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Chinese queue jet li7/31/2023 ![]() All of this Chinese spirit is symbolised by k ung fu. The whole film is, thematically, an exploration of Chinese exceptionalism (just as the traditional Western is a reinforcemnt of white, Anglo-Saxon American exceptionalism.) When 13th Aunt tells Wong that the West has technological advantages (‘they invented the steam train and other things’) but that they don’t have the ‘people’ that China does, this is the point Chinese people have more soul and spirit, more morality and decency and worthiness, than those from elsewhere. Here, Wong’s kung fu is pitted against the Westerners with their guns his skill and power is opposed to their brutality and cowardice. Obviously, kung fu is of enormous symbolic importance in wuxia it represents Chinese tradition and all that is exceptional about China and her people. Martial arts are often under threat of banning in these films, and the discussion of martial arts itself is common. Wuxia are martial arts films of a particular type the fighting is generally highly stylised, with huge dependence on wire-work and impossible leaps. Against his will, Wong is drawn into the fight he is represented throughout as a natural peacekeeper, though obviously when he does fight, he kicks ass all over the place. Located in a huge, white “colonial” hotel, littered with all the iconography of Western rule, the meeting soon becomes the first big fight of the film and the audience realises that Western arrogance will never co-exist peacefully with Chinese tradition. ‘Westerners are western.’) These representations and oppositions are established powerfully when Wong goes to meet the Western leaders in order, supposedly to iron out conflicts which have been disturbing the peace. ![]() The binary opposition between China and ‘elsewhere’ is established earlier we see foreign soldiers firing guns at a dragon festival (Wong heroically interjects himself to save the dragon, quickly being established as the embodiment of Chinese tradition), we hear Christian hymns competing with Chinese traditional music as Jesuit priests attempt to establish Christianity in China, wee see Wong refuse to wear a Western suit. At the beginning, we hear how China is being divided up amongst foreigners (‘Hong Kong went to the British… Macau to the Portuguese…’) and the primary villains in the film, apart form the local gangsters, are the British and American military leaders. Most interestingly, though, the film deals with China’s recent history with foreign countries. Already, we see how Wong represents tradition, decency, collective responsibility we can see why this is such a popular and traditional genre in China. ![]() There is a love story too, between Wong and ’13th Aunt’, a relationship which is the embodiment of the courtly and restrained love considered ideal in the genre. The film opens and closes with beautiful shots of him training his men, their movements perfectly coordinated. As is common, we see him struggle against local gangsters and another martial arts master (‘Iron Vest Yim’) to defend his community. In this version, Wong is the leader of a local militia (essentially a martial arts club – the ‘ jianghu’ which features in so much wuxia.) He is very much framed as part of this group – he is hardly ever seen alone – thus reflecting and reinforcing the veneration of the collective which is such an important part of Confucian and Communist thinking. The hero, played by Jet Li, is Wong Fei-hung – a fictionalised version of a real person and the subject of an awful lot of wuxia movies. Tsui Hark’s Once Upon a Time in China is one of the classics of the genre, and a good introduction in that it is both very conventional and extremely well-done. As wikipedia points out, these heroes ‘ can be compared to martial codes from other countries, such as the Japanese samurai ‘s bushido tradition, the chivalry of medieval European knights and the gunslingers of America’s Westerns.’ Film can reflect the history of a nation if the western, for example, is America’s conversation with itself about how their country came to be what it is, then wuxia serves a similar function in China it is (sometimes) a working out of historical events and processes which came to form China and Hong Kong. ![]() The hero is generally the martial arts expert, fighting for what is right and good. This is a sort of Chinese historical drama, often (but not always) based on real characters or events, centring around the use of martial arts. Certain genres tend to dominate, though, and one of the more obvious ones is wuxia. Like any national cinema, Hong Kong’s is complex and deep.
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