Who or what killed the genre?

[Omni Dragon]

Because there is more to kung fu movies then the kung fu. Otherwise, we might as well watch National Geographic docs on the Shaolin temple.

there was in the 70's

[masterofoneinchpunch]

I'm trying to figure out what happened between 1982-1985 to kill the Classic Kung Fu genre.

The Classic Kung Fu genre reached it's peak around the shapes period of 1978-1979, and those type of movies could loosely be described as containing combinations of the following:

*Movies about martial arts and with training scenes

*Movies with animal styles or other esoteric weapons/styles

*Movies set in a traditional environment

*Movies that are more serious than comedy

...

So who or what killed the genre? I believe that 2 famous actors/directors of the shapes period were the same ones responsible for bringing it down: Jackie Chan and Samo Hung.

...

Genre's tend to be cyclical and ebb and flow with time and rarely if ever die though I don't think we will ever see the high point that was shown in the late 70s (with at least one reason being that Peking Opera background that was prevalent in many future MA stars will not be seen again because of child laws).

You got the right year (1982) but the wrong people to blame for the dying down of the classic kung fu genre. Cinema City & Films Co. had the smash hit Aces Go Places which helped pave the way for the Lucky Stars films and many other comedies. I think that might a good place to start with this topic.

We could probably even point to the HK New Wave for helping bring down the traditional kung fu film as well pushing such auteurs like Tsui Hark (and the already mentioned Zu film) and his production company Film Workshop which would also point to many different genres (especially Peking Opera Blues and A Better Tomorrow in 1986).

[silver hermit]

falkor your right jackie chan is the person that killed old school hard core kung fu with his bamboozle fu. sammo was sucessful but didn't have the influence on the scale of jackies. in jackies own words he tried to be like bruce and failed so he became the anti-bruce lol. " he kick high i kick low." interview says it all. now progress is not a bad thing. HK cinema on a whole started to get better in 1979 when the new wave directors brought western techniques to HK films. many of those directors weren't just bumkins with cameras they were highly educated sometimes educated in the west and many thought they were above the cheap thrills of the crude films that preceeded them. as film makers its their responsiblity to do better films than those that came before them. zu warriors was made around when the origonal star wars had just made an impact worldwide so i imagine that it was his attempt to make a film on that scale with affects that could compete in the local market with john lucas's lasting impression and western dominance. karl maka has a hand in it coming back from the west wanting to make US style films and forming cinema city. you guys cannot blame moderns!! no way! they were making moderns back in the 50's, 60's and 70's guys like chen wai man were making popular modern before jackie made project A. even the shaws made 007 type films back in the days. enter the dragon was a modern, way of the dragon was a modern! when i first started to watch kung fu i was in a box. all i wanted to see was white hair foxes and shaw shaolin cycle films. IMO you can blame some of the dumbing down of kung fu on the great lau kar leung when he introduced comedy elements in his films. i much prefer films in the shaolin cycle but does that eliminate his lifes work? not in the least. another reason for the decline was the closing and fall of shaw brothers. 90% of HK talent had shaw training even if they didn't become leading actors for shaw. shaw taught them the art of action and how to act and give certin reactions. so the shrinking talent pool from opera and shaws combined with film producers not wanting to pay for top talent the dumbing down of kung fu films and changing of fan tastes spelled doom. quite a complicated formula for failure so making a wide sweeping statment about basicly a 4 year period is not wise. and you may deny yourself of what came before shapes and what it evolved into you might as well stop watching kung if you have seen all the shapes classics. think outside of the box and expand your fu experience. step outside of whats safe and take some risks in your viewing you might just like it.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

I do think you can blame moderns even though moderns have been done for years before the 80s from everything from the neorealist Cantonese films of the 1950s to Michael Hui of the 70s. Whenever there is a success such as Aces Go Places the concept then gets tried and tried again. The producers push the film-making into what they think will make money, but they only do that when hits have been established. I think more important is that the consumers pull in the early 80s did move the general film-making into different areas.

NOTE for post above: Star Wars came out in HK in 1978. Zu Warriors came out in 1983. Also I think you mean George Lucas.

[Killer Meteor]

I've never really bought the idea that Jackie Chan was trying to be like Bruce Lee. All those Jackie Chan/Lo Wei films have Jackie as an innefectual character constantly getting his ass handed to him, often by a pretty but frail lady who looks like she has trouble holding a sword.

[AbeRudder]

The collapse of old school kung fu movies can be attributed to many things though sammo and jackie did contribute to its demise to a certain extent. I think the main thing that hurt those movies were the modest budgets and the re-hashed storylines. The old school format itself wasnt a problem, the wave of mainland wushu movies that came out proved that. Jet Li's Kids of Shaolin actually out grossed Project A at the box office and various other wushu movies did quite well at the box office as well. Those movies brought something new to the table and also had lots of amazing locations and high budgets. Jackie and Sammos move to moderns hurt the old kung movies too though cause they were the biggest stars in that format, a lot of other kung movies made their money on the back of their success, with them gone there was less interest in the genre as a whole.

[falkor]

falkor your right jackie chan is the person that killed old school hard core kung fu with his bamboozle fu. sammo was sucessful but didn't have the influence on the scale of jackies. in jackies own words he tried to be like bruce and failed so he became the anti-bruce lol. " he kick high i kick low." interview says it all. now progress is not a bad thing. HK cinema on a whole started to get better in 1979 when the new wave directors brought western techniques to HK films. many of those directors weren't just bumkins with cameras they were highly educated sometimes educated in the west and many thought they were above the cheap thrills of the crude films that preceeded them. as film makers its their responsiblity to do better films than those that came before them. zu warriors was made around when the origonal star wars had just made an impact worldwide so i imagine that it was his attempt to make a film on that scale with affects that could compete in the local market with john lucas's lasting impression and western dominance. karl maka has a hand in it coming back from the west wanting to make US style films and forming cinema city. you guys cannot blame moderns!! no way! they were making moderns back in the 50's, 60's and 70's guys like chen wai man were making popular modern before jackie made project A. even the shaws made 007 type films back in the days. enter the dragon was a modern, way of the dragon was a modern! when i first started to watch kung fu i was in a box. all i wanted to see was white hair foxes and shaw shaolin cycle films. IMO you can blame some of the dumbing down of kung fu on the great lau kar leung when he introduced comedy elements in his films. i much prefer films in the shaolin cycle but does that eliminate his lifes work? not in the least. another reason for the decline was the closing and fall of shaw brothers. 90% of HK talent had shaw training even if they didn't become leading actors for shaw. shaw taught them the art of action and how to act and give certin reactions. so the shrinking talent pool from opera and shaws combined with film producers not wanting to pay for top talent the dumbing down of kung fu films and changing of fan tastes spelled doom. quite a complicated formula for failure so making a wide sweeping statment about basicly a 4 year period is not wise. and you may deny yourself of what came before shapes and what it evolved into you might as well stop watching kung if you have seen all the shapes classics. think outside of the box and expand your fu experience. step outside of whats safe and take some risks in your viewing you might just like it.

Kung Fu dumbing down!!! I love it!!!!!!

[Killer Meteor]

The collapse of old school kung fu movies can be attributed to many things though sammo and jackie did contribute to its demise to a certain extent. I think the main thing that hurt those movies were the modest budgets and the re-hashed storylines. The old school format itself wasnt a problem, the wave of mainland wushu movies that came out proved that. Jet Li's Kids of Shaolin actually out grossed Project A at the box office and various other wushu movies did quite well at the box office as well. Those movies brought something new to the table and also had lots of amazing locations and high budgets. Jackie and Sammos move to moderns hurt the old kung movies too though cause they were the biggest stars in that format, a lot of other kung movies made their money on the back of their success, with them gone there was less interest in the genre as a whole.

I thought Kids Of Shaolin was grotesque!

[AbeRudder]

IMO you can blame some of the dumbing down of kung fu on the great lau kar leung when he introduced comedy elements in his films.

I think that was just him trying to appeal to a wider audience, the underlying themes in his movies remained constant. His kung fu was 10x more complex and thoughtful than anything else being produced at the time, sometimes his movies had some very broad comedy but they usually had strong underlying themes. I dont think you can blame him for the 'dumbing' down of kung movies, most people when they did the broad comedic routines were taking their cues from jackie.

[AbeRudder]

I thought Kids Of Shaolin was grotesque!

Oh yeah i hated it too apart from the fighting, i quite liked the other two shaolin movies jet did though. But i think my point still remains, it was different to the kf movies coming out of taiwan and hk even thought it was pretty lame as a movie.

[Fist Of Boss]

Oh yeah i hated it too apart from the fighting, i quite liked the other two shaolin movies jet did though. But i think my point still remains, it was different to the kf movies coming out of taiwan and hk even thought it was pretty lame as a movie.

Got to love incredible locations though.Without them I would not have gone through it several times.

[silver hermit]

I've never really bought the idea that Jackie Chan was trying to be like Bruce Lee. All those Jackie Chan/Lo Wei films have Jackie as an innefectual character constantly getting his ass handed to him, often by a pretty but frail lady who looks like she has trouble holding a sword.

not my words jackies

anyways good thread hope it doesn't get trolled

[Guest HongKongMaster]

Jackie kill kung fu movies, hahahaha, what a really great joke

[Omni Dragon]

I've never really bought the idea that Jackie Chan was trying to be like Bruce Lee. All those Jackie Chan/Lo Wei films have Jackie as an innefectual character constantly getting his ass handed to him, often by a pretty but frail lady who looks like she has trouble holding a sword.

one of the Lo Wei films was Bruceploitation, New Fist Of Fury.

[kungfusamurai]

This is nonsense. If people were getting bored with Kung then why is it a couple of decades later, a lot of the public are familiar with Jackie and Samo's 80s hits, yet have never seen Warriors Two or a proper Kung Fu film from the 78/79 period?

People today probably find the pre-80s films too slow for their tastes. That's if you're talking about young people exploring the older stuff and only liking Sammo and Jackie.

80s HK movies were violence on crack, whereas the stuff from the 70s took time to at least tell a nice story and some even had a message. At least the later 70s ones did. The early 70s bashers pretty much were the same as the 80s flicks.

People just get tired of the same note being played over and over again. Sammo and Jackie threw in humor, and while I'm not familiar with the comedy genre in HK film, I think the it was the Hui (?) brothers who were huge with their comedy during the 70s. Jackie and Sammo just put that to kung fu and combined the best of both worlds.

Modern actioners were also probably cheaper to film since they could use wardrobe off the rack and were made on location in modern settings. That versus paying to have period costumes made and a studio lot dressed up in an old setting, like the Shaws were doing. I wouldn't be surprised if the real estate overhead for Shaws was insanely high.

KFS

[Killer Meteor]

one of the Lo Wei films was Bruceploitation, New Fist Of Fury.

Yes, but Jackie's character is not the "screaming demon of vengeance" he (or rather, Jeff Yang) claims it to be, but instead is an early, rather unlikeable version of Jackie's bumpkin routine he perfected in his Seasonal films.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

... to Michael Hui of the 70s. ...

...I think the it was the Hui (?) brothers who were huge with their comedy during the 70s. Jackie and Sammo just put that to kung fu and combined the best of both worlds. ...

KFS

To be fair to Michael Hui Koon-man, with his local success he really helped push HK films to be done in Cantonese rather than Mandarin. Also he had more than just comedy in his movies, there was always bits of social commentary throughout his work. I highly recommend The Private Eyes (1976) (also Sammo Hung was action director on this film ).

[kungfusamurai]

To be fair to Michael Hui Koon-man, with his local success he really helped push HK films to be done in Cantonese rather than Mandarin. Also he had more than just comedy in his movies, there was always bits of social commentary throughout his work. I highly recommend The Private Eyes (1976) (also Sammo Hung was action director on this film ).

Thank you for that. I'll have to check that one out!

KFS

[dionbrother]

Michael Hui's best for me was THE LAST MESSAGE. Never seen anything like it.

[Kwok Choi]

Revive Chinese/Taiwan Opera to it's former glory,forget about political correctness and the damn political games themselves,get those touring Shaolin Monks in dramatised traditional martial art flicks " no cgi no wires " then old school mid 70s - late 80s kung fu will make a come back big time.The talent is still there and new breed can be found but the foundation for the physical and mental discipline has to be based on what has been mentioned above.

[rederror]

A lot of reasonable views on this topic. I think the view that the plot in Kung Fu films just got too repetitive is incorrect in my eyes. The typical scenario of revenge works every time for me if it's done correctly. Even if you know exactly what the plot line is going to be, it's how the movie is delivered that makes a whole lot of difference, it's the performance in the movie that counts and not particularly the plot line.

My opinion obviously though.

[Guest Markgway]

The Butler did it...

[The Dragon]

The Butler did it...

Nope... Clones did.

[Fist Of Boss]

Nope... Clones did.

Benefits of Bruce Lee Clones;there is lots of movies to enjoy.

And secondly some of those are far more interesting than BL movies:bigsmile:

[kungfusamurai]

Nope... Clones did.

Nope, WHO killed the genre. Fans preferred Tom Baker over Ti Lung.

KFS