Fu Sheng VS Meng Fei

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

Something has been bothering me lately about this forum and the amount of hate that Fu Sheng gets, and it seems to be presented here as if he was not a martial artist, whereas Meng Fei gets a pass, more or less. I compare the 2 because there seem to be a lot of fans of Prodigal Boxer and few for Sheng's portrayal of Fang Shih Yu. Some people say they doubt Sheng had an martial arts training. Sheng was not a Hung Gar guy, but according to his bio, he studied Karate and Judo as a youth in Hawaii. Look at this pre leading man role in Police Force- his kicks and punches look as good as Lau Kar Wings, more or less, and he moves like he has done some goju or shorin ryu.

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please watch some clips of punch of death/prodigal boxer, and tell me Meng Fei is a good!

[peringaten]

FS was a hung gar guy, I'm certain he learnt properly, just got to know where to look for confirmation... From someone who's learnt from Lau family lineage he confirms a hell of a lot for me... More so than Chi Kuan Chun, who makes less sense to me from the way I've been taught... take that as you will.

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

I meant as to when he arrived at Shaw's, his training had been in Hawaii. He eventually became a student of Lau's before he died. At what point, I wonder,do you "know a style"? I mean, if you learn the forms for a movie, how different is it from "studying"? Also, from what a friend told me at the time, some of the fight scenes were based on the forms themselves- i.e. straight combinations of 5 elements, with the opponent reacting to it, etc.

I always saw Chun as strong but awkward. Stiff in the acting department as well. He reminded me of 40's movie star Sabu. Anyway, like I said, I don't get all the hate- you might not like his acting, but he did legit martial arts.

Fei seems to get a pass on all this, and Prodigal boxer/KPOD is held in some kind of reverence, while I saw it when it came out, I was borderline offended at how bad he was. Kurata was the only good thing about that movie, and well, it's not hard- he'd Kurata, after all.

Meanwhile, I and most people in the SF Bay Area were blown away by the Shaolin Cycle movies.

[Morgoth Bauglir]

I'm a fan of Fu Sheng and I think Meng Fei is a better screen fighter. Fu Sheng was better when he started out than Meng Fei, but Meng Fei surpassed him. Just slightly.

[rdenn]

i dont get the fu sheng hate either maybe his later films were seen more as he prob was just seen as a comedy actor but his mid 70's stuff was straight kung fu, disiples of shaolin & new shaolin boxer are some of my favourite shaw bros and you can see how good he was in both of them and even in his earlier films, toby russell told me meng fai backgournd is choy li fut which i do believe as he did a series called rise of kung fu master which he was doing choy li fut in the whole thing.

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

As far as his later output went, Sheng suffered a series of injuries- broken bones, big ones! I also found out he was an alcoholic, sadly, so that must have had an effect on his skills. I will have to look at some of Fei's later work again. I just was not impressed with what I saw of his early stuff, at all.

My understanding is that he wanted to transition into comedy as he was pretty beat up from all the fighting roles. HK Playboys was a big hit, and he might have rivaled Jackie Chan in the 80's HK box office, Chan I think at the time, was an imitator at first. I mean Sheng was the first choice to do Snake in the Eagles Shadow, right?

[rdenn]

yep fu sheng was first choice for snake and eagles shadow but I heard he was to expensive, I see what you mean about them early meng fai roles he did look a bit weak but improved a lot later on in his career

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

I also like Meng Fie's screen presence better than Fu Sheng's.

A Fu Sheng hater I am not.

To me his face, Fu Sheng, always had the tone of a comic, meaning just looking at him his face had comedy written all over it.

Whereas Meng Fie's facial countenance had a more serious overtone. IMO.

GD Y-Y

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

Yes, that is a picture from later in his career. He looked pretty prissy compared to Sheng at the time they both played Fang Shih Yu.

I think Sheng would have agreed with you, though. He really wanted to move over to comedy, from what I read. Also, from what I understand, Comedies did very, very well in HK, much better than period kung fu movies. I am sure Wong Jing would have had some real success with him. Of course I DO hate Wong Jing, see my posts about the democracy movement in HK.

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

Fu sheng by a wide margin.

[paimeifist]

I don't really see the Fu Sheng hate. He seems to be pretty well regarded from what I see. I am personally not a huge fan of his, although I don't think he's "bad" or anything. None of the movies that he is front and center in are favorites of mine, and any movie where he shares top billing with others he generally gets outshined in my eyes. I have always felt underwhelmed by his fight scenes. He had great charisma and tends to crack me up though.

I can't comment much on Meng Fei. I know I've seen him in movies, but he hasn't stuck in my head or been memorable to me. That alone is enough for me to say the thread title is no contest though, in Fu Shengs favor of course.