The more Hong Kong action stars work in Hollywood, it seems the more they put their careers in jeopardy. After Jackie Chan did TUXEDO, there was concern, but SHANGHAI KNIGHTS gave him retribution. After Jet Li did THE ONE, there was concern, and perhaps CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE cemented that fate. Now it's Chow Yun-Fat's turn. Although Chow has yet to recapture that magical cinematic quality so evident during his Hong Kong film years under John Woo's direction, with BULLETPROOF MONK he is reunited with one of Hong Kong's best-known child actors: Tung Wai.
For those who don't know Tung Wai, he is the young lad that Bruce Lee keeps whacking on the head in ENTER THE DRAGON. This occurs after Tung does a side kick and Bruce asks him, "How did it feel to you?" In reality, Tung didn't concentrate on the finger and miss all that heavenly glory; instead he took Lee's lessons and became a successful action director working with Jackie, Jet, John Woo and now back with Chow.
Tung exclusively spoke to kungfumagazine.com about his first meeting with Bruce as well as his work on BULLETPROOF MONK. "Bruce was a big influence on me," he shares in mandarin Chinese. "Before Bruce, many kung-fu films were formulaic, but he's very natural and charming. It's funny, you feel like he's really overacting but it was easy to accept it. In the late 1970s many try to impersonate him but none can catch his essence and especially his movements."
Roger Yuan as the "young" Mystical Master and Chow as the "no name" monk.
Another big influence on Tung was veteran martial arts and fellow Beijing Opera performer, the late Lin Zhen-ying (aka Lam Ching-ying; known for his MR. VAMPIRE films and the female opera impersonator in Sammo Hung's PRODIGAL SON). Lin worked with Hang Ying-jie as an assistant fight choreographer on Lee's THE BIG BOSS. Hang played the big boss Bruce fights at the end of the film. Tung continues, "The first time I heard about Bruce was from Lin because he worked with Bruce and Hang in Thailand. Lin told me that I've got to meet this guy and that he is a very powerful. Lin is a very proud man and doesn't easily say that about other people. So we met at a coffee shop on the 6th floor of the Hong Kong Hotel. Bruce sported a beard and was wearing a denim shirts and blue jeans. He really didn't seem anything special to me.
"Everyone say he can do two finger pushups but we all don't feel that is very shocking. Remember we train in opera and are very flexible, so high kicks is nothing and others can do similar style push-ups, so I'm not impressed with those things. He did enjoy to show off and that was shocking. But then he stood up and -- keeping his legs straight -- put his hands three hand lengths in front of his body. Then, keeping his legs straight, did push-ups by slowly bending his arms so his nose could touch his hands. Now we were all shocked. Looking at that push-up, you can tell it's very difficult to do, using your waist. It really left an impression on me. And of course working with him we all got to see how fast he was. Films really don't capture how fast he really was. And his feet, man, that was something else."
Born in Shanghai, Tung moved to Hong Kong at age four and started training in Opera school at eight. He began acting when he was nine,appearing with Li Li-hua in THE WARLORD and then ENTER THE DRAGON. He went on to star in several classic kung-fu films like THE VALIANT ONES, THE EMPRESS DOWAGER, THE INCREDIBLE KUNG-FU MASTER, TEN BROTHES OF SHAOLIN,and made his name as the action director for John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW, PEACOCK KING, Chan's TWIN DRAGONS and ACCIDENTAL SPY and directing Lin Zhen-ying's best spiritualistic film MAGIC COP and Jet Li's HITMAN.
"But the last time I worked with John (Woo) and Chow was when I acted in John's last Hong Kong film HARD-BOILED. So in terms of BULLETPROOF MONK, I was on location in China, and had recently finished doing fights for SCOOBY-DOO and I was asked to do the fights on MONK. In Hong Kong the limitation on action is technology, computer graphics. So I was excited to get involved in this film to be able to use the computer graphics with wild action sequences, like (Yuen) Woo-ping doing MATRIX, because now many of these fantasy style American films want to do that action since that film."
Similar to MATRIX, Tung had to train the American leads Seann William Scott and Jaime King, who were both up for the Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne Moss transformation from having no martial artsbackground to giving them rigorous introductions into the Hong Kong style of fighting and gravity-defying wire work.
"I train them for three months. Sean started with basic fist and leg movements and of course wire work practice. We also had to teach their doubles the same things. We'd never do that in Hong Kong, it's impossible to have three months to train actors over there. The actors simply show up on set, most of them don't know martial arts, then film."
BULLETPROOF MONK tells the story of a nameless monk (Chow) who for many decades has been searching the world for a prot?g? to take over the reigns of protecting the secret Scroll of the Ultimate, which holds the key to unlimited power. The keeper of the scroll is magically blessed with partial immortality that can only last a specific period of time in which he must find then next keeper.
Kar (Scott) is that unwilling keeper, a streetwise punk whose only interest is himself. But when he saves the Bulletproof Monk from capture he is vaulted into a world of Eastern spirits, philosophy and meets his destiny of love Jade (King). Together, the three must protect the scroll from an aging Nazi officer whose been trailing the monk since he killed the monk's teacher in Tibet during a World War 2 temple massacre.
"I love my fight with Seann," King blurts. "My character sometimes called Bad Girl, is a renegade who hangs with street kids. Kar enters and by fighting him I help him get out of a sticky situation, and we develop a resistant relationship. He awakens something in me and I awaken something in him. Then, the Monk awakens Kar to his own enlightenment, and it becomes a triangle where we are all awakening each other.
"We trained six to seven hours a day in gymnastics, kung-fu and vigorous wire work. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do this role. It's so physical, and the idea of acting and doing all the physical stuff really appealed to me. Who doesn't want to be in the air on wires flying around?"
The confrontation mirrors the classic scene from the 1977 Hong Kong Shaw's period piece film EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN where the two would-be lovers pit their martial arts abilities against each other in a pseudo-erotic night of sparring with foreplay inexorably syncopated as close-range combat. Scott jokes, "I wish we could have a big make-out love scene, but Jaime doesn't seem to be a big fan of it.
"You know films like THE MATRIX and CHARLIE'S ANGELS and movies like that have raised the standard. We have to either meet that or go above it. We've never had roles that were this physical. The wirework actually came somewhat naturally. The hardest part was maintaining flexibility. I knew I wanted to look physically different on this movie because I didn't want anybody to have a hard time seeing me as someone other than the characters I've played. I lost 20 pounds, that was fine, but it was demanding on my legs doing all the martial arts.
"But I made up my mind to do everything I can, as long as they let me, so I said, "I want to do all my stunts," like every actor says. My stunt double was great. We're all a big team. I remember the very first day, we did this scene where Kar is training in front of a movie theater and Yun-Fat's character is watching. It was one of the most amazing days I've ever had in my life. We had three days to rehearse and I was freaking out, staying up late and just training and training. To be there on day one and director Paul Hunter's got great music playing, and the screen was behind me and I'm doing all these martial arts in sync with the movie screen. The fight team was rooting me on; it was one of the best moments I've ever had. That really started the movie off well."
But the best action fight in the movie is at the film's beginning where Chow's character fights the mysterious Master Monk with long staffs, atop a rickety, rotted bridge spanning a 1,000 foot gorge into the abyss of nowhere. Tung Wai tells that the Master Monk was played by veteran action actor Roger Yuan, the only legitimate fighter on the set and notably known to audiences as the evil, bald-headed Lo Fan that fought Jackie Chan in the bell tower at the end of SHANGHAI NOON.
Yuan, who started off in film as a fight choreographer for Blake Edwards, elucidates, "Well, the rickety bridge we fought on really was made of broken pieces of wood, but was only about 15 feet off the ground and shot against blue screen so the gorge could be mapped in later and we were on wires most of the time.
"I'm comfortable on wires unless it snaps. But when it was me and Chow fighting, they'd lower the bridge onto a flat surface for safety but raise it and put us on wires when they were shooting from below. There were a few times when we had no wires and we just had to be careful where we were stepping."
Yuan also says that a lot of the wirework was cut from the final edited fight -- for example a cool cartwheel on a tight rope while still holding onto the pole, "then landing and continuing fighting in one smooth motion. But that's okay, because it's not about me, it's about Chow.
"Chow did a great job, and to his credit he asked me to come and work with him on the weekends for three hours on Saturdays and Sundays to go over the staff choreography; and during shooting I'd slow down a bit because it's about precision and not speed."
Tung now joins the growing Hong Kong action directing talent pool working in Hollywood. Yuen Woo-ping (MATRIX, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON), Corey Yuen (LETHAL WEAPON IV, X-MEN), Yuen Cheung-yan (CHARLIE'S ANGELS, DAREDEVIL), Hung Yin-yin (THE MUSKETEER), Philip Kwok (THE TOUCH, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF), Ching Siu-tung (THE INVINCIBLE, HERO) and Andy Cheng (SCORPION KING, HELLDORADO). They have literally come to Hollywood and have given the action film industry a cinematic face lift. But could Hollywood's rush to embrace the Hong Kong action craze cause the style to lose some of its luster?
Tung contends, "I really don't think the Hong Kong style of fights will last long, because if you use Hong Kong fight choreographers just to come here to do fights, and nothing else, we will eventually not be needed and because everything is a fad and will pass. Look at Hong Kong.
"The majority of the stuff in Hong Kong now is all the same. In the old days things were different. We had real martial artists, so we could use the real martial arts to tell stories about characters. Now it is actors -- over there and here in America -- that know very little if nothing at all. So we need to use camera angles to work with the actor and compensate for lack of the skill. When Jackie and Sammo did films, they could do up to 20 hits and know their editing points. But the American stunt coordinators do things by the script and are not involved in camera work and don't know editing points. But it's impossible to bring the Hong Kong system in America, because there is a lack of respect for that here and it's impossible to change their system. Hong Kong action is hard, especially when we use wire work. I'm fortunate to work on two American films where I have at least been given some freedom to share my advice on editing points and the camera work. It's important that we are allowed to do fresh thing and not just the same old, same old."
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Craig Reed :
Written by Craig Reed for KUNGFUMAGAZINE.COM
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