The Tai Chi Choreography of Yuen Woo-ping, Part 1

The fighting art of tai chi chuan, much like grappling and wing chun, is hard to adapt for screen choreography. All of these arts depend for their effectiveness on subtle shifts in application of pressure against an opponent. That kind of subtlety is hard for an observer to detect, although the results, when done correctly, are impressively obvious. Despite the difficulty, the master choreographer and action director Yuen Woo-ping has drawn on tai chi techniques repeatedly throughout his career, from 1974, when he made THE SHADOW BOXER for the Shaw Brothers studio, right up to 2004’s KUNG FU HUSTLE.

Yuen Woo-ping probably joined the Shaw studio as a stuntman and assistant to Tang Kai. Tang had studied martial arts with Yuen Siu-tin, Woo-ping’s father, and had been a member of the elder Yuen’s stunt crew before partnering with Lau Kar-leung in the mid-1960s. Yuen Wo-ping worked at Shaw’s under the name “Yuan Ta-yen,” and his earliest credits for fight choreography are under this name. In 1974, he made THE SHADOW BOXER (aka TAI CHI CHUAN) with a young tai chi competition champion named Chen Wo-fu. Chen had the good looks and athletic skills necessary to carry the lead in the competitive world of kung fu movie-making, but something went wrong for him right around the time THE SHADOW BOXER was released. He committed suicide at the age of 24, cutting short a promising career.

Cheng Tin-hung demonstrates a tai chi application. 

Chen’s tai chi sifu was Cheng Tin-hung (1930-2005), one of Hong Kong’s top internal stylists. He and his students were known for their fighting skills, taking part in full contact competitions and demonstrating the combat aspect of an art more commonly thought of as a gentle health exercise. Cheng founded the Hong Kong Tai Chi Association, which now is run by his son Cheng Kam-yin. Cheng Tin-hung trained the cast of THE SHADOW BOXER in tai chi technique and demonstrates his form and applications behind the opening credits. His style of tai chi, which was based on the Wu family lineage, is very powerful and emphasizes arm locks, head strikes, and throws. (A clip of Master Cheng’s demo from THE SHADOW BOXER is here.)

Left: Bow Sim Mark. Right: Donnie Yen in DRUNKEN TAI CHI. 

We may never know the details behind Yuen Wo-ping’s association with Cheng Tin-hung, and who originally came up with the idea for a kung fu movie built around tai chi. But what is certain is that the next time Yuen had the opportunity to work with a young man trained in tai chi, he again crafted an entire production around the philosophy and applications of this subtle art. But where THE SHADOW BOXER was a grim drama of oppression and revenge, DRUNKEN TAI CHI (1984) was a wacky comedy. A very young Donnie Yen had joined the “Yuen Clan” as stuntman, and his mother, Bow Sim Mark, had an international reputation as a tai chi master. Yuen corresponded with Mark prior to the film’s production, and she sent him information about her teaching and technique, which is derived from the Fu family tradition. Originally Mark was going to perform tai chi behind the opening credits of DRUNKEN TAI CHI, but she was recuperating from a leg injury when the film was shot, so Donnie Yen created the opening sequence, which melds Chen and Fu tai chi, and includes some pakua-flavored Leung Yi movements, like “Push Open the Window to Look at the Moon” and the “Needle to Sea Bottom” incorporating a waist turn.

Yuen Cheung-yan and Donnie Yen in DRUNKEN TAI CHI.

The training sequence of DRUNKEN TAI CHI is justly famous, as Yuen comes up with a series of hilarious but theoretically valid methods of drilling tai chi precepts into the reluctant student’s brain and body. A giant spinning top, a basketball painted with the yin/yang symbol, and an enormous wheel emphasize the primacy of the circle in tai chi technique. The metaphor of the practitioner’s hand being so soft that a bird cannot push off it to take flight – an example of neutralizing the opponent’s energy – is extended into a whole roomful of birds as Yen soars among them. Yuen Wo-ping drew on Bow Sim Mark’s “Requirements of Tai Chi” for the scene where Yuen Cheung-yan instructs Yen in the principles of tai chi posture, who takes the requirements to ridiculous extremes. 

Yuen Wah does “White Crane Spreading Wings” in KUNG FU HUSTLE.

Although Yuen Wo-ping has worked in a variety of fighting styles over the years, he has always seemed to have a particular affinity for the softer arts, including tai chi, wu dang sword, and even the drunken boxing that made his early reputation. He would return again and again to tai chi technique over the years, especially when, as in DRUNKEN TAI CHI, his fighter was going up against a tough-as-nails hard stylist. (For a Youtube clip of the final fight in DRUNKEN TAI CHI, go here.) It’s his favorite secret weapon. The fluidity and lyrical beauty of internal kung fu continues to inspire the master of modern martial arts choreography.

Tags: Donnie Yen, tai chi, Yuen Wo-ping, Yuen Woo-ping