It recently occurred to me that we're seeing a lot less wire-fu at the movies these days. By wire-fu, I'm talking about the convention of amplifying martial arts choreography by elevating the actors and stuntpeople on wires, a convention imported from Hong Kong. For a while wire-fu was all over the place, starting with "The Matrix" (1999) in which the Wachowski Brothers brought in legendary Hong Kong fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping to give their film stylized anime-style flights of fancy (Although John Carpenter was actually the first to employ it Stateside in "Big Trouble in Little China" (1986)). After that came director Ang Lee's mega-blockbuster "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000), which although actually a Taiwanese film made in China, conquered American cineplexes like no foreign language film before it.
The convention has been around since the early days of the kung-fu film industry, employed primarily in the wuxia genre. Wuxia usually refers to a kung-fu subgenre involving periodic settings, lots of swordplay and tales of chivalry. Chinese director King Hu made a big international splash with several Mandarin-language Wuxia films back in the 60s, including "Come Drink With Me" (1966), "Golden Swallow" (1968) and "A Touch of Zen" (1969). If you take a look at these old films, you will see all the same tricks of the trade used today: actors lifted on wires (or sometimes jumping off trampolines), gravity-defying fight scenes with combatants suspended indefinitely in the air, impossibly manipulations of weapons and bodies that could only exist in the imagination of the choreographer.
Clip from "A Touch of Zen": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66deTvYq6c
Interestingly, King Hu's star was Cheng Pei Pei, who a generation later played the villain in "Crouching Tiger."
For some folks, wire-fu looks pretty silly, but its origins lie deep in Chinese culture. In old martial arts legends, fighters were able to develop skills far greater than merely high kicks and one-inch punches. They could fly, leap vast distances in the single bound and climb walls. In which sense, the idea is not as far-fetched as Hercules' feats of strength. According to some tales, study of the martial arts might even involve Chinese mysticism and mastery of magic spells, allowing warriors to project energy form their swords and death rays from their hands. One of my favorite Hong Kong films is "A Chinese Ghost Story" (1987) and its sequels which gives you a good idea of the sorts of stories that might have permeated old Chinese hearths before bedtime.
Clip from "A Chinese Ghost Story III": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyDhOIzczoU&feature=related
These ideas made their way from legends to literature, to Chinese theater, into comic books and eventually into the movies. Interestingly, even though they had roots in fantasy or the supernatural, many non-fantasy Chinese films have employed wire-fu, even ones with urban contemporary settings (Although I sometimes find this a bit distracting).
For a little while between the late 90s and early noughts, it was wires, wires everywhere. The X-Men dangled in mid-air while fighting, as did Spiderman, Daredevil and dozens of other superheroes. Charlie's Angels also engaged in plenty of airborne combat, and of course there was Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films.
But somewhere along the way, it started to slowly fade away. Maybe it's not surprising. While a mainstay of Chinese filmaking, wire work was probably just a new fad to Hollywood, and filmmakers quickly tired of it (though it still reappears occasionally, such as in this year's "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.").
There was also the inevitable backlash. Director Christopher Nolan has pretty much come out against it (though, not directly, in his polite, British manner) mentioning on the "Batman Begins" DVD how much he felt the Chinese style of film fighting had made violence too dancelike, and thus robbing it of its threat. Going back in time, Bruce Lee himself was none too fond of outlandish fantasy-style fighting, feeling that it was too ridiculous and promoted all the wrong ideas of real martial arts.
In any case, wire-fu had its day in the U.S., for better or for worse. It might not be your cup of tea, but I highly recommend that anyone who is into the art and science of film fighting try keeping an open mind, sitting down, and catching a few classic Hong Kong films on DVD. In any case, try to appreciate the planning, artistry and athleticism involved.
Plus, sometimes I just can't figure out where the hell they hung those wires. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeXbrovKYb4)
Dwight
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