The Real Deal: Donnie Yen and the Fu Legacy

The early reviews of IP MAN are overwhelmingly positive, and Donnie Yen’s performance in the title role has been called “touching and heartfelt…one of his best performances.” The topic is a great idea. Modern kung fu masters like Ip Man, legendary sifu of Bruce Lee, are close enough to our world to be realistic heroes. They lived in a time we recognize. And the true stories are pretty amazing. China has gone through tumultuous changes over the past hundred years, and kung fu schools have been woven into every thread of the historical fabric.

Left: Fu Chen Sung. Top photo: A young Donnie Yen practices hsing yi with Fu Wing-fei.

There were other masters active in China in the years before World War II. One of the most impressive is Donnie Yen’s sitaikung, Grandmaster Fu Chen Sung (1881-1953). Yen’s mother, Bow Sim Mark, is the student of Fu Wing-fei, the son of Fu Chen Sung. Fu style is internal art, combining tai chi, pakua, hsing yi (xing yi), and wudang swordplay. The future grandmaster grew up in Hebei Province, learning Chen tai chi and pakua from a village teacher. While still a teenager, he went to Beijing to learn pakua from a student of the legendary Dong Hai Quan. Wudang master Sung Wei-I taught him the straight sword techniques now found in the Fu style Seven Star sword form.

Grandmaster Fu lived a life right out of a kung fu movie. He worked as a bodyguard in his youth, and then as a military coach. The elite training program run by General Li Jing-lin was famous all over China as one of the best, and Fu was an instructor on his staff. The General was nicknamed “Miracle Sword Li” for his skill in wudang style, and both Fu Chen Sung and his son Wing-fei were among his sparring partners. Around 1926, Fu was awarded a position on the faculty of a new national martial arts academy in Nanjing. A few years later, the academy sent him to Kuangzhou (Canton) to teach at a branch school. He continued to work closely with the army during World War II, training Chinese troops in unarmed combat.

By all accounts, Fu was hard on his students, but his stupendous art could not be mastered without years of “eating bitterness.” Eyewitness accounts of his fights (there are many) describe the explosive power of his strikes, which were often delivered from a spin or backbend. The empty hand sets of Fu style, like the tai chi and leung yi forms, should show the softness of tai chi, the coils of pakua, and the power of hsing yi.

Fu Wing-fei (left) and Bow Sim Mark.

Fu Chensung’s son, Fu Wing-fei (1907-1993?), continued the Fu style tradition as one of the top teachers in southern China. The younger Fu not only studied from childhood with his celebrated father, but also learned from many of his father’s colleagues, including “Miracle Sword Li” and Yang style tai chi grandmaster Yang Chengfu. Fu Wing-fei trained numerous instructors of the next generation. Among them was Bow Sim Mark, Donnie Yen’s mother. Mark came to the US with her family in 1975 and settled in Boston MA. Her school, the Chinese Wushu Research Institute, was founded there in 1976. She continues to teach there, and many of her students are also teaching as members of the Bow Sim Mark Tai Chi Arts Association. Donnie Yen’s first movie, DRUNKEN TAI CHI (1984), showcased the tai chi and leung yi technique he inherited from his mother and from Master Fu. No one has a better claim to develop a film project around this fascinating and too little known style.

Below: Bow Sim Mark (left), Mark practicing swordplay with her son.

More information is available on Fu style here.

More information on Bow Sim Mark can be found here.

Victor Fu, the son of Fu Wing-fei, has a website here.

Video of Fu Wing-fei demonstrating tai chi applications is here.

Video of Bow Sim Mark demonstrating Seven Star Sword is here.

Tags: Donnie Yen, Ip Man, tai chi