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TAISHAN KUNG FU (2009) There is a new kung fu movie currently screening in mainland China featuring members of Sammo Hung’s stunt team. TAISHAN KUNG FU is director and Sammo Hung team member Tao Ming-xi’s attempt at showcasing the martial arts and culture of China’s historically and culturally significant Mount Tai which is located in Shandong Province in Northeastern China. The film recently premiered in Beijing and has been expanding to other locations.

The film focuses on a little-known martial arts style called “Stone Skill.” Television martial arts star Wu Yue, who will be appearing Jackie Chan’s LITTLE BIG SOLDIER, plays a master of the Stone Skill determined to convince Mount Tai’s undisputed champion (Wei Yu-hai) to refrain from using his fighting skills to terrorize the region.

Wei is also a member of Sammo Hung’s team. Other cast members include Xu Huan-huan, Zhao Pei, wuxia film queen Cheng Pei-pei, and Wang Fei-hong.

In making the film, Tao, along with his action director Huang Guan-bao, set out to create a “barebones kung fu film” with wide shots, long takes and minimal wire use.

The following video montage of fight footage from TAISHAN KUNG FU posted on Huang’s blog reveals plenty of skilled fighting action, although Western viewers are likely to be put off by the excessive undercranking used to artificially speed up the pace of the action.

TAISHAN KUNG FU (2009)

This is Tao’s fourth production after having recently finished a sanada film and a police film. He currently has a new actioner with a larger budget in the works.

TAISHAN KUNG FU (2009)

Kung fu star Wu Yue will next be appearing in a film called DONG HAI CHUAN and a TV series on martial arts master Liang Tian-zhu to be directed by Xiong Xin-xin.

According to the producer of TAISHAN KUNG FU, the film is the first part in a planned trilogy. Sequels will include SHI GAN DANG OF TAISHAN and RAIDING TREASURES IN TAISHAN. The second film is scheduled to begin production in the spring of 2010 with Sammo Hung directing.

Hopefully, with Sammo’s involvement in the sequel we’ll eventually see English-subtitled versions of all three films released on DVD in Hong Kong but don’t count on it.

Source: Wu-Jing.org

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  • mistermjones2000

    Mr. Pollard, I hope I don't seem ungrateful and too disrespectful but I have to take exception with your prejudicial view of “western viewers”. Your views are usually insightful and intelligent and so this type of statement from you is very harmful to those of us “western viewers” who appreciate artistic expression in martial arts fights. What I believe is the problem with quality in the current market of martial art product is some “expert's” belief that people can be boxed in some category and pandered to. Artists should just “let it flow” and let viewers, western or otherwise decide what they like and how they interpret it. Thank you for your great work.
    By the way, if the speed lines in the fights are being produced by this under-cranking–I love it! It seems to me to be very unique and adds to the beauty of the fight scene. I only hope others like it as well.

  • http://www.kungfucinema.com Mark Pollard

    Hollywood action doesn't employ the degree of undercranking we're seeing in this montage, which is not unique at all. It's a common trick used by Hong Kong action directors but not usually done so blatantly. If this is the director's artistic statement I still believe that audiences outside of Asia will not be as receptive to it as they would have had the action been slowed down to a more natural pace. I also firmly believe that this level of artificial speed enhancement degrades and cheapens fight choreography, much the same way that heavy scene splicing does, which is the trick Hollywood films employ more often. I'll tell you what though, from now on I'll refrain from speaking on behalf of western viewers since I now know at least two of us disagree. ;)

  • darrinkemp

    Real skill undercranked as it is,is still preferable to slow fakery and the old lets train some guy for a month and call him a martial artist bull shit.Having said that, what I like is the whole”hey dude please stop being an asshole ” plot.Look foward to seeing this.

  • mistermjones2000

    Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment. I am honored to hear from you.

    Michael Jones

  • dragonwire

    I don't really care for this style of filming with slowed down shots, its like watching a fight and someone keeps pausing/slowmo it and unpausing it. I just wish they could of filmed naturally but in a fast convincing manner, not this weird way. I don't know maybe it just takes some time to get used to, but Im an old school fan and hard headed.

  • http://goldenpigsy.blogspot.com/ GoldenPigsy

    Undercranking is unnecessary, but nowhere near as annoying as the stupid slow motion-normal fps-slow motion crap that's in every action movie these days. I think that lame effect looks far worse than the undercranking, which isn't really any worse than many of those early nineties Hong Kong films that abused that technique.

    That said, the choreography looks great.

  • simian33

    Even though there is undercranking at least you are still able to see skills and moves of the martial artists and that you are able to see that it is them delivering the moves.

    i agree slow motion is getting tiring and should only be used appropriately, something like the matrix reloaded and revolution killed the choreography by using it during every move.

    The film looks quite promising for raw fighting its just a shame that hong kong is not releasing hardly anymore of these films like they used too, to watch films with raw fighting you have to look else where e.g. Thailand and vietnam.

    Check out Jeeja Yanin's (Chocolate) new trailer (Raging Phoenix) on Youtube it looks amazing and backs up my above statement.

  • http://goldenpigsy.blogspot.com/ GoldenPigsy

    Undercranking is unnecessary, but nowhere near as annoying as the stupid slow motion-normal fps-slow motion crap that's in every action movie these days. I think that lame effect looks far worse than the undercranking, which isn't really any worse than many of those early nineties Hong Kong films that abused that technique.

    That said, the choreography looks great.

  • simian33

    Even though there is undercranking at least you are still able to see skills and moves of the martial artists and that you are able to see that it is them delivering the moves.

    i agree slow motion is getting tiring and should only be used appropriately, something like the matrix reloaded and revolution killed the choreography by using it during every move.

    The film looks quite promising for raw fighting its just a shame that hong kong is not releasing hardly anymore of these films like they used too, to watch films with raw fighting you have to look else where e.g. Thailand and vietnam.

    Check out Jeeja Yanin's (Chocolate) new trailer (Raging Phoenix) on Youtube it looks amazing and backs up my above statement.