Electric Shadows is back!

I’d like to welcome back my old readers as well as introduce myself to any new readers. Electric Shadows began almost a year ago when Mark offered me a blog on his site. I’ve been a fan of his Kung Fu Cinema website almost from the beginning. A scholarly profile of the real-life kung fu hero Wong Fei-hung that Mark wrote early on first caught my eye. So much web-based criticism of martial arts films rarely goes beyond the “this sucks, that rocks” variety. Here was a site that was thoughtful and intelligent. I ended up doing some freelance writing for Mark.

My background: I study Chinese martial arts with Master Bow Sim Mark, and I used to work in Boston’s Chinatown as a movie projectionist, at the old Star and China theaters. My Sifu’s son is the kung fu actor Donnie Yen. I’ve interviewed Donnie for Kung Fu Cinema. I try to keep on top of the new people and new releases, but lately I find myself a little bit obsessed with older Chinese martial arts films. It turns out there are a lot more than I ever realized.

About three years ago, Lisa Stokes, author of “City on Fire: Hong Kong Cinema,” asked me to help her put together an encyclopedia of Hong Kong film that would survey the entire history. It was a huge undertaking. Even with drastic cuts, the final volume is over 600 pages long. If you want to check it out, the title is “Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema” and it’s published by Scarecrow Press. I was only able to contribute a handful of entries but I also helped by proofreading the manuscript a couple of times. Certain names jumped out at me, people who were early pioneers in Chinese action filmmaking – I’d never heard of them before. Electric Shadows is a record of my research since then into the early history of Chinese martial arts on film.

That history stretches back almost 100 years. The earliest reference I’ve found to a kung fu fight scene in a film dates to 1919. The director of that now-lost short feature was Ren Pengnian, who was working on kung fu movies in Hong Kong up until the early 60s! The contemporary action star Sammo Hung is a third generation film worker, and his grandmother Chin Tse-ang, who just passed away at 100 years of age, starred in a swordplay film in 1925! If you’re like me, that is, a kung fu movie geek with a passion for history, well, you’ll find this stuff fascinating.

Since I’m focusing on the Hong Kong industry, I try to stick to the Cantonese version of names, unless people are better known by the Mandarin or English version of their name. I also use Cantonese for any Chinese words or phrases in the text, as much as possible. I’m far from fluent and most of the older films have no English subtitles, so I misunderstand a lot. My apologies in advance for any errors.

I’ll continue to look at the early pioneers, who were mostly active in Shanghai until World War II and the Revolution drove them to Hong Kong. And the martial arts actors, directors, and choreographers who worked in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. And the influence of local opera teachers and performers on the film industry. And martial arts traditions and styles as interpreted in classic films. I think that covers everything. Welcome to Electric Shadows.