

BH Tilt is part of Blumhouse, the genre film company which just scored a monster hit with the James McAvoy-starrer Split. The distribution company first teamed with WWE on the upcoming pic Sleight. Good Universe is handling foreign sales on Dragon to kick off at the Berlin Film Festival.

The picture is a co-production with Groundswell, Kylin Pictures, and Anomaly Entertainment. Michael London, Janice Williams, James Hong Pang and Leo Shi Young are the producers. The script was written by Stephen J. Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson, who with Eric Roth and Michael Mann scripted the story of another iconic brawler, Ali. They based Birth Of The Dragon on the Michael Dorgan article “Bruce Lee’s Toughest Fight.” WME Global is brokering the deal.

[GeneChing]

This is so confusing.


ALPS Escapes Bid For Coverage Of Bruce Lee Movie Suit (https://www.law360.com/articles/894728/alps-escapes-bid-for-coverage-of-bruce-lee-movie-suit)
By Rick Archer

Law360, Los Angeles (February 22, 2017, 6:57 PM EST) -- A Virginia federal judge on Wednesday ruled BigLaw malpractice insurer ALPS can duck out of covering an entertainment lawyer in a lawsuit over a rights deal gone bad for a movie about martial arts star Bruce Lee.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson granted ALPS Property & Casualty Insurance Co.'s motion for summary judgment, finding the organization does not have to cover attorney Bennett Fidlow of Entertainment Law Inc. against the suit by Beijing-based Kylin Network Movie and Culture Media Company Ltd.

The order notes the defendants did not oppose the motion, and that ALPS had agreed to drop its demand for defense costs.

The dispute centers around a California state suit against Fidlow regarding a 2014 deal between Bliss Media Ltd. and Kylin on the financing and production of a movie called “Birth of a Dragon.”

After execution of a partnership agreement, Fidlow represented both Bliss and Kylin while the pair attempted to obtain the rights to the movie. The partners and another entity, QED Pictures, also executed a financing deal in which Kylin paid QED $1 million for certain rights to the production, according to ALPS.

Kylin alleged in its suit against Fidlow that it was advised months later that QED never held any rights to the movie, and the actual holder was a separate entity called QED Holdings LLC. Kylin said it was able to retrieve funds from QED but was refused the return of a separate $1 million paid to Bliss.

The media company sued in September 2015, bringing claims of malpractice, fraud and breaches of fiduciary duty against Fidlow and his firm at the time, Schroder Fidlow PLC.

ALPS brought its own lawsuit in May seeking to duck coverage for Kylin’s suit against Fidlow. The insurer alleged that Fidlow first notified ALPS of the likelihood of a lawsuit on July 28, 2015 — less than two weeks after his one-year ALPS policy coverage period for ELI began — despite knowing of a potential lawsuit as far back as April.

ALPS said all of the actions that took place leading up to Kylin’s suit did not take place during the ELI coverage period, meaning the policy did not cover the claim. ALPS also said the malpractice allegations could not be covered under Schroder Fidlow’s policy running from July 7, 2014, to July 7, 2015, because Fidlow filed his notice of claim outside the coverage policy.

In a statement Schroder Davis said its current partners were not involved in the underlying suit, but there had been "confusion" over whether it is a sucessor to Schroder Fidlow.

"Schroder Davis is not a successor, and ALPS has acknowledged as much since filing the declaratory judgment action. This has been an unfortunate situation and we are glad that Schroder Davis is no longer entangled in this litigation," the statement said.

Counsel for ALPS declined to comment. Counsel for Fidlow did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Fidlow and ELI are represented by Steven S. Biss.

Schroder Davis is represented by Edward E. Bagnell Jr. and John M. Erbach of Spotts Fain PC.

ALPS is represented by Timothy Baird and Jeremy Williams of Kutak Rock LLP.

The case is ALPS Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Fidlow et al., case number 3:16-cv-00276, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

This story has been updated to include comments from Schroder Davis.

--Additional reporting by Andrew Strickler and Matthew Guarnaccia. Editing by Breda Lund.

[GeneChing]

There was a screener shown to the Wong Jack Man school a few weeks ago. Some of them will be judging for us at KFTC25 AF (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69762-KUNG-FU-TAI-CHI-25TH-ANNIVERSARY-FESTIVAL-May-19-21-2017-San-Jose-CA). They liked it and accepted it as a 'fable'.


Bruce Lee Origins Pic ‘Birth Of The Dragon’ Punches August Release Date (http://deadline.com/2017/05/bruce-lee-pic-birth-of-the-dragon-late-august-release-1202092004/)
by Anthony D'Alessandro
May 12, 2017 12:15pm

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/birth-of-the-dragon.jpg?w=446&h=299&crop=1I
BH Tilt

George Nolfi’s Birth of the Dragon, which follows the rise of a young Bruce Lee, will open wide on August 25 via OTL Releasing and BH Tilt/WWE Studios.

At a time when the 1960s counterculture was in full swing in San Francisco, Lee (Philip Ng) was a rebel of his own, teaching his own type of martial arts to non-Chinese despite his community frowning upon it. A young actor named Steven McKee (Billy Magnussen) becomes a pupil of Lee’s, who in turn is fascinated by his new student’s line of work. However, kung fu master Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia) is sent from China to stop Lee’s heretical ways, soon giving birth to a legend. Jin Xing, Jingjing Qu and Simon Yin also star.

On August 25, Birth of the Dragon will be programmed against Weinstein/Dimension’s horror title Polaroid, TWC’s Tulip Fever, Sony’s drama All Saints and IFC’s African-American drama Crown Heights.

Birth of the Dragon premiered at Toronto last year. Steven J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson wrote the script and produce with Michael London and Janice Williams for Groundswell Productions along with James Hong Pang and Leo Shi Young for Kylin Pictures.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txpwMOSOcHI

Birth of the Dragon (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67701-Birth-of-the-Dragon) finally opens Aug 25, 2017. Our NOV+DEC 2016 issue (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69695-November-December-2016) was premature. :o

[GeneChing]

It'll be amusing to watch how this release plays out, given the back story. I just hope it reflects well on Philip Ng in the end. He's delivered some great work and I wish him all the continued success he deserves.


Enter a New (Little) Dragon: Philip Ng… (http://www.impactonline.co/film/14960-enter-new-little-dragon-philip-ng/)
18 Jul 2017/Mike Leeder

http://www.impactonline.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/1NEWIMPACT-LITTLE-DRAGON-750x330.jpg

George Nolfi’s Birth of the Dragon is being released theatrically in North America in August… but might it yet defy the early nay-sayers the trailer created and prove to be a hit?

Philip Ng (Once Upon a Time in Shanghai) plays Bruce Lee while Xiao Yu, from Dragon Squad, plays rival martial arts master Wong Jack-man. The film is inspired by the real challenge match between Lee and Wong, a match that varies from a friendly challenge to a vicious battle to the near-death depending on whose account you listen to…

San Francisco, 1965: Bruce Lee has been making a name for himself in the martial arts world, but he courted controversy and criticism for his out-spoken attitude about real martial arts needing to evolve… and for his willingness to teach Chinese martial arts to anyone. A misunderstanding lead a Shaolin Master, Wong Jack-man, to seek out Lee, to test his martial arts skills at the highest level.

That’s the version the movie goes with… it’s not selling itself as the true autobiographical depiction of Lee’s life and times (unlike Rob Cohen’s entertaining if somewhat fanciful portrayal of Lee’s life in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and the sadly shockingly inaccurate – and at times almost insane – Legend of Bruce Lee series produced by CCTV with the full approval and support of the Bruce Lee Estate from ten years ago). Birth of the Dragon is inspired by true events, and real people but takes the idea of the challenge match and some events and people from Lee’s life and takes them in a new direction.

For some reason the film was accused, much like The Great Wall, of whitewashing (because as we all know that if ‘Giant Monsters’ had really been ravaging China, no foreign mercenaries in search of superior Chinese gunpowder would have ever worked with the Chinese forces to battle these monsters and learn anything about honour and discipline from them!). The claim is that Birth of the Dragon white-washes Lee’s life, citing that there’s a western character in there who has a relationship with a Chinese woman! (The question being, what’s wrong – Bruce Lee married a White woman…) Of course it was also not produced with the blessing or support of the Bruce Lee Estate, and there was quite a lot of press about that aspect.

No, the Lee Estate wasn’t involved and Shannon Lee said the film showed a “…lack a complete understanding of his philosophies and artistry. They haven’t captured the essence of his beliefs in martial arts or storytelling.” But Bruce Lee was a public figure and many of the accusations and backlash that spun off from the controversy seem to have been without seeing the film, and on the strength of a trailer that told the story as witnessed by one of Lee’s western students.

It would appear from new reports and audience reaction that there’s a counterpoint view that the film is not the white-washed tale some accused of it being. Indeed, I have a feeling that a lot of the early naysayers will soon be eating their words.

Either way, we at Impact look forward to seeing Philip Ng’s take on the Little Dragon, being portrayed at the time when the man was becoming a legend; when he was finding his way in the world and – yes – was, according to many who knew him at the time, a little cocky, and did sometimes literally banged heads with people over his beliefs… but we also want to see Shannon Lee’s upcoming Little Dragon movie which will focus on Lee’s early life and times, which will begin production this fall with Shekhar Kapur directing…

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZItqrhM8II

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTAIkPKIN7M

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXroF5OpE2E

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiUci_2HFTk

[GeneChing]

...it's that final graphic image that warrants a repost of this article here. :cool:


#BirthOfTheDragon
5 Things You Need To Know About Philip Ng, Who Plays Bruce Lee In Upcoming 'Birth Of The Dragon' (https://moviepilot.com/p/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-philip-ng/4324883)
August 10, 2017 at 08:49AM

https://images.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_470,q_auto:good,w_620/qnthfszzowvphkyb7gnq.jpg
Philip Ng as Bruce Lee in 'Birth Of The Dragon' [Credit: Groundswell Productions] Philip Ng as Bruce Lee in 'Birth Of The Dragon' [Credit: Groundswell Productions]
By David Rodemerk, writer at CREATORS.CO

Watched HBO and Cinemax as a little kid before "binge-watching" was even a thing! Mom called me a TV Guide with diapers. Twitter @filmigos
David Rodemerk
When it comes to martial arts, the first name that pops into every person's head is probably Bruce Lee. His masterful fighting style and insightful teachings have influenced generations of film fans and martial arts students. In the new film Birth Of The Dragon, he's brilliantly portrayed by actor Philip Ng.


The story focuses on Bruce Lee challenging kung fu master Wong Jack Man (played by Xia Yu) to a private fight. People debate who won the fight in real life, but one outcome is not debated: this was the point when #BruceLee revamped his style of kung fu.

Philip Ng is the ideal choice for the role — he eats, sleeps and breathes martial arts. Here are some interesting facts that will prove Ng has the right moves for the role.

1. He Was Born in Hong Kong

When he was seven years old, his family emigrated to Chicago, Illinois, from Hong Kong. Eventually, Ng moved back to Hong Kong to study both acting and fight choreography.

2. He's Spent His Entire Life Studying Kung Fu


https://instagram.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/14736379_1180872821971148_2846551672061165568_n.jp g

straightblast5
Following (https://www.instagram.com/p/BL3hvlhAQQG/)
My Saturday night. 我的星期六晚 😎 #gainz #jumping #gym #deadlifts #legday #kungfumovies #HongKongActionCinema #GodisGood #payback
Like
Comment
10,266 likes
straightblast5My Saturday night. 我的星期六晚 😎 #gainz #jumping #gym #deadlifts #legday #kungfumovies #HongKongActionCinema #GodisGood #payback


From a young age, Ng learned the styles of Hung Gar, Choy Lay Fut, Wing Chun Gung Fu and taekwondo thanks to his father and uncle, and later trained with Master Woon S. Shim and Sifu Wong Shun Leung. It was Sifu Wong who encouraged Ng to go back to America and teach students to become fellow practitioners and training partners. Making him even more perfect for the role, Philip Ng learned Wing Chun from Wong Shun Leung—just like Bruce Lee.

3. He Started His Own Wing Chun Association


https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/s851x315/25359_110579182301765_393901_n.jpg?oh=96e3c9e25c0d ae2df68c0c2e9dc00d82&oe=5A2B9875
Ng Family Chinese Martial Arts Association (https://www.facebook.com/NFCMAA/photos/a.110579028968447.14579.110391725653844/110579182301765/?type=3)
about 7 years ago

Sifu Philip Ng teaching an IVTA class.


In 1997, Philip Ng initiated the Illini Ving Tsun Association at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Sifu Philip Ng spent five years presiding over the association as both the head instructor and club president.

4. He's Already An Accomplished Martial Arts And Action Star


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG9L4fRMb90

Philip Ng worked his butt off in the Hong Kong action movie scene. He started off as a stuntman and eventually became a featured actor. In 2014, all of his hard work paid off when he was chosen to be the lead in the martial arts film Once Upon a Time in Shanghai. He played Ma Yongzhen, a laborer who moves to Shanghai in the hope of becoming rich, but must use his kung fu skills to survive. But Ng has been acting for over a decade and a half, with an impressive filmography already under his belt, including

Enter the Phoenix (2004)
House of Fury (2005)
Treasure Inn (2011)
Mr. & Mrs. Gambler (2012)
Naked Soldier (2012)
The Man from Macau (2014)
Wild City (2015)
He'll also be starring in the upcoming King of Drug Dealers with Rogue One's Donnie Yen.

5. He's A Stuntman And A Stunt Choreographer


https://instagram.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/14736219_1559123584101434_3431901524903591936_n.jp g

straightblast5 (https://www.instagram.com/p/BMjsgvMAuMc/)
Following
I admire and respect all fighting methods, but I find the rhythm inherent in traditional Chinese martial arts to fit very well with the type of fight-choreography that I prefer when I film or direct. ··········
Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine - November+December 2016 http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1316
Unlike
Comment
5,225 likes
straightblast5I admire and respect all fighting methods, but I find the rhythm inherent in traditional Chinese martial arts to fit very well with the type of fight-choreography that I prefer when I film or direct. ··········
Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine - November+December 2016 http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1316
View all 24 comments


After leaving his regular job, Philip Ng pursued his dream of performing in martial arts films. While working gigs in Hong Kong, he was introduced to Chin Kar Lok, a director who was once a member Sammo Hung's stuntman team, looking for someone to help train actors. Ng became his assistant martial arts choreographer on a film. Looks like Ng put his education degree to work! Not only that, but he uses his extensive martial arts background when he's in front of the camera as much a when he's behind it. Ng does all of his own stunts, which is incredibly impressive when you check out his body of work.

And now, with Birth of a Dragon, a film inspired by a true event, he's about to become a star in the U.S. as well. There's no doubt that Philip Ng has the skills to bring Bruce Lee's infamous battle against Wong Jack Man to life.

Birth of the Dragon premieres in theaters on August 25, 2017.

[Taijiren]

I just got back from a special screening of "Birth of the Dragon" at the AMC Kabuki Theater in San Francisco. It was attended by the director (George Nolfi), the actor who played Bruce Lee (Philip Ng), and Wong Jack Man himself. I also caught sight of various students of Sifu Wong who've written articles for Kungfu Magazine in the past (Michael Dorgan, Rick Wing, Scott Jensen).

I'm making this post in the hopes that people will give this movie a chance. It's gotten a lot of bad press after last year's initial trailer and screening at the Toronto Film Festival, not to mention Shannon Lee's dismissal of the film. I think, however, that if you leave any preconceived notions on what a "Bruce Lee film" is supposed to be like at the door, you'll fine this film to be quite entertaining. As the guys on the "They Call Me Bruce" podcast first stated (and Nolfi mentioned tonight as well), you should think of this movie as kungfu 'fanfic'. It takes some well known real world people and puts them in an alternative history (and the end of the movie gets REALLY alternative).

That being said, Philip does a good job capturing many of Bruce's mannerisms. One gets the feeling that he watched the available footage of Bruce's interviews and demos (the ones that we've all seen many times) on an endless loop. Apparently, Philip also did some of the fight choreography along with Corey Yuen. I had some concerns about the fight choreography after watching the first trailer, but it turns out all of those scenes were from a home movie Bruce Lee was making to break into Hollywood and purposely made to look bad (in the film that section is done with choppy grainy film to emphasize the home movie quality). The rest of the fights are quite entertaining (especially when the film goes off the deep end into alternative history at the end).

At any rate, if you like kungfu movies (and who of us doesn't), give this movie a shot. Just remember it's not a biopic, it's fanfic, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Almost forgot to mention there are cameos by Yu Hai, Wang Xian, and Vanness Wu as well. Fun for those of us who know who they are.]

[GeneChing]

My bad. I should've followed up more on this. Last weekend, we just did some retrofitting on our office (sprinkler system repairs and new carpet) so we had to move everything out and back again and I'm just about done with my stuff. However, clearly I should've been in SF yesterday for this. It would've been great to see Philip again in the flesh.

There's news vid embedded in the article below.

Bruce Lee biopic director, actor present plaque to San Francisco hospital where star was born
Wednesday, August 16, 2017 06:27PM

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A new movie based on the legendary fight between Bruce Lee and Chinese kung fu master Wong Jack Man is also helping the San Francisco hospital where the martial artist and movie star was born.

The biopic, "Birth of the Dragon," is set against the backdrop of 1960s San Francisco.

On Wednesday, the film's director George Nolfi and star Philip Ng presented a commemorative plaque to Chinese Hospital, where Bruce Lee was born in 1940.

"I tried to capture the spirit of Bruce Lee. He was a superhero but he was also a human being," said Ng. He went on to say, "'Birth of the Dragon' was here, so having the press conference here and also, you know, brings that point to life and also we want to help the community and have people donate to this hospital so they can further help the community."

Nolfi added, "Bruce was born in 1964. In this film, he's young, not fully formed... trying to prove himself, recently married and dealing in a world where he's trying to become a movie star. He was thinking of racism and constraints that might keep him down. You can see that in the movie... why he's fighting and how it transformed him. He's like a movie star being born in this movie."

Wednesday night's premiere of "Birth of the Dragon" is a benefit for Chinese Hospital.

The film is set to be released in theaters nationwide on Aug. 25.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soLlxteBbNA

[GeneChing]

I don't really agree with this but it's postable on the Birth of the Dragon (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67701-Birth-of-the-Dragon) and McGregor vs. Mayweather, August 26 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70318-McGregor-vs-Mayweather-August-26) threads.


https://images.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_470,q_auto:good,w_620/q8eejotecvct01hin5j2.jpg
#BirthOfTheDragon
Birth Of The Dragon: How Bruce Lee And Wong Jack Man Were The Original Mayweather Vs. McGregor (https://moviepilot.com/p/bruce-lee-and-wong-jack-man-were-the-original-mayweather-vs-mcgregor/4343834)
August 16, 2017 at 10:11AM
By Carlos Rosario Gonzalez, writer at CREATORS.CO
This Earth's Sorcerer Supreme and collector of all six Infinity Stones. I'm currently stuck in the Matrix and can't get out. I also write.

The biggest sporting event of the year will come to fruition on August 26 when two of the world's greatest fighters face each other for the first time. Mayweather vs. McGregor not only pits the respective undefeated boxing phenom against the current UFC Lightweight champion, it clashes the venerated world of professional boxing with the rising global sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

Today, MMA has merited the designation of sport that is growing in popularity and respect. Martial arts as a whole has revitalized itself in entertainment, from movies and television shows to video games. More and more old-school fighting video games are making a comeback—Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite is arguably one of the most anticipated fighting games of the year, for example. In Hollywood, plenty of young actors and stunt people are making a name for themselves with a repertoire of martial arts skills on their resume, and as a result, the stunt choreography and fight sequences in movies and TV shows are getting better and better. Just look at the praise garnered for martial arts-heavy shows like Netflix's Daredevil and AMC's Into the Badlands.

But MMA's story of evolving from a combination of boxing and other fighting disciplines and becoming a worldwide sensation isn't new. In 1964 Bruce Lee and his new take on Wing Chun transfixed the West Coast of the United States. It was also in that year that Lee’s new approach on Chinese martial arts clashed with the Kung Fu of the past, when Wushu master Wong Jack Man faced Lee in a duel. When two of the world’s greatest Kung Fu masters faced each other for the first time in that fight over 50 years ago, it revolutionized Kung Fu for the masses.

No one really knows how the fight went down, but we’ll finally see a glimpse of the legend in the movie Birth of the Dragon. If we look at that legendary fight, we can draw some parallels to the upcoming one, and how the history of fighting has influenced both.

Bruce Lee And Conor McGregor

Bruce Lee gave rise to what we know today as Mixed Martial Arts. His take on Kung Fu was unique and vastly different from what early masters of the art were teaching their students. Eventually, Lee’s fighting style evolved into his own discipline, Jeet Kune Do; it's when it made its way into movies that the discipline became famous.

But before Lee became the Hollywood legend that he is today, he was teaching his Kung Fu ways to San Francisco residents. When he participated in his first competition at the Long Beach International Karate Championships, Lee became a local sensation and won the crowd over with his one-inch punch. Much like Lee, we can see the same fire in Conor McGregor.

McGregor channels Bruce Lee entirely; that is why he calls Lee his inspiration.


The current champ has been the talk of the MMA universe ever since he made his UFC debut, winning by way of knockout. His cocky, fiery personality inside and outside of the octagon has inspired many rising UFC fighters, and like Lee, McGregor has brought his own spin to an ancient fighting style. In addition to being a mixed martial artist, McGregor also sees himself as a boxer. Like Lee, however, his boxing is a culmination of different disciplines put into one. That's what's so intriguing about the UFC champ; he's a modern-day version of Bruce Lee, and fans seem to agree. From his fighting style to his philosophies, McGregor channels Bruce Lee entirely; that is why he calls Lee his inspiration.

What’s more, the similarities between Lee and McGregor don’t end in their mutual abilities. Their greatest fights may just be their greatest equivalence. McGregor will meet his match when he faces Floyd Mayweather Jr. on August 26, just like Lee fought his greatest adversary Wong Jack Man in an abandoned warehouse in 1964.

Wong Jack Man And Floyd Mayweather Jr.

While much is debated about the epic fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man, what's fact is that Wong was one of the best fighters of his time. His skills in the various branches of Chinese martial arts made him an expert in the sport and a respected, popular name both in China and the United States. The parallels between Wong and Mayweather are clear.

Like Mayweather, Wong was fearless and full of spirit, sticking to the ancient ways of Kung Fu. Wong's bout with Bruce Lee saw the old style of Chinese martial arts clash with Lee's new system, just like how Mayweather's traditional boxing background will run up against McGregor's modified hybrid style.

But of course, it was more than just kicking and punching. The fight between Wong and Lee was as much a battle between opposite philosophies as it was a physical fight.

When Fighting Philosophies Clash

When Lee opened his martial arts school, the Jun Fan Gung Institute, in 1964, he wasn’t yet the Bruce Lee that we all know and love. The "be like water" way of mind hadn't yet entered into Lee's philosophical paradigm. The younger Lee was a constant rush of adrenaline and more than a little arrogant in his ways. Lee's optimism was a great virtue, but it was partnered with a healthy dose of conceit. His calm, relaxed demeanor of later years was far from present, and his urge to win and prove himself was high.

Enter Wong Jack Man, a Chinese martial arts master whose philosophy was everything Bruce Lee's was not. Lee's aggressive, kicking whirlwind faced off against Wong's serene, controlled dance of motion. And it prevailed.

Lee's aggressive, kicking whirlwind faced off against Wong's serene, controlled dance of motion.


While the outcome of the fight is up to interpretation, there was another outcome that is more important. From that day forward Lee had a new mentality. He went forth to create his own discipline in Jeet Kune Do and became as great a philosopher as he was an actor and martial arts expert. The sport changed for the better, continually evolving and leading to its resurgence in the modern world of entertainment; today there's a full roster of MMA names to thank for the martial arts resurgence that's currently influencing sports and entertainment. But while these personalities are the catalyst of the modern martial arts renaissance, they are all still the offspring that sprouted from the legend of Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man.

While none of us got to witness the mythical fight between Lee and Wong, we'll get the chance to watch its equivalent on August 26. Another physical and philosophical clash of masters in their respective disciplines is in the very fabric of Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor. Regardless of the victor, the boxing world will learn from the MMA world and vice versa. Two philosophies will clash and, like Lee vs. Wong, a new spirit will blossom.

The greatest fight of our time is right upon us, mirroring the greatest fight that came about over 50 years ago.

Watch the legendary fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man when Birth of the Dragon releases in the U.S. on August 25.

[Jimbo]

That article is wrong on so many levels.

Bruce Lee did NOT invent the concept of "mixed martial arts". That had been going on for as long as MA have been around. Every single MA system is a "mixed martial art", even the traditional KF systems. It was actually "traditional" to combine knowledge gained from different sources, as much as was possible in the past.

Stubborn adherence to a single system was more of a phenomenon of recent history, when MA were generally no longer a matter of life and death, and became more about 'purity', money and 'face'.

[GeneChing]

Philip Ng talks ‘Birth of the Dragon’ role, Bruce Lee influence, martial arts and more (http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/philip-ng-talks-birth-of-the-dragon-role-bruce-lee-influence-martial-arts-and-more-1.14059783)
Updated August 16, 2017 11:06 AM
By Joseph V. Amodio Special to Newsday

http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.14059782.1502895958!/httpImage/image.jpeg_gen/derivatives/display_600/image.jpeg
Philip Ng stars in "Birth of the Dragon." Photo Credit: Getty Images / Sonia Recchia

He may have started out a mild-mannered teacher in Illinois, but Philip Ng has set his sights on becoming an international martial arts movie star. And if any film can help make that happen, it’s “Birth of the Dragon,” in which he plays Bruce Lee, the greatest martial arts megastar of all time.

The film, which premieres in theaters Aug. 25, tells the true tale — shrouded in secrecy for decades — of a martial arts showdown between a young, brash Lee (Ng) and a mysterious kung fu master from China named Wong Jack Man (played with an intense stillness by Chinese actor Xia Yu). Little is known about the no-holds-barred battle — not even who won — except that it changed Lee, who soon after leapt to superstardom in a series of films (including “Enter the Dragon”), single-handedly popularizing kung fu in the United States.

Ng, 39, was born in Hong Kong, raised in Chicago, and then moved back to Hong Kong 15 years ago to pursue his dream of breaking into the martial arts movie biz. He succeeded, working as a stuntman, fight choreographer, director and actor (“Wild City,” “Zombie Fight Club”). This film (in which he performs his own stunts) marks his North American debut. He’s currently shooting a television series in the middle of rural China.

How big a Bruce Lee fan were you before shooting this film?

Big. He influenced my path. My own sifu — that is, my own master, the person who taught me Wing Chun [a form of kung fu] — actually trained Bruce Lee. They were close.

Why was Bruce Lee such an outlier in the world of martial arts? He ticked off a lot of traditional practitioners by teaching westerners, incorporating street fighting, and treating it as something secular rather than a religious pursuit.

He saw kung fu as a pragmatic skill, like cooking or chopping wood. There’s a specific goal — to incapacitate your opponent — using principles of simplicity, efficiency and directness. It’s like basketball players — they’re all playing basketball, but they have different styles that suit their body shapes and athletic abilities. Bruce Lee thought the same thing — find what works for you. Whenever you’re revolutionary, you’ll be seen as an outsider. But 40 years later, his ideas are prevalent in sports like MMA [mixed martial arts].

You’re raised in America, get a master’s degree, then start off as a teacher — what subject did you teach, by the way?

Art.

Really! So you’ve got art on one side of your resume, mortal combat on the other.

Yeah. [He chuckles.] My father owns a martial arts school in Chicago. He’s an accountant. [He laughs harder.] That’s his main job. But we own a martial arts school. For us, martial arts is like brushing your teeth.

Sorry?

It’s like brushing your teeth or taking a shower — you have to do it. It’s part of life’s routine. Of course, it’s a lot deeper than that.

What’s a big misconception about martial arts movies? To the uninitiated, they seem like just a series of fights.

The fighting is actually dialogue — each punch is a way for you to deliver an idea. Those fists and kicks tell a story. Like if I’m in a scene protecting somebody, but scared of my opponent, I’ll deliver that punch differently than if I’m a bully picking on a small kid. The action you see in movies today, the fisticuffs, the fighting — a lot of those techniques originated in the Hong Kong cinema, in the 1970s and ’80s, starting with Bruce Lee, and on up to Jackie Chan.

So you had the grad degree, the art teacher job — but you give it all up and move to Hong Kong in the hopes of . . . becoming a martial arts star. How tough was it to make that leap?

In the beginning, you’re like, OK, OK . . .give yourself a few years to see if it works out. But when you get over here, you realize you can’t just try, you have to give it your all or quit. I got lucky — I started as a stuntman and worked my way up. Was it hard moving here? Yeah. But . . . if you’re moving forward, not backward, then you can keep pursuing your dreams. When opportunities come up, treat every single one like it’s the biggest thing ever, and you’ll get where you deserve to be. I’m a firm believer in that.

Well, it seems to be working for you. I’d say “break a leg” on your next project, but that doesn’t seem the best thing to say to a martial arts expert.

Yeah. [He laughs.] But it’s a well-wishing thing, so I appreciate it.




That article is wrong on so many levels.
I feel ya, Jimbo. ;)

[Jimbo]

I like Philip Ng, and will see this movie for his performance. I didn't know he was 39! I thought maybe 30 at the oldest.

[GeneChing]

There's a free BotD fighting game here (WWE Studios August 17 at 11:49am · To be the best, you have to beat the best. Start fighting! Comment below if YOU beat the Shaolin Master and don't miss WWE Studios' Birth of the Dragon, in theaters August 25. www.birthofthedragon.com/fighter).

http://www.birthofthedragon.com/fighter/share.jpg

Plus WWE Studios (https://www.facebook.com/OfficialWWEStudios/?fref=mentions) is hosting a live interview with Philip on facebook, which is allegedly happening right now.


Tune in tomorrow at 9am PST/12pm EST for a LIVE interview with Philip Ng, the star of WWE Studios' Birth of the Dragon.

In theaters this Friday!

https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/20863556_1510924018954471_6594170862383583979_o.jp g?oh=03f151bd2fe50d3266d6642aa6b5f132&oe=5A391BE3

[GeneChing]

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/18163650/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-Shanghai_DSC6957-900x506.jpg

Interview with Philip Ng Part 2: Experiences on Birth of the Dragon (https://www.jetli.com/2017/08/interview-philip-ng-birth-of-the-dragon)
By Sean Tierney 3 days ago in Entertainment

Philip Ng the Birth of the Dragon

Following our first interview with martial artist, actor and choreographer Philip Ng. In part two we discuss his experience in front of and behind the camera in the Hong Kong film industry as well as his experiences on the set of Birth of the Dragon where he plays the legendary Bruce Lee.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMMe9PHQ9AQ

Interview with Philip Ng Part 2

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16104754/MGL7353-600x900.jpg

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO PLAY BRUCE LEE?

Philip Ng: It was surreal. I have read everything Bruce Lee ever wrote, and I’ve studied his films, his ideas about martial arts, and his philosophy extensively. When I started Birth of the Dragon, they asked me how long I’d been preparing for the role, and I said, “Basically my whole life!” Everybody imitates Brue Lee in some way. When you play a character, you investigate them so you can portray them better. I’ve been reading, watching, and thinking about Bruce Lee for as long as I can remember. His philosophies influenced the way that I think as well as the way I train. So actually portraying him was surreal.

It’s kind of funny how I got the role. They were auditioning a lot of different people, and one of them was Andy On. He said “I don’t look like Bruce Lee, but I have a friend who does, and he sent them my stuff, and they said “Yeah, have him do a tape.” So he, his fiancée, another friend and I spent several hours shooting the audition scenes. I sent the audition in and didn’t think much more about it. Movies are auditioning people all the time, and c’mon, it’s Bruce Lee. But the director really liked my audition, and so I got the role.

I finished shooting a Fist Within Four Walls in Hong Kong on the 4th of November 2015 and I flew to Vancouver to start shooting Birth of the Dragon on the 6th. I had heard a lot of stories about working in Hollywood from my seniors in the stunt industry. It was all true. It was a great experience! I would tell people about working in Hong Kong, like my schedule, or working with a broken arm or cracked ribs, and they think I’m lying or trying to get sympathy.

The worst thing about shooting Birth of the Dragon is that there was always food on the set. Good food, like doughnuts. I’m playing Bruce Lee; I can’t eat the doughnuts! My students would come to visit the set, and they would eat doughnuts in front of me.

I had a scene; it was right before Christmas break, where I had to take my shirt off. Right after that, the makeup artist went to Craft Services and got me three doughnuts. Then I went after those doughnuts like they offended my family.

I also had a chance to choreograph a scene in the movie, too. I didn’t fight in it. It was filmed in China, and our action director Corey Yuen’s schedule was full so he couldn’t do it himself. The director trusted me enough to do the choreography. It was a great experience working on this movie, and I’m really excited about it. It’s something we’re all proud of.

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16104718/IMAG5303.jpg
That's Van Ness Wu in the furry hat.

WHEN DID YOU START DOING ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY?

Philip Ng: I was accepted into the Chin Kar Lok stunt team, and I was heavily involved with the choreography of the scenes on Star Runner, my first project in the HK film industry. I knew martial arts, but there were other technical things I needed to learn, so I did. I’m a quick learner, and I ended up choreographing a lot of the fight scenes. Looking back, I realize how lucky I was that they gave me that much responsibility so fast. I moved up the ranks fairly quickly, and I was able to learn a lot more about the craft.

But I also put a lot of work into it. I didn’t rest very much when I was on the set. I was always watching and asking questions. When it came to the editing, I would go into the editing studio to watch and learn, and occasionally help by remembering where a certain shot was. I would sit with the editor and ask questions and take notes. As technology improved, I started to practice editing on my own time, with a computer and some early editing software.

As an action choreographer or action director, my job is to help the director tell a story. So if a story calls for shaky-cam, or certain ways to express the mood of a scene, I have those techniques and those tools to do those things. Obviously there’s a certain preference in terms of what I like to do, but that’s based on the influences I had as a kid: the 80s and 90s Hong Kong movies with people like Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and Yuen Woo Ping, among others.

Those movies really influenced me when I was young. Making movies is an art form, so it’s a kind of human expression. My work is often an expression of the excitement, enjoyment and awe I felt when I was younger and watched these movies that made such a big impression on me.

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16104656/IMG-20160109-WA0012.jpg

continued next post

[GeneChing]

WHO HAVE YOU ENJOYED WORKING WITH THE MOST?

Philip Ng: I’ve enjoyed working with everyone! They all have something to teach me, and I’ve learned something from every choreographer and action director. There’s too many to name, but let me talk about a few. Yuen Woo Ping is definitely someone that’s way up there. It was a dream come true for him to choreograph Once Upon a Time in Shanghai. He did The Matrix! His skill set is so amazing, and not just the big things. Little things like ‘camera rules’ about framing and editing, because sometimes those things, if done incorrectly, can upset the flow of a scene and make the audience feel very awkward.

Sometimes you can break those rules to make the edit feel comfortable. During the filming of Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, the director, the DP, the digital effects person and I all wanted a certain punch to come from a certain angle for the edit we were doing. Yuen Woo Ping thought about it for ten seconds. There was silence. He suggested that we do it another way, and when we cut that version together, it worked out better. Little things like that come from experience. You don’t get taught those things in school. One thing that’s good for me, coming from a Western background, is that I’m not afraid to talk or ask questions, so I get to learn a lot from people I work with. As long as you’re polite, 90% of the time people will answer all your questions.

I also have to mention Stephen Tung Wai, actor and action director who directed Jet Li’s Hitman . I have so much respect for him, personally and professionally. He’s very demanding on the set, but that’s because he cares about your safety as well as wanting things to look good. He’s looked out for me more than once, and he taught me a lot about choreography, and framing, and making certain actions look better. He was very unselfish. There have been so many people I’ve learned from, even if it’s learning what not to do, but mostly what to do. .

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16104722/IMG-20151217-WA0005.jpg

WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK WITH?

Philip Ng: Jet Li. I’ve worked with every one of my childhood idols so far, except him! I just came into the industry at a time when he was not making very many movies, especially in Asia. I’ve worked with Jackie Chan, I’ve worked with Yuen Biao. I am actually friends with Yuen Biao, which is surreal! I’ve worked with Sammo Hung, I just recently worked with Donnie Yen, really all the people I watched when I was growing up.

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16104654/IMAG5272.jpg

AS AN ACTION ACTOR, DO YOU BALANCE TAKING RISKS AND STAYING SAFE?

Philip Ng: I don’t. You prepare as well as you can, but you’re taking a risk. That’s why it’s called a stunt. You just prepare as best you can. Not a lot of people get hurt doing big stunts. They get hurt doing little ones, because they treat it lightly. If I have to jump over a table, I’ll think “whatever,” but that’s usually where you’ll trip on your foot and land on your face. If you have to jump from a 10-story building, then usually everything’s prepared and everyone’s very careful. You should have that mindset for every stunt, and that’s what I try to do.

And when I’m the action choreographer and the stunt coordinator on the set, I make sure that happens, and I make sure everyone’s safe, because the set is a very dangerous place. As an action actor I have to be careful, because a lot of the set isn’t built to be permanent, it’s just kind of stuck there with a nail. Everything is as safe as possible, but a lot stuff is temporary. You just have to be careful and always be aware of your surroundings.

During Undercover Punch & Gun, Andy On broke two of my ribs, I shifted my kneecap, I had stitches under my eye. I was almost blinded. You hope these things don’t happen, but bumps and bruises are always going to happen. I’m jumping through car windows, and getting hit by cars, but my experience and the experience of the people around me, help me do the best I can and stay as safe as I can. But in stunts, safety is always a relative concept!

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16104720/IMG-20151217-WA0003.jpg

Technology has made stunts not just safer but better. Computer graphics are much better at erasing wires, so thicker wires or even climbing ropes can be used more. That makes it safer. It’s still dangerous, but it’s no longer stupid dangerous like it used to be.

I think people enjoy watching action movies because they like watching actual people performing actual human activity as opposed to a human-shaped digital effect doing it.

I think old-school film fans appreciate it, and I think the audience does too. But there’s not as many people who are willing to do those kinds of stunts any more. Part of what made some of those old stunts so exciting was that they weren’t just dangerous, they were insane. So stunts are safer, and saner today, but that’s understandable. Movie productions know that if their star gets hurt, the production stops. The cost of that is in the millions of dollars.

If you’re not a stuntman, if you’re not an action actor who can really do your own stunts, I suggest you don’t. Let the stuntmen do their job. On the other hand, if you’re a stuntman and an actor, you do as much as you can when necessary.
Birth of the Dragon opens August 25th nationwide in the US and Canada.

Read Part 1 here. (https://www.jetli.com/2017/07/birth-of-the-dragon-philip-ng)

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16104757/130918_0420.jpg



I like Philip Ng, and will see this movie for his performance. Me too, Jimbo. I missed the screener so I'll have to actually pay, but that's cool. I want to support him.

[GeneChing]

Read The Dystocia of BIRTH OF THE DRAGON (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1375) by Gene Ching

[Jimbo]

Weird thing...although there were regular TV spots to promote the movie, it wasn't even listed in yesterday's paper's entertainment section, under "movies opening this week". It also wasn't mentioned in today's entertainment section. This is highly unusual and not a good sign. It means it's flying way below the radar, and there's probably little confidence in the movie's box-office potential. The only way a typical person might become aware of it is in checking out the showtimes of other movies at various multi-plexes.

It is being released by 'WWE Studios', which is mainly known for producing straight-to-DVD Walmart movies, mostly starring their wrestlers. I'm not sure if they were behind the making of it, or are just releasing it. Now, there's no real way of telling just from the snippets shown in the TV ads, but Birth of the Dragon looks a LOT better than any of the movies from WWE Studios that I've seen (TBH, I stopped watching WWE Studios movies several years ago after the first few, they were so bad).

[GeneChing]

I'm seeing ads everywhere here in the SF Bay Area, but we're a target market for this sort of film, so I know we're in a bubble when it comes to distribution. We get all the Chinese releases at the SF Metreon (https://www.amctheatres.com/movie-theatres/san-francisco/amc-metreon-16) or the Cupertino Square (https://www.amctheatres.com/movie-theatres/san-jose/amc-cupertino-square-16). And they did the screener here, but I wasn't formally invited as press. I only heard through martial circles and it was my bad for not following up. That did send up a red flag for me because I'm on several press emailing lists and get invited to almost everything that does a screener. I just got invited to Stronger and PATTI CAKE$ today, but those aren't a martial arts films. You're in CA, right Jimbo?

[GeneChing]

That's not bad for a Thursday this time of year. We'll see what the weekend brings.


Box Office: 'Birth of the Dragon' Takes $200K Thursday (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-birth-dragon-takes-200k-thursday-1032515)
8:55 AM PDT 8/25/2017 by Rebecca Ford

http://cdn3.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2017/08/birth_of_the_dragon_still.jpg
James Dittiger/Courtesy of WWE Studios
'Birth of the Dragon'

Sony's 'All Saints,' which earned $70K in previews, and animated film 'Leap!' also open on a sleepy August weekend.

A quiet August weekend kicked off Thursday night with the martial arts movie Birth of the Dragon taking in $200,000, and All Saints, a faith-based film from Sony's Affirm label that is starting off with a smaller release, taking in $70,000. Weinstein Co.'s animated Leap! also opens wide this weekend.

This weekend is expected to be one of the sleepier of the summer, with all three new films opening behind holdover The Hitman's Bodyguard, Lionsgate's action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson. The pic should have no problem repeating a No. 1 finish in its second weekend.

Birth of the Dragon, from Blumhouse's microbudgeted genre label BH Tilt, is aiming for a debut in the $3 million range. Playing in 1,600 theaters, the film is is a fictionalized account of when Bruce Lee challenged kung fu master Wong Jack Man to a fight in the mid-1960s in San Francisco.

The movie stars Hong Kong-born actor and martial artist Philip Ng, Xia Yu, Billy Magnussen, Qu Jingjing, Jin Xing and Simon Yin.

Leap! is tracking to gross the most of the three, with a $4 million to $5 million domestic debut. The film, about an orphan girl who flees to Paris with dreams of becoming a ballerina, is opening in approximately 2,575 theaters. Eric Summer helmed the film that features the voices of Elle Fanning, Dane DeHaan and Carly Rae Jepsen.

All Saints, helmed by Steve Gomer, has decided to roll out slowly. It opened at 7 p.m. in just 773 locations, and will expand to 846 screens Friday. The $2 million film is based on the real-life story of Michael Spurlock, a salesman-turned-pastor who, along with a group of refugees from Southeast Asia, risks everything to save his tiny church. John Corbett, Cara Buono, Myles Moor and Nelson Lee star.

[Jimbo]

I'm seeing ads everywhere here in the SF Bay Area, but we're a target market for this sort of film, so I know we're in a bubble when it comes to distribution. We get all the Chinese releases at the SF Metreon (https://www.amctheatres.com/movie-theatres/san-francisco/amc-metreon-16) or the Cupertino Square (https://www.amctheatres.com/movie-theatres/san-jose/amc-cupertino-square-16). And they did the screener here, but I wasn't formally invited as press. I only heard through martial circles and it was my bad for not following up. That did send up a red flag for me because I'm on several press emailing lists and get invited to almost everything that does a screener. I just got invited to Stronger and PATTI CAKE$ today, but those aren't a martial arts films. You're in CA, right Jimbo?

I'm in SoCal, so the landscape is different as far as that goes. Also, the movie is set in SF, so that may be a big part of it as far as the ads being everywhere up there.

[GeneChing]

McGregor vs. Mayweather (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70318-McGregor-vs-Mayweather-August-26) vs. Birth of the Dragon (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67701-Birth-of-the-Dragon) - I'll have a BotD review up later today.


Mayweather vs. McGregor Box Office: Fight Is a Knockout Victory in Theaters (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mayweather-mcgregor-box-office-fight-is-a-knockout-victory-theaters-1032939)
10:41 AM PDT 8/27/2017 by Pamela McClintock

http://cdn5.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2017/08/gettyimages-839692716.jpg
Christian Petersen/gettyimages
Conor McGregor (left) and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Saturday night's live broadcast of the boxing bout grossed almost as much as new martial arts pic 'Birth of the Dragon.'

Saturday night's super-fight between world boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Irish MMA star Conor McGregor was a knockout victory in theaters, earning $2.6 million from 532 locations in North America locations to come in No. 8.

Earlier on Sunday, comScore showed the special event earned $2.4 million from 481 theaters, but the grosses were later revised upwards for the U.S. and Canada.

The result is one of the biggest victories ever for Fathom Events, which partnered with Mayweather Productions in beaming the boxing match into cinemas. In many theaters, the price of entry was north of $20.

The card began at 6 p.m. PT. Mayweather emerged the victor in the 10th round, bringing his record to a perfect 50-0.

The Mayweather-McGregor bout at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas was also a huge draw on pay-per-view at $99.99 a pop, although Showtime has yet to announce viewership numbers. Following the match, Periscope began trending on social media after many began bragging that they had watched the event for free using the streaming app.

At the box office, the live broadcast of the fight in theaters scored the third-best showing of the day behind The Hitman's Bodyguard ($3.9 million) and Annabelle: Creation ($2.8 million), according to comScore.

The Mayweather-McGregor offering saw its biggest grosses in New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Nashville, San Diego and Miami. Top-grossing theaters included the AMC Empire and Regal Union Square in New York City, and Regal LA Live and AMC Burbank in Los Angeles.

Despite showing in far fewer theaters, the match appears to have beat another fight-centric offering on the marquee over the weeked: martial arts pic Birth of the Dragon, from microbudget genre label BH Tilt and WWE Studios.

Birth of the Dragon grossed $2.6 million from 1,618 locations, according to comScore (final weekend numbers will be tallied on Monday). The film, directed by George Nolfi, is a fictionalized account of when Bruce Lee challenged kung fu master Wong Jack Man to a fight in the mid-1960s in San Francisco.

The Mayweather-McGregor showdown was the highlight of an overall dismal weekend at the domestic box office, with revenue tumbling 45 percent over the same frame last year. Summer revenue is now down more than 14 percent over 2016, while the year to date is down more than 5 percent.


Much better than expected.

I agree with ya, Jimbo, although I didn't watch the fight in its entirety, only highlights. I was very amused by the netizen comments - so vitriolic and shallow - but I guess that's somewhat par for the course for any boxing match. I'm just happy to see boxing stage a reasonably successful event again. I've always enjoyed boxing as a spectator sport.

[GeneChing]

So given all the buzz, good and bad, on this film, plus that we went with that cover story last year (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1316), and that we know Phillip personally, it's really hard for me to be unbiased. Plus it's shot mostly in SF, where I left my heart. I enjoyed it but not until the end.

The first part of the film bugged me because of the anachronisms. No one spoke mandarin in Chinatown or said 'CEO' in 1964. And the whole Wong Jack Man as a Shaolin monk thing wasn't quite working for me, partly because the Shaolin abbot was played byYu Hai (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=687) (and the Taiji/Wudang leader was Wang Xian) - You'll totally miss them of you don't know. Also, a lot of Xia Yu's lines got a little too fortune cookie (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?55995-Fortune-Cookies) for me, but that's a personal issue I tend to have with any Hollywood depiction of Chinatown, that and the persistent stereotypical Tongs (which this film also has). Then it had an Inglorious *******s (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53451-Inglorious-Basterds) moment - the finale fight - where it totally leaps into fable and all was right with the film. Once I let go of the notion of history, which I do with all the Ip Man, Wong Fei Hung, Huo Yunjia, et.al. folk hero films, it made for an entertaining parable.

As for the whitewashing accusations (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66153-yellow-face-white-washing), they are painfully off base. The McKee character is an ass, and somewhat intentionally so it seems. He's not the 'white savior'. SPOILER ALERT: He gets his ass handed to him (he does one small save, which is mostly comedic). Bruce and Wong are the saviors. McKee does get the Chinese gal, and I could see where the previous cut might easily have had a kiss, and I'm glad that was cut. END SPOILER Actually, the cast is all Asian, which is amazing for a Hollywood film and hasn't really happened since what? Joy Luck Club (1993)? So it's really the opposite - if you support Asians in Hollywood, you MUST support this film. Apart from the Tong stereotypes, it's pro-Asian. As for Shannon Lee's criticisms beyond the whitewashing dig, I assume its her issue with fact vs. fiction. With all due respect, she was okay with Legend of Bruce Lee (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48376-The-Legend-of-Bruce-Lee), and that's drenched in fiction.

The fights were by Corey Yuen, so cartoonish yet fun with some fresh ideas, especially for Hollywood. Phil was great, both in acting and in action, and I really hope this opens Hollywood for him.

One thing I really liked about this film was that it put Wong Jack Man in a positive light. He's been vilified for half a century as the master who challenged Lee and lost. That's like losing a dance battle with Michael Jackson or a scientific debate with Stephen Hawking. But no one has had his negative legacy in films like GM Wong, and I've always felt it was undeserved. They were both like 24 when they fought the duel. We all did plenty of dumb stuff when we were that age (at least I did) but getting in a match with Bruce Lee at that age, that was just drawing a bad card.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Any JDK in it at all ??

[GeneChing]

Any JDK in it at all ?? No, not specifically. Keep in mind that, at least according to the generally accepted history, JKD gets invented after the Wong Jack Man match. Philip uses a lot of stylized Wing Chun (plenty of chain punches) and of course, the 1-inch punch. Xia Yu is mostly movie wushu.

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the review, Gene. However, I skipped was the spoiler alert. I was thinking of seeing it yesterday (I work weekends), but chose instead to catch the anime movie 'In this Corner of the World', which is in very limited release. I rarely go to theaters anymore, but I will be catching BOTD soon.

I'm not surprised that Corey Yuen is the choreographer. He seems to be the general go-to man for American and European films who want HK-style choreography. I'm kinda mixed about Corey Yuen's choreo. Some of his work is great, while other times he phones it in. A lot of his fight scenes begin great but fizzle out at the end. We'll see...

[Jimbo]

Well, I got to see it, and I found it entertaining. Philip Ng really had the c0cky Bruce Lee mannerisms down, as well as his way of speaking.

I didn't go in expecting an historically accurate account, so I wasn't disappointed. I agree with Gene that the fortune cookie dialogue of the WJM character was a bit too much. I seriously doubt even a REAL (as opposed to commercial) Shaolin monk would speak like that. Plus, I seriously doubt that a monk fresh off the boat from China in 1964 would understand the expression "kick @ss." Not that any Shaolin monks would have come to the U.S. in 1964.

I also thought the depicted use of Mandarin in SF Chinatown was off. That and the fact that Wong Jack Man is a Cantonese pronunciation; in Mandarin it would be Huang Zemin. And they used the Cantonese words 'sifu' and 'kwoon'. But everything else was in Mandarin.

One of the anachronisms I can recall offhand is 'McKee' saying "Nah, I'm good." I'm pretty sure that wasn't an expression for "I'm fine" until maybe the '90s (or later?). Another anachronism is when a thug mentions "chop-sockies", a derogatory American term for kung fu movies that wasn't coined until about 10 years later. Kinda like when the Eric Forman character on That '70s Show said, "FYI..."

One really weird thing was the 'movie' that BL was filming. BL was not filming any movies during his Oakland/SF period, and certainly not prior to the WJM fight.

BL mentions he married a Caucasian woman, but she's never seen, and from the movie you'd think BL was a bachelor. I suppose the filmmakers didn't want to get sued by Linda or Shannon?

I did like that WJM wasn't depicted as 'the bad guy' or a fool. Instead, he is depicted almost as a saint. I wonder what his students thought of it, not that's it's any of my business.:)

They edited out the scenes from the first trailer I saw, where 'McKee' is narrating, and BL finds the him sleeping in an alley and invites him inside to learn kung fu. I liked the fact that McKee was NOT made the central figure of the movie.

All that aside, it was better than I expected. Just take it as a heavily fictionalization account of a very small-time incident, that's been blown up into epic proportions over the decades.

I do hope that this gives Philip Ng the exposure to become a well-known name in the West, in much the way that Jet Li and Donnie Yen have. IMO, he certainly has the acting chops, the MA skills, and the charisma to do so.