David Carradine, the star of the 1970s TV series Kung Fu and the Kill Bill films, has been found dead in a Bangkok hotel room. The 72-year-old was in Thailand filming his latest film Stretch. “Monkey King” is an upcoming animated film, which is being developed by the visionary behind “CJ7,” “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” “Stephen Chow.” Shanghai-based animation company, Pearl Studio announced the film’s development at the Annecy Intl. Animation Film.

1. Classic Shaolin Kung Fu Movies
2. Kung-fu Tv Series
3. Old School Kung Fu Movies In English

Kung fu film (Chinese: 功夫片; pinyin: Gōngfu piàn; Jyutping: Gung¹fu¹pin³) is a subgenre of martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema set in the contemporary period and featuring realistic martial arts. It lacks the fantasy elements seen in wuxia, a related martial arts genre that uses historical settings based on ancient China.^[1] Swordplay is also less common in kung-fu films than in wuxia and fighting is done through unarmed combat.^[2]

Kung fu films are an important product of Hong Kong cinema and the West, where it was exported.^[3] Studios in Hong Kong produce both wuxia and kung fu films.

• 1History
  • 1.1Resurgence in the 1970s
• 3Notes and references

History[edit]

The kung fu genre was born in Hong Kong as a backlash against the supernatural tropes of wuxia.^[4] The wuxia of the period, called shenguai wuxia, combined shenguai fantasy with the martial arts of wuxia. Producers of wuxia depended on special effects to draw in larger audiences like the use of animation in fight scenes. The popularity of shenguai wuxia waned because of its cheap effects and fantasy cliches, paving way for the rise of the kung fu film.^[5] The new genre still shared many of the traits of wuxia. Kung fu protagonists were exemplars of chivalry akin to the ancient youxia, the knight-errants of Chinese wuxia fiction.^[6]

The oldest film in the genre, The Adventures of Fong Sai-yuk (Part 1: 方世玉打擂台; Part 2: 方世玉二卷之胡惠乾打機房), is a 1938–39 two-part movie about the adventures of folk hero Fong Sai-yuk. No surviving copies of the film exist.^[7] A series of films that dramatized the life of Wong Fei-hung, a historical Cantonese martial artist, was another early pioneer of the genre.^[8] The first two films of the Wong series, directed by Wu Pang and starring Kwan-Tak Hing, were released in 1949.^[9] The major innovation of the Wong Fei-hung films was its focus on realistic fighting or zhen gongfu, a departure from earlier wuxia films. The fights were still choreographed, but were designed to be more believable.^[10]Jet Li played Wong in a later revival of the series in 1990s, Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China, and also Fong in the movie Fong Sai-yuk.^[11]

Resurgence in the 1970s[edit]

The kung fu genre reached its height in the 1970s, coinciding with Hong Kong's economic boom.^[12] It overtook the popularity of the new school (xinpai) wuxia films that prevailed in Hong Kong throughout the 1950s and 1960s.^[13] Wuxia had been revitalized in the newspaper serials of the 1950s and its popularity spread to cinemas in the 1960s.^[14] It displaced the kung fu dramatizations of Wong Fei-hung and brought back the supernatural themes of traditional wuxia cinema.^[15] The rivalry between the Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest, and Seasonal Films studios stimulated the growth of kung fu movies in the Hong Kong film industry.^[16]The Chinese Boxer (1969) directed by Jimmy Wang and Vengeance directed by Chang Cheh in 1970 were the first films of the resurgent kung fu genre.^[17][18]

The new wave of kung fu films reached international audiences after the financial success of Bruce Lee's first feature-length film, The Big Boss, in 1971.^[19][20] Lee spent most of his childhood in Hong Kong where he learned wing chun martial arts and performed as a child actor. He left for the United States, his place of birth, and continued his martial arts training as a high school student. In America, he created Jeet Kune Do, a martial arts style inspired by wing chun, and briefly worked in Hollywood as a film and television actor.^[21]

He returned to Hong Kong and performed his breakthrough role in The Big Boss, followed by five more films. The movies of Bruce Lee began a trend of employing genuine practitioners of martial arts as actors in martial arts films.^[22] Kung fu films were internationally successful and popular in the West where a kung fu fad had taken root.^[23] The anti-imperialist themes of his films held a broad appeal for groups that felt marginalized and contributed to his popularity in Southeast Asia and the African-American and Asian-American communities of urban America.^[24][25] Audiences were sympathetic with Lee's role as a minority figure struggling against and overcoming prejudice, social inequality, and racial discrimination.^[26]

Kung fu comedies[edit]

The genre declined after Bruce Lee's sudden death in 1973. Desene animate in limba romana. In the same year, a stock market crash brought Hong Kong into a recession.^[27] During the economic downturn, audiences in Hong Kong shifted to favoring comedies and satires.^[28] In the late 1970s the kung fu comedy appeared as a new genre, merging the martial arts of kung fu films with the comedy of Cantonese satires.^[29] The films of Lau Kar-leung, Yuen Woo-ping, and Sammo Hung followed this trend.^[30] Yuen's Drunken Master in 1978 was a financial success that transformed Jackie Chan, its leading actor, into a major Hong Kong movie star.^[31]

The mixture of slapstick comedy with martial arts reinvigorated the kung fu genre. Jackie Chan was the first significant action hero and martial arts performer to emerge from Hong Kong after the death of Bruce Lee.^[32] The films of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung integrated techniques from Peking Opera, which both had trained in prior to their work as stuntmen and extras in the Hong Kong studio system.^[33][34] They were students of China Drama Academy, a Peking opera school operated by Yu Jim-yuen, which brought elements of combat and dance from Beijing into Cantonese opera.^[35] The Peking Opera-influenced martial arts of kung fu comedies were more fluid and acrobatic than traditional kung fu films.^[36] In the 1980s, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung transitioned to kung fu films set in urban environments.^[37]

Modern kung fu films[edit]

The realism of the kung fu genre has been blurred with the widespread use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in the industry. Technology has enabled actors without martial arts training to perform in kung fu films.^[38] Wuxia films experienced a revival in recent years with the films of Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou.^[39] Kung fu comedies remain popular staples of Hong Kong cinema and the kung fu films of Stephen Chow have been box office hits. His 2001 film Shaolin Soccer combined kung fu, modified using CGI, with the sports and comedy genres.^[40] Chow's 2004 film Kung Fu Hustle, choreographed by martial arts directors Sammo Hung and Yuen Woo-ping, was a similar mixture of kung fu and comedy that achieved international success.^[41]Donnie Yen, who emerged during the early 1990s in Jet Li's Once Upon a Time in China II, is currently Hong Kong's top paid actor, starring in several films which helped him achieve international recognition, such as the Ip Man trilogy and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen.

Global influence[edit]

The competing Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest studios entered Western markets in the 1970s by releasing dubbed kung fu films in the United States and Europe. Films like The Big Boss (Fists of Fury) and King Boxer (Five Fingers of Death) were box office successes in the West.^[42] By the 1980s and 1990s, American cinema had absorbed the martial arts influences of Hong Kong cinema.^[43] The Matrix, directed by the Wachowskis, was choreographed by martial arts director Yuen Woo-Ping. Martial arts stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li left Hong Kong to star in American films, but occasionally returned to Hong Kong.^[44]

Free pcb design software reviews. This could be useful for very simple schematics but I can see this getting very cumbersome very quickly.

Notes and references[edit]

Citations[edit]

1. ^Teo 2009, p. 6
2. ^Teo 2009, p. 5
3. ^Teo 2009, p. 5
4. ^Teo 2010, p. 104
5. ^Teo 2009, p. 58
6. ^Teo 2009, p. 59
7. ^Teo 2009, p. 59
8. ^Teo 2009, p. 58
9. ^Teo 2009, p. 60
10. ^Teo 2009, p. 70
11. ^Teo 2009, p. 60
12. ^Li 1996, p. 708
13. ^Teo 2009, p. 70
14. ^Teo 2009, p. 87
15. ^Teo 2009, p. 86
16. ^Szeto 2011, p. 26
17. ^Teo 2009, p. 78
18. ^Szeto 2011, p. 25
19. ^Szeto 2011, p. 25
20. ^Li 1996, p. 708
21. ^Teo 2009, p. 75
22. ^Li 1996, p. 708
23. ^Szeto 2011, p. 26
24. ^Teo 2009, p. 77
25. ^Szeto 2011, p. 27
26. ^Szeto 2011, p. 28
27. ^Li 1996, p. 708
28. ^Li 1996, pp. 708–709
29. ^Li 1996, p. 709
30. ^Li 1996, p. 709
31. ^Li 1996, p. 709
32. ^Szeto 2011, p. 28
33. ^Szeto 2011, p. 29
34. ^Li 1996, p. 709
35. ^Szeto 2011, p. 29
36. ^Szeto 2011, pp. 29–30
37. ^Li 1996, pp. 710–711
38. ^Teo 2010, p. 104
39. ^Teo 2010, p. 109
40. ^Klein 2010, p. 193
41. ^Klein 2010, pp. 193–194
42. ^Teo 2009, p. 77
43. ^Szeto 2011, p. 25
44. ^Teo 2009, p. 159

Bibliography[edit]

• Li, Cheuk-To (1996). The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-811257-0.
• Klein, Christina (2008). 'Kung Fu Hustle: Transnational production and the global Chinese-language film'. Journal of Chinese Cinemas. 1 (3): 189–208. doi:10.1386/jcc.1.3.189_1.
• Szeto, Kin-Yan (2011). The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora: Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan in Hollywood. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN978-0-8093-8620-8.
• Teo, Stephen (2010). Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN978-962-209-176-4.
• Teo, Stephen (2009). Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN978-0-7486-3286-2.

External links[edit]

• Stephen Chin collection on kung fu films, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

At the end of Pulp Fiction, Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta sit in a diner. 'I'm just going to walk the Earth,' Jackson's character Jules tells his partner. 'You know, like Caine in Kung Fu — walk from place to place, meet people, get into adventures.'

Kung Fu would have a profound influence on director Quentin Tarantino, who mined several elements of the 1970s TV series for his martial-arts epic Kill Bill. For starters, Bill himself was played by Kung Fu star David Carradine, sporting the same look (and flute) as his iconic wanderer Kwai Chang Caine. Kill Bill's master Pai Mei also brought to mind Caine's trainer, Master Po. We could go on.

Yet Kung Fu had far sweeping influence. Kicking off in 1972, it was one of the first major martial arts hits in American pop culture. It helped that the series was largely a Western, set in the Old West of the middle 19th century.

Today, martial arts are popular again on the small screen. Let's take a look back at the original sensation.

1. 'Kung Fu' was a Carradine family affair.

David worked alongside much of his family. His younger brother, Keith, appeared in flashbacks as a younger, bald Caine, while youngest brother, Robert (Revenge of the Nerds), popped up in an episode as 'Sonny Jim.' Father John Carradine had a recurring role as Rev. Serenity Johnson.

2. The Shaolin Temple set was recycled from a famous movie musical.

A little redressing converted King Arthur's home into a mystical martial arts training center. For the Chinese temple, the production used the castle set from 1967's Camelot, the cinematic adaptation of the classic Lerner and Loewe musical.

3. Burly cult actor William Smith screen tested for the lead role.

Tough-guy Smith made a name for himself in numerous biker flicks. No actor was better suited for a rough bar brawl. According to the book Tales from the Cult Film Trenches, Smith filmed an eight-minute test pilot for Kung Fu, in which he played Caine, unfortunately wearing prosthetic makeup around his eyes to make him appear Asiatic. The network reportedly wanted Smith for the role, however creator-producer Jerry Thorpe found the actor to be too burly and menacing. He did appear in one episode, 'The Chalice,' in which he fights Caine with a chain. Later, Smith became the final 'Marlboro Man' in advertisements.

4. John Saxon was also considered for Caine.

Another actor reportedly considered for the lead role was John Saxon, who is best known as Roper in legendary Enter the Dragon. Coincidentally, William Smith was offered the role of Roper in that martial arts masterpiece, according to Tales from the Cult Film Trenches.

5. Bruce Lee justifiably wanted the lead role.

Speaking of Enter the Dragon, it is impossible to talk Kung Fu without discussing Bruce Lee. There is some controversary around the icon's role in the genesis of the series. The Lee family has claimed the series was taken from an idea of Lee's, The Warrior. This scenario is depicted in the 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. However, Herbie J. Pilato, author of The Kung Fu Book of Caine, avows, 'Ed Spielman is the creator of the Kung Fu series. Any claims to the contrary are incorrect, and an injustice.' Spielman even considered legal action. The network purportedly felt Lee's English skills were too lacking at the time for role. Of course, as he proved on The Green Hornet, no actor was better suited for the role. Duh. He's Bruce Lee.

6. Carradine had no martial arts training before the role.

Carradine was cast for his skills as a dancer. However, during the course of production, the actor became a devoted student of martial arts. After beginning his studies in the early '70s, Carradine practiced tai chi and kung fu until his death.

Classic Shaolin Kung Fu Movies

7. Carradine never cut his hair until the end of the series.

Carradine begins Kung Fu with short hair, which continues to grow to Kevin Sorbo length throughout the series. (Of course, he has a shaved head in the flashback scenes.) Thus, you can roughly discern which point in the series you are watching by his locks. Late in the third and final season, he shaved his head again.

8. Beloved heroes of 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek' appeared on the show.

Yes, that is William Shatner, appearing as a shaggy ol' sea captain (wonderfully named Brandywine Gage) in 'A Small Beheading.' Harrison Ford can be seen in the season two episode 'Crossties.'

9. The show was ended due to injuries, not ratings.

Kung-fu Tv Series

The show had solid ratings throughout its run. However, Carradine felt he had sustained too many injuries on the show and could not go on. Thus, Kung Fu ended after three years.

10. There were sequels.

Old School Kung Fu Movies In English

The first sequel to Kung Fu arrived in 1986 with the TV movie Kung Fu: The Movie. In this continuation of the tale, Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, portrayed the son of Caine. The movie aired on Lee's 21st birthday. Lee then played the great-grandson of Caine in 1987's Kung Fu: The Next Generation. Finally, in the syndicated 1990s series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Carradine played the grandson of Caine. Yes, it is all a bit confusing.

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