In Asia, a new Tsui Hark film is a major blockbusting event. But here in America, only the committed connoisseurs of Chinese cinema know the movie maverick. Tsui Hark shaped several prevailing Hong Kong film genres. If you know Hark, skip down to the subhead “Taking Tracks.” If you don’t, here’s a short introduction to Hark’s pioneering work.
Hark’s film career took off in the eighties as Hong Kong film started getting really hot. Tension from the looming turnover of Hong Kong from a British Empire colony back to the People’s Republic of China stoked a creative burst in filmmaking. Cinephilic eyes from around the world turned to watch the “fragrant harbor,” and Hark was leading the charge, torch in hand. Today, Hark has produced over sixty films, directed nearly fifty and written over forty. The first film he directed, The Butterfly Murders (1979), was a wuxia film full of fantasy and Kung Fu, foreshadowing his emergent visionary style. Hark helmed several fine Kung Fu films and is best known for directing and producing Once Upon a Time in China (the original in 1991, II in 1992, III in 1993, and returning for V in 1994), a high-flying reboot of Hong Kong’s longest running Kung Fu hero, the historical yet highly fictionalized Wong Fei Hung. For the role of Wong, Hark chose Jet Li , the beginning of a longstanding professional relationship that continues to this day (coincidentally, Wong Fei Hung has just been rebooted again with Rise of a Legend (2014)).
However, Hark’s impact transcends Kung Fu films. In 1986, he produced the pivotal film by John Woo, A Better Tomorrow, starring Chow Yun Fat. Woo was a director for Shaw Brothers, so accordingly he directed several classic Kung Fu films, as well as films in a variety of other genres. A Better Tomorrow sparked a brand new style of ultraviolent Hong Kong gangster films, marked for its Kung Fu-firefight choreography dubbed “balletic gunplay.” The Hong Kong gangster genre remains as unique and untouchable as its Kung Fu genre. Even Martin Scorsese poached from it with his Oscar-winning film, The Departed (2006), a Hollywood remake of the Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs (2002); those who have seen both films generally prefer the original. While Woo is more heavily credited for the Hong Kong gangster genre than Hark, Hark’s influence cannot be denied. He got gangster movies rolling and then moved on to forge another Hong Kong film genre, one for which he is far better known – Fant-Asia.
The Fant-Asia genre is sword and sorcery Chinese style. It is Daoist exorcists fighting Buddhist demons, flying swordsmen casting mystical spells, and hopping ghosts. Drawing deeply from Chinese folktales and mythology, Tsui peppered it with Kung Fu magic. By the late eighties, Hark produced the Chinese Ghost Story franchise (1987 to the 2011 remake). This franchise, although directed by Ching Siu-Tung, is more often attributed to Hark, a credit exemplified by the subtitle of his Japanese-made 1997 animated film, A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation. Hark’s 1993 film, Green Snake, captured the ethereal beauty of Maggie Cheung and Joey Wang as sister snakes that had become human (coincidentally this was recently remade as well, as The Sorcerer and the White Snake (It's Love) (2011), starring Jet Li no less). Chinese Ghost Story and Green Snake were pre-CGI, done with puppets and effects that come off as cheesy and dated now. But back then, they were mind-blowing.
As Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, many of its filmmakers – fearing censorship – migrated to Hollywood. But Hark fared poorly with American audiences. He directed two Hollywood-oriented films with Jean Claude Van Damme, Double Team (1997), co-starring Dennis Rodman no less; and Knock Off (1998). Both films were released in U.S. theaters with lackluster results. Later, in 2002, Hark also produced and directed Black Mask 2: City of Masks, an abysmal sequel to Black Mask (1996). Andy On took over Jet Li’s titular role in the original and Hark’s film starred still up-and-coming action star Scott Adkins and former underage porn star Traci Lords. The Black Mask films reflected Hong Kong fascination with Bruce Lee’s iconic Kato character in The Green Hornet, but that didn’t translate to American audiences at all.
Meanwhile, back in Hong Kong, Hark embraced computer-generated special effects with gusto, directing the groundbreaking film, Zu Warriors (2001). Zu Warriors (a.k.a. Legend of Zu) was a remake of one of Hark’s standout Fant-Asia films, Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983). Director John Carpenter claimed that Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain was influential in his creation of the cult classic, Big Trouble in Little China (1886). Both versions of Zu were special effect extravaganzas, very cutting edge back then, but like Chinese Ghost Story and Green Snake, their special effects appear incredibly dated now. In the wake of the success of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000), Zu Warriors was picked up by Miramax for a major U.S. theatrical release, but that never came to pass.
A decade into the new millennium, Hark remains at the forefront of filmmaking. His four most recent films are all shot in 3D for IMAX. He focused his lens back on what he does best with Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010), an eye-popping Fant-Asia film. Akin to Wong Fei Hung, Detective Dee is another historical figure highly fictionalized by folktales. Enjoying a limited U.S. theatrical release, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame drew rave reviews and was declared the third best film of 2011 by TIME magazine. This elicited a follow-up prequel, Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea, in 2013. In between these two films, Hark squeezed out another visual feast, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011), starring Jet Li. This film was also shown on a few select U.S. screens – in 3D no less – and the few who were quick enough to catch it in that format were treated to some of the finest 3D filmmaking to date. The film’s CGI effects which appeared mediocre and somewhat cartoonish on the small screen were in fact profoundly deep in 3D IMAX. Even watching it on Blu-Ray hardly did it justice. With these three films, Hark proved himself a master of the craft of 3D filmmaking.
Taking Tracks
The Taking of Tiger Mountain is the fourth film directed by Hark shot in 3D. It’s a dramatic departure from his usual fare. Strictly speaking, it’s not a Kung Fu film, nor is it Hong Kong gangsters, nor Fant-Asia, although many signature elements of Hark’s filmmaking style come through quite clearly. Instead of swords and side arms held sideways, the action is dominated by carbines, Mauser-style pistols, and potato masher grenades. Yet despite being set during WWII with that era’s technology, it’s still more of a fantasy, particularly with its action sequences.
The Taking of Tiger Mountain is based on the first novel by celebrated Chinese author Qu Bo, titled, Tracks in the Snowy Forest. Published in 1957, Tracks in the Snowy Forest is a war story about a small band of Chinese soldiers fighting bandits in snowbound Northern China during the Sino-Japanese war. It’s historical, yet fictionalized. Qu left home as a teenager, fought in the 2nd Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945) and Chinese civil war (1946-1950), earning the rank of Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army. The main hero of Tracks in the Snowy Forest is based on a real person, Yang Zirong (1917-1947). The story is told from the point of view of Shao Jianbo, who Qu admits he based loosely upon himself. Tracks in the Snowy Forest was hugely popular in China and has been translated into nearly ten languages, including an English translation by Sidney Shapiro (1915-2014), who also translated the martial epic, Outlaws of the Marsh. The tale is extremely patriotic, so it was reinterpreted as a revolutionary Peking Opera titled, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, resulting in several successive film and play interpretations. Hark has wanted to make his own film version since 1992, and even Jackie Chan was loosely attached to the project for a while.
On January 2, 2015, Well Go USA is indulging Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain with a limited U.S. release. As Tsui Hark films go, this latest effort might be undecipherable in translation for the average American viewer. The film is long, clocking in at 141 minutes, a running time usually reserved for major Hollywood epics and Bollywood movies. Most Americans will have no clue about the original story set in 1946, much less have any familiarity with the Sino-Japanese war. It’s a holiday film, bookended by scenes of Christmas 2015 and New Year, as a somewhat superfluous character sets up a flashback that is the bulk of the film. The bookend scenes pay homage to the Peking Opera by showcasing some vintage scenes from the opera. In another slightly awkward homage, lead actor Zhang Hanyu plays Yang Zirong with eye shadow akin to Peking Opera make-up. Chinese viewers understand the nod, but American audiences will be distracted by it.
The Taking of Tiger Mountain is constructed for 3D with a lot of digital effects flying at the audience: digi-blood squibs, digi-throwing knives, digi-flying hatchets, and plenty of explosions with digi-shrapnel. The fight choreography somewhat echoes balletic gunplay. A few shots even have the digi-bullet’s eye view made famous by those early Hong Kong gangster flicks. Unfortunately, the screener was not presented in 3D so it’s difficult for this reviewer to determine how much depth this really has.
The film also has many stereotypic trappings of Chinese film. There’s the self-sacrificing brotherhood of soldiers espousing exactly the sort of loyalty in the face of hardship that made this story perfect for revolutionary propaganda. There’s the loyal cute nurse who must “man up” to face the brutality of war. There’s a bratty kid who always runs off and gets in trouble. He’s even named “Knotti.” There’s the villains, a motely lot of pirates that could have walked out of any classic Kung Fu film. The leader, the domineering Lord Hawk, looks like a hawk with his beaky nose and feathery collar. He has a hawk familiar that tears the eyes out of prisoners on command. It’s these colorful villains that make The Taking of Tiger Mountain veer into Fant-Asia territory. Their code of thieves’ honor recalls Kung Fu clans and tongs. Their base is an evil lair fortress of Blofeld proportions where Lord Hawk sits on a towering throne overseeing villainous debauchery.
A keen observer will find plenty of nods by Hark to classic Asian film. Yang must go undercover in the gang, and the tension from his potential compromise is reminiscent of the aforementioned films, Infernal Affairs and The Departed. The heroes defending a poor village against marauding bandits recalls Kurosawa’s masterpiece, The Seven Samurai (1954). There’s even a scene of bloody broken John Lennon spectacles (or perhaps for the present generation these are better characterized as Harry Potter glasses). For any film student worth their salt, this evokes the old woman in pince-nez from Battleship Potemkin (1925).
The oddest scene comes at the very end when, just as the credits begin to roll, Hark throws the audience into an alternate ending, a fiasco of absurd action physics and CGI atop a crashing plane. For a film that teeters between the retelling of a chilling episode of military history and far-flung fantasy, it’s a strange exclamation point to conclude Hark’s latest submission that will surely leave the average American audience scratching its collective head. Nevertheless, Chinese cinephiles will be amused by the latest from Tsui Hark and be delighted if they can see it like it’s meant to be shown, on the big screen.
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Gene Ching :
For more information on the U.S. release of The Taking of Tiger Mountain, visit WellGoUSA.com.
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