Wing Chun [TV] (2007)

The story of real-life Wing Chun master Leung Jan is dramatized in this 40-episode TV series from Universe Entertainment and producer Billy Chan. Nicholas Tse, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung headline an ensemble cast that notably features Hung’s youngest son Sammy as the lead villain and Philip Ng as a famous Wing Chun student, with additional supporting roles filled by martial arts movie veterans Gordon Liu, Ji Chunhua and Xu Xiangdong. WING CHUN is an above-average martial arts series with sparing, yet quality martial arts action, impressive production values and a routinely engaging story hindered some by slow pacing, repetition and clichéd conventions.

Budgeted at HK$32 million, the series which was originally released on Hong Kong’s ATV channel in 2007 is something of a sequel to Sammo Hung’s 1981 kung fu classic THE PRODIGAL SON. The film focused on the initial training of real-life Wing Chun master Leung Jan, originally played by Yuen Biao. Yuen reprises the role for the TV series and Hung appears once again as his master Wong Wah-bo (although not until roughly midway through the series). This time the focus is not solely on the martial exploits of master and student. Directors Edmund Fung and Gary Sing pull back to dramatize Jan’s later years as a doctor living and working at Zansheng Tang, his family’s clinic in Foshan.

Wonderfully acted by the underrated kung fu movie legend Yuen Biao, Jan is depicted as a strict traditionalist, a man insecure about his own rebellious past who is slow to accept changing social norms and trust his rebellious son Bik (Nicholas Tse) enough to accept him as his Wing Chun pupil. As a misunderstood young man in love with martial arts, Bik is resentful of his father’s refusal to train him and sets out to learn other arts and surpass his father’s ability without using Wing Chun.

The main antagonist, aside from the heroes’ own stubbornness is the Long family. Its head, Long Jinsheng is a wealthy gangster and opium dealer, who along with his spoiled son Long He, develop a rivalry with the Leungs, especially Bik and the two young men get involved in a street fight. This conflict gradually takes a far more serious turn for all concerned when the Long’s recruit a wayward Pigua master (Xu Xiangdong) and his quiet pupil Gao Ming (Sammy Hung).

While his master Fu Zhendong begins using his skills to help traffic opium, Gao Ming takes a liking to Bik’s childhood friend and servant Yi Bun (Candy Liu). She, however, remains secretly in love with Bik. This, along with a humiliating defeat at the hands of Bik during a public contest and his efforts to find and protect his abused sister, drives Gao Ming to embrace the “dark side.”

Although playing a villain, Sammy Hung’s performance is the central axis upon which the whole series spins. This antihero is the most developed and complex character in the series and Sammy Hung’s potentially star-making portrayal completely overshadows Tse’s flaccid acting and movements. Based on this role alone, I predict that Sammy will eventually succeed where his elder brother Timmy has so far failed and follow his father as a successful action star. He lacks his father’s fighting skills but has the looks and the charisma that Sammo doesn’t, while his screen fighting isn’t bad and will undoubtedly improve with time.

Setting much of the series’ other dramatic fat aside, the story of Gao Ming’s rise and fall as a gangster rivals that of the principle antiheroes in BOXER FROM SHANGTUNG, SCARFACE or the STAR WARS saga. For the first half of the story, Gao Ming is largely a passive victim or opportunist, still unsure about his direction. By the half way point, events push him to snap and we get the best fight sequences in the series when he dramatically turns on his masters in classic Chang Cheh fashion. If only the rest of the series could have maintained this level of intensity.

For a martial arts series, WING CHUN is disappointing in the limited amount of action at play. With choreography by Stephen Tung Wei and performances from great genre actors like Sammo, Yuen Biao, Gordon Liu, and Ji Chuhua, the fights that are in place are well staged and entertaining. Unfortunately, it can sometimes take three episodes, or two hours of melodrama before we get to see more.

The writers focus far too much on simplistic romantic entanglements, although it’s not as bad as some other Chinese-language series. It will likely test the patience of viewers chiefly interested in action. A couple of the episodes are definitely filler containing nonsense like Bun endlessly pining for the affections of Bik or Bik’s brother Chun trying to deal with his girlfriend’s split-personality disorder. These scenes could have easily been scrapped without losing any substantial plot or character development.

Rain Lee may be attractive but her role as a romantic interest for Bik is a mere distraction to give Tse something to do other than fight or grind his jaw. The other major female role is filled by Hu Ke. Although far younger than Yuen Biao, she becomes a tentative love interest for his character. Unlike Lee, she’s actually a good actress with a knack for crying on command but the writers steer her character in the wrong direction towards the end. There is also a “dirt collector,” or sanitation engineer played by a pretty actress I couldn’t identify. Her character represents the hardworking everyman or woman whose common sense and down-to-earth nature provides a pleasant contrast to the more complicated personalities of characters above her station. She ends up being a heroine in her own way despite having no fighting ability or status.

Another problem the series has is keeping the two main characters at arm’s length from the viewer. Yuen Biao does a great job of portraying Leung Jan with stoicism and great presence. Yet he is often shoved to the side or left in the background while we get to know other characters better. This is even more apparent for Nicholas Tse. He’s not a very good actor so it’s probably for the best but his character seems to spend most of the series moping around or hiding behind closed doors. At one point he simply wanders away for several episodes. It’s really hard to take any interest in this character whose evolution from an immature and overconfident scrapper into a cautious martial arts master should be front and center but isn’t.

Sammo Hung gets to play a character very close to his real-life persona, the Big Brother of the story. He’s the elder who has long ago overcome his fears and weaknesses and is now in a position to mentor not only Bik but basically everyone. It’s a great role for him where he gets to perform some light martial arts but focus more on his appropriate role as an affable master. An easy going, lightly comedic personality suits him at this age and I hope to see him in similar roles going forward.

Sammo expands on the Wing Chun instruction he once gave Yuen Biao in THE PRODIGAL SON. He becomes Tse’s instructor and we get a lot more detail on the rudiments of the art.

In addition to being a poor actor, Tse is not a good screen fighter either. His movements are clumsy, slow and weak. This is especially apparent early in the series when he plainly throws sloppy kicks and punches. Gradually tighter editing and choreography helps to cover his faults when he is supposed to be looking more skillful later on. Unfortunately, he just lacks the presence and subtle movements to sell the role. This is something that even real-life martial arts masters fail at when trying to adapt their fighting to film so it isn’t necessarily a reflection on Tse’s training or abilities off screen. I will give him credit for putting in the effort. Tse trained in Wing Chun with Lai Ying-chau, real-life disciple of Yip Man. In addition to being Bruce Lee’s instructor, Yip Man was a student of Chan Wah-shun, played in the series by Philip Ng. Tse clearly worked very hard on this series. Towards the end, he goes through very intense training with Sammo and is required to perform a lot of physically demanding routines including fast sparring with a wooden Wing Chun dummy. There is some undercranking but nothing as bad as some of the fights Donnie Yen performed in the FIST OF FURY TV series. Thankfully, there’s also no power powder used to enhance the power of strikes.

Gordon Liu makes a cameo appearance as Yuen Biao’s old rival. It’s a small role but welcome and provides us fans with a rare opportunity to see top-tier old school stars once representing rival studios Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest now able to trade blows in the same production.

Two other elder martial arts vets that deserve special mention include wushu-trained mainlanders Ji Chunhua and Xu Xiangdong. Thanks to fierce looks, Ji usually plays simpleminded villains in films like DEADEND OF BEISIEGERS and TAI CHI 2. In a refreshing turn, he portrays a simple-minded yet magnanimous master who uses his skills in defense of the heroes. He also has an ongoing, friendly feud with Yuen Biao that allows us to see the two actors go at it several times. A highlight is when the two actors are briefly joined by Sammo for an intentionally fun three-way match akin to the three-way sparring session in KUNG FU HUSTLE.

Xu Xiangdong is a lesser-known martial arts actor who stands out with an excellent performance as Sammy Hung’s master. In real-life, Xu is a wushu champion of Jet Li’s generation who briefly enjoyed star status in the wake of Li’s initial fame by headlining the mainland kung fu movie HOLY ROBE OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1985) as the film’s fighting hero. In the TV series, Xu plays a disgraced Pigua Fist master who has tarnished his sect’s reputation for the love of money. He’s also a skilled screen fighter who dishes out some excellent moves.

There is one other elder screen fighter with terrific ability that I could not identify. He appears for a couple episodes as an Iron Wire Fist master who briefly trains Gao Ming. The techniques of Iron Wire were famously featured in Stephen Chow’s KUNG FU HUSTLE by actor Chu Chi-ling who played the effeminate barber. The exaggerated Iron Wire action of that film seems to have rubbed off on the series. It is the only martial arts style that is unnecessarily enhanced by CGI to show its ki-generating power. This slip into effects-fu is a shame, as is some of the exaggerated kicking and limited wirework used to enhance and bastardize some of the Wing Chun forms. The actual Wing Chun choreography shown is good enough without the tricks. However, this is still Hong Kong action and its directors have yet to become confident enough in their ability to show unadorned martial arts in an entertaining fashion to break with their traditions of exaggerating the choreography.

It’s not just the old school stars that make a good impression. Sammy Hung and Philip Ng, as Leung Jun’s student “Moneychanger” Chan Wah-shun, both deliver standout performances that suggest they each have the potential to carry a martial arts movie on their own.

The production itself is impressive by local standards, keeping in mind that some Hong Kong productions are very low budget and have resorted to reusing stock footage from other productions for instance. It looks like a lot of mainland Chinese resources went into making the series. The indoor and outdoor sets are huge and well decorated. Large numbers of extras are frequently employed for wide shots in public locations. This harkens back to the good old days when Shaw Brothers could fill the screen with people. The soundtrack features several Western-themed songs that are often repeated and become tiresome to hear by the end of the series but initially they’re quite distinctive and interesting.

In part, WING CHUN is a brilliant series. It offers Yuen Biao his best acting role since TVB’s REAL KUNG FU (2005). It expands on the Wing Chun history and themes introduced in WARRIORS TWO and THE PRODIGAL SON. The series takes some liberties with the action design and with historical facts, as we known them, but generally presents one of the more grounded representations of kung fu in China’s early 20th century. Combat is enjoyable but there isn’t nearly enough of it. The series could be cut in half with the story tightened up and side characters and plots removed for a more focused story. At its heart there lies a powerful story of how fate and karma shapes the lives of people who ultimately choose their destiny through their interactions with others. For martial artists there is added responsibility to use their physical abilities magnanimously. Unfortunately, this message is almost lost within 28 hours of soap opera drama. Perhaps this is partly why the series was edited down to an as-yet unreleased feature-length film.

Related forum thread:
http://kungfucinema.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3605

Related Topics: Foshan, Hong Kong, Iron Wire Fist, opium, Pigua Fist, Schizophrenia, TV, Videos, Wing Chun, Wing Chun [TV] (2007)