Red Fists, Part 1: Left-Wing Filmmakers and Kung Fu

I just watched the new Anthony Wong movie, MR. CINEMA, and it got me thinking about my own past experiences as a projectionist in two of Boston’s old Chinatown theaters. Wong plays a naive but good-hearted Hong Kong communist who as a young cadre gets a job in a theater that specializes in leftist films. The film follows him over 40 years of Hong Kong history, using his beloved left-wing films and his adult son’s increasingly desperate quest to make money to satirize the uneasy pas de deux between Hong Kong and China in the decades leading up to the 1997 Handover. The film is pretty uneven in tone, and it can be hard to sympathize with the characters’ obtuseness, but I loved the scenes set in the old theater. The projection booth looked real, if not quite battered and dingy enough. And the early scenes of the capacity audiences, snacking and chatting and struggling to catch a glimpse of the Great Wall star Hsia Moon when she makes a personal appearance there, are spot on. But the audiences dwindled away over time. Only one thing brings ‘em back in droves – Jet Li’s SHAOLIN TEMPLE, released in 1982 and represented in MR. CINEMA by a grainy clip of young Li training through the four seasons. As a friend tells Wong, “You should show more movies like ‘Shaolin’ – not the boring ones.”

Director Chang Hsin Yen (seated, with glasses) on the set of SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1982) with Jet Li (left).

For almost a half century, the Chinese government had frowned on martial arts movies. But times were changing. Commercial enterprises were no longer anathema and China boasted a home grown crop of athletic wushu champions. Still, it would take the vision of one man to bring together all the elements that would result in the first wushu movie, SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1982).

Chang Hsin Yen (Zhang Yinyan, Cheung Yam-yin or Yam-yim) was born in 1934 in either Shanghai or Ningbo, China. (Different sources cite different cities – maybe his people were Shanghai-based merchants from Ningbo, like the Shaw brothers.) He was working as a film editor in Hong Kong by 1952. His first credits include a martial arts film from that year, called AUYEUNG TAK AND HIS DOUBLE, with a cast featuring action stars Law Yim-hing, Shek Kin, and Yuen Siu-tin. For a handful of years, he specialized in editing Cantonese opera films. But by 1956, he was working with director Wu Pang on the WONG FEI-HUNG film series. Chang edited a least half a dozen of the popular kung fu films, including WONG FEI-HUNG WINS THE DRAGON BOAT RACE and HOW WONG FEI-HUNG FOUGHT FIVE DRAGONS SINGLE-HANDEDLY (both 1956). Later that same year, he went to Japan to study advanced editing technique. When he returned to Hong Kong, he got a job at the Great Wall studio.

Great Wall Movie Enterprises Ltd. was founded in postwar Hong Kong by Shanghai refugees, including Zhang Shankun. Although socialist sentiment wasn’t unheard of in the Hong Kong film industry (even the melodrama THE KID [1950], starring a nine year old Bruce Lee, featured a subplot about heroic striking workers), Great Wall was the studio most strongly associated with the Mainland Communist government. Obviously, this could be a double-edged sword, since Mainland patronage would depend on the locals hewing to a strict party line. As MR. CINEMA points out, for many Hong Kong communists, support for the Mainland was considered a matter of patriotism, of placing Chinese interests over those of Britain. The divide between leftists and rightists, and between leftists and capitalists, in the Hong Kong film industry and in society in general, was a fraught issue, even worse than the current Red State/Blue State division in the US. People had been killed, families torn apart, and the wounds were still raw. Chang Hsin Yen cast his lot with the leftists. But the action genre kept drawing him back.

Left: Advertising flyer for WONG FEI-HUNG WINS THE DRAGON BOAT RACE (1956). Right: Flyer for THE GREEN SWAN NIGHTCLUB (1958).

Chang cut a gangster film called THE GREEN SWAN NIGHTCLUB, starring Hsia Moon, for Great Wall in 1958. This was an exception, though, as most of his work in that period was in melodrama. But in 1966, he turns up (credited in English as “Chang Hing-yien”) as co-director of a dashing wuxia movie called THE JADE BOW. For the action choreography, Chang hired two of the most innovative young martial artists working in Hong Kong cinema: Lau Kar-leung and Tong Kai. While the resulting film was a deftly made but non-political genre hit, Chang would spend the next 40 years combining his love of kung fu with his political sensibilities, and pretty much single-handedly create the wushu movie genre.

Most of Chang Hsin Yen’s early work as a director is difficult to find. Titles like THE PATRIOTIC KNIGHTS (1971) and THE RED TASSELED SWORD (1975) indicate his continued interest in uplifting action films. Ironically, his biggest hit of the 70s was ROMANCE ON THE BUS (1978), a bittersweet contemporary drama (also referenced in MR. CINEMA). In 1980, he made WHITE HAIRED DEVIL LADY, a full-on kung fu film, for Great Wall. The studio was about to undergo consolidation with two other left-wing production houses. The new company, Chung Yuen, was planning a kung fu movie that would be shot on the grounds of the original Shaolin Temple in Hebei province in China. Chang Hsin Yen was tapped as the director.

The making of SHAOLIN TEMPLE and the discovery of Jet Li will be covered in more detail in my next entry. After that film’s success, Chang Hsin Yen went on to direct KIDS FROM SHAOLIN (1984) and the cult favorite YELLOW RIVER FIGHTER (1988) with his wushu actors. He produced a martial arts film, RED FISTS (1991) for Yu Rongguang (the star of IRON MONKEY, 1993). He introduced Jacky Wu Jing (SHA PO LANG/KILL ZONE and the upcoming LEGENDARY ASSASSIN) to Yuen Wo-ping and picked up a co-directing credit with Yuen on TAI CHI II (1996). In 1997, Chang produced a critically acclaimed art film, INTIMATES, for director Jacob Cheung (BATTLE OF WITS), and Tsui Hark credits him with suggesting a film adaptation of the wuxia novel “Seven Swords.” Originally, Chang was slated to produce SEVEN SWORDS, but when Tsui decided to bankroll a TV series to be shot simultaneously, Chang took over on that job.

Over the course of a still-thriving career, Chang Hsin Yen discovered and mentored some of the finest kung fu talent in the Asian film industry, and he’s managed to stay true to his ideals in a cutthroat industry. In this clip from YELLOW RIVER FIGHTER, it’s easy to see the eye of the film editor in the clarity and precision of the fight scene. The camera works with the choreography. The flow of movement is very natural. Yu Chenghui’s drunken swordplay is given room to breathe instead of being chopped into little bits.

This entry was originally posted on Oct. 23, 2007. The original clip from Youtube that I referenced is gone, but here’s another fight scene.