The Early Choreography of Lau Kar-leung and Tong Kai: ‘Jade in the Red Dust, Part 1′

JADE IN THE RED DUST, PART 1 (1966). Directed by Ling Wan. Starring Cheung Ying-choi, Connie Chan Po-chu, Josephine Siao, and Shek Kin. Fight choreography by Lau Kar-leung and Tong Kai.

Let me admit up front that my minimal Cantonese wasn’t much help in deciphering the plot of this film, an elaborate kerfuffle about jiang hu clans. The director of the three-part wuxia epic was Ling Wan, who apparently just passed away last month (this entry was originally posted on Feb. 11, 2007). Ling also directed THE GODDESS’ SWORD as well as numerous other martial arts films of the 1950s and 60s. In the Hong Kong Film Archive publication “The Making of Martial Arts Films – As Told by Filmmakers and Stars,” Ling said that while his earlier films were choreographed by Yuen Siu-tin (father of Yuen Wo-ping), he eventually came to rely on Lau and Tong “because they were younger and their stuff was newer.” Tong Kai, also known as Tong Gaai or Tang Chia, was a student of Yuen Siu-tin. Lau Kar-leung was the son of actor and hung gar kung fu master Lau Cham. Both men were 29 years old and were making approximately 20 films a year when the RED DUST trilogy was released. They were about to be recruited by the Shaw Brothers studio, where they would have long and distinguished careers.

The male lead in RED DUST is Cheung Ying-choi, a popular actor of the time, although his soft features and slightly dopey expression can be a turn-off for modern viewers. His costars are Connie Chan and Josephine Siao. Chan appears cross-dressed as a male in some scenes, where she catches Siao’s eye and makes Cheung jealous, and also in female attire, where the attraction/jealousy thing with her costars gets reversed. The ever-present Shek Kin plays a Seven Swords master who adopts Cheung as an infant. Shek, aged by make-up and white beard, is a somewhat sympathetic character here and suffers imprisonment in a torture chamber maintained by the true evildoers. But for hardcore fans of Shek’s villainy, I can report that he has one outrageous scene where he plucks the eyeballs from a traitorous subordinate and eats them, licking his fingers afterwards.

The eyeball scene.

But what about the fight choreography? At first, it seems that Lau and Tong are teasing the audience with a handful of brief encounters, fights that are not only short but interrupted by the camera cutting away to bystanders. And yes, there are the obligatory “palm power” scenes of magic rays shooting from opponents’ hands. But Part 1 of JADE IN THE RED DUST has two major fight scenes that show the creativity the young choreographers brought to their work, given time and budget. The first features Tong Kai in a supporting role as a one-armed cripple whose weapon of choice is his crutch. He fights Connie Chan, who uses a straight sword. Tong’s performance is impressive, maintaining his character’s ungainliness while lunging and dodging Chan’s strikes. The actors use the features of the set well, incorporating running and jumping (sometimes in reverse) into the action. The final shot sets the two in a stage-like framework which allows Tong to show off his low stances and spinning kick while Chan executes a subtle change of grip on her weapon that gives her the capability of executing backhand strikes. Even when Tong reveals a blade hidden in the foot of his crutch, he’s unable to prevail.

The second fight of interest sees Josephine Siao battling an array of fighters in the underground lair of the evil clan. In array fighting, a squad of martial artists use precisely dictated movements to surround an opponent in constantly changing interlocking patterns. The theory is that an array is much more difficult to break through than simply fighting a mob. In this case, the clan members are armed with small tridents and large flags. The flagpole is used much like a stick or spear, but the added banner is visually more dynamic on film. Siao has nothing but a short dagger, but she makes the most of it. Her defense includes combinations of kicks, jumps, rolls, and sweeps which she appears to have performed without a stunt double. She makes one wire-assisted leap in a futile attempt to assassinate the clan leader but otherwise relies only on her martial arts training to keep the scene moving until she is finally pinned down by her attackers.

Left: Tong Kai in JADE IN THE RED DUST. Right: Shek Kin threatens a baby.

Considering that Lau Kar-leung and Tong Kai were turning out a new feature-length film every two and a half weeks or so, it’s a safe bet that most of their time and energy went into the design and execution of fight scenes like these two examples. And when they moved on to the Shaw studio in 1967, they brought everything they had learned in productions like JADE IN THE RED DUST to their ongoing development of the role of action director.

Here’s a clip of Connie Chan Po-chu’s fight with choreographer Tong Kai.