3. The Kung-Fu Comedy: When any genre reaches the end of its natural life cycle, it is usually struck by a period of “parody”. It’s thematic and narrative elements having been firmly entrenched, widely disseminated enough that even the least-analytical viewer can recognize them, all that follows is for filmmakers to pick apart their inner-workings and ridicules their pretensions. Some genres are able to continue evolving alongside this moment of “parody”, providing a stay of execution. Others aren’t so lucky: then, the parody stage becomes a mocking epitaph to genre, a final vivisection from which it can’t recover. Such was true of the
kung-fu genre as it reached the end of its decade. It was then that the
Kung-Fu Comedy emerged, bringing the genre to unprecedented heights of popularity while also fastening its demise. You could call it the “Slapstick Kung-Fu” or “Kung-Fu Parody”, but neither title does justice to its relationship with the brooding, macho genre from which it sprung. As always, it’s difficult to set up hard-and-fast parameters for its beginning: even
bashers could feature heavy comic elements (
Wits of the Brats,
Way of the Dragon), and
shapes film would often feature plenty of comic interludes. Lau Kar-Leung’s
The Spiritual Boxer (1976) is generally considered the first true
kung-fu comedy, even as its immediate influence was minimal. The early films of American-trained Karl Maka were crucial in introducing outright parody into the genre, as well as re-adopting the long-abandoned Cantonese dialect. As such,
The Good, the Bad and the Loser (1976) could be called the proper beginning of the sub-genre as we know it. However, the genre truly takes off with the massive success of
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978), which overnight turned Jackie Chan from a failed Bruce-clone into a megastar, and transformed Yuen Woo-Ping from a respected choreographer into a major director. The formula was sound enough that when the two mined it again 8 months later,
Drunk Monkey in the Tiger’s Eye [a.k.a
Drunken Master] became an even bigger blockbuster. Into the fray was also Sammo Hung’s
Enter the Fat Dragon, but that film was peculiar for a) spoofing the
basher, which was deep in decline, and b) taking on the Brucesploitation genre, which Chinese audiences already rightly disliked. While successful, it wasn’t nearly as big a hit.
The peculiarity of Hung’s film underscores a point: as the
basher didn’t engender a wave of spoofs, tiredness of conventions alone can’t account for the
kung-fu comedy. Rather, the innovations of the
shapes film set the stage for the
kung-fu comedy. In certain respects,
shapes’s heavier emphasis on martial-arts choreography helped contain the more unpleasant excesses of the
basher. Make no mistake,
shapes could be bloody and downbeat when they needed to; however, these outbursts were more measured compared to the gore-‘n’-grime that quickly became the
basher’s stock-in-trade. The introduction of humorous elements was the next logical step to this “lightening” of tone. Yes,
kung-fu’s stultifying atmosphere of machismo rage was begging to be taken down a peg… but just as crucial was
shapes’s increasingly “hermetic” focus on martial-arts minutiae. As films struggled to top one another, the increasingly exaggerated animal forms and outlandish training techniques became perfect fodder for lampooning. With its emphasis on displays of movement, speed and acrobatics, it’s easy to link the genre with the
musical. In fact, the
kung-fu comedy was distinctly influenced by Chinese Opera perhaps in a way not seen since the late-‘60s. Yet, the
kung-fu comedy brings to mind another source of influence. It’s easy to forget that the classical
slapstick comedy of Hollywood was also a “cinema of spectacle”: narrative subordinated to a string of gags and routines. The
kung-fu comedy marks the point where physical action transforms into physical comedy.
The
kung-fu comedy was also governed by outside influences. The sudden arrival of the
Cantonese Comedy transformed the Hong Kong industry overnight. The films of the Hui Brothers – whether as a group or solo – continually broke box-office records, breaking the hegemony of the Mandarin dialect, Shaw Brothers, and the martial-arts genre. The
kung-fu comedy was made in the wake of this mandate; not just a mandate for silliness, but also to be unabashedly Cantonese. The
kung-fu comedy was therefore a homecoming for the
kung-fu genre back to the dialect which originally supported it. It was an important wedge in upending Shaw Brothers: for the first time since Bruce Lee, the studio was continually trounced at its pet-genre. No fatal accident would it save it this time (although if you believe rumors, Jackie Chan got pretty close in splitting with Lo Wei). By decades end, Golden Harvest was
the big studio. In this atmosphere, the entire notion of “indie studios” changed. Once a catch-all for any studio that wasn’t Shaw, it soon become applicable mostly to young non-established upstarts, or unapologetically poverty-row studios (and as always, the Taiwanese and Mainland productions that chose to emulate HK). In this atmosphere, the
kung-fu comedy was a key transitional genre, separating the wheat from the chaff in the new industry, and following innovations beyond the strict parameters of
kung-fu (compare the flourishing of Seasonal Films with the rather quick demise of Goldig Films as an example of adapting or perishing during this period).
The reason for this, perhaps: martial-arts are hard, but comedy is harder. “Indie Shapes” flourished thanks to an abundance of martial-arts talent, but matching those skills with comic talent was harder to achieve. While the smaller studios continued to have their “flukes”, the major works of the
kung-fu comedy is largely concentrated around a central group of talent. From this, you can designate a core group of six or so directors who truly carry the sub-genre: YUEN WOO-PING, JACKIE CHAN, SAMMO HUNG, LAU KAR-WING, KARL MAKA and, at Shaw Brothers, LAU KAR-LEUNG. Beyond their directorial careers, most of this group also had solid experience in martial-arts choreography, and were often dynamic presences in front of the camera. This led to constant collaboration within the group: this director choosing to co-star in that director’s film… that director choreographing this director’s film, etc. It’s also worth noting that, except for the Lau brothers and the untrained Maka, many of these performers were trained in the Peking Opera. As such, the
kung-fu comedy is often credited with reintroducing “operatic” Northern Kung-Fu into the genre, after a period of “functional” Southern influence, with sheer showmanship overtaking the accuracy-of-style that grounded
Shapes choreography. Alongside this talent, this circle included its own rotating company of choreographers and actors. Common faces include Yuen Biao, Leung Kar-Yan, Lam Ching-Ying, Fung Hak-On, Dean Shek and Simon Yuen…
It’s with trepidation that I choose to divide the
kung-fu comedy into four sub-groups. Full disclosure: here I’m venturing beyond the realm of critical consensus and into that of purely personal interpretation. Likewise, the distinction between these groups – and the
shapes film – is nebulous enough to make these definitions suspect. Nonetheless, these divisions may help us get to the bottom of the
kung-fu comedy.
- The main group could be appropriately called “slapstick kung-fu”. Here, the structure and elements of the shapes film are adopted, but ran through a prism of comic exaggeration. The revenge-motive is downplayed, the transformative aspects of “training” played up. Bloodshed is minimized; in its stead the film emphasizes slapstick violence, and the fights are often categorized by flamboyant and ridiculous fighting “shapes” (although you may be surprised how authentic some are). The films nearly always take on the character of the “buddy film”, and you could further divide it into two prevailing narrative modes: 1) The “Sifu-Student” films, popularized in the wake of the twin ’78 blockbusters of Yuen Woo-Ping/Jackie Chain. An arrogant, lazy brat is trained in kung-fu by a comically hard-ass master. Together, they often develop something resembling a surrogate father-son relationship. 2) The “Odd Couple” film, introduced by Karl Maka. It deals with two reluctant partners (usually a combination of martial artist and con man) as they’re begrudgingly forced together. Their relationship is comically hostile, revolving around constant trickery, double-crossing and one-upmanship. This differs from the “Sifu-Student” films – in which the student constantly attempts to cheat his obstinate master – as the “Odd Couple” pairing are often closer to equals.
- Another group could be described as “shapes with humor”. These are kung-fu comedies which retain a large amount of the serious shapes atmosphere of brooding and violence. Vice-versa, you could simply categorize them as straightforward shapes films with heavy comedic interludes. As such, you could brush off many of the pre-’78 entries as simply shapes films, the comic relief being negligible. However, after ’78, it becomes clear some films are deliberately trying to mix the two competing strands of kung-fu cinema. This becomes especially common in the lower ranks of the “indies”, where the copying of hit films lead them to imitate both serious and comedic successes simultaneously. A perfect example is Joseph Kuo’s The Mystery of Chess Boxing (1979). For all intents and purposes, it’s a Jackie Chan-clone: Li Yi-Min is the comically inept student, Jack Long his hardened master. Simon Yuen even makes a guest appearance, teasing to become Li’s master. Yet, those Jackie Chan/Yuen Woo-Ping films carefully tread around the revenge aspect, so as not to disrupt their films’ frivolous surface. Here, however, once the Ghostface Killer shows up and the revenge drama kicks in, the film grows increasingly grim and violent. A perhaps more impressive balancing act comes with Sammo Hung’s critically acclaimed Warriors Two (1978), which won much of its admiration precisely for its ability to balance slapstick, pathos and violence, often within the same scene. Hung would mix similarly volatile ingredients in such follow-ups as The Victim and The Prodigal Son. In many ways, the whiplash between the silly and the somber in certain kung-fu comedies very much anticipates the signature mixing of genres and tone that would designate much of Hong Kong cinema during the 1980s.
- The third group is harder to pin down, but is squarely the domain of Lau Kar-Leung at Shaw Brothers. Before we define the group, perhaps we should distinguish what separates Lau from many of the other “core” directors (somewhat excepting his brother, Kar-Wing). a) housed at the Mandarin Shaw Bros., he’s insulated from some of the more broad aspects of the Cantonese Comedy. b) even given the storied pre-directorial careers of those other “core” directors, Lau is peerless in his influence on the kung-fu genre, which may suggest a stronger attachment to its earlier incarnations c) as mentioned prior, Lau was a true master of the Southern Hung Gar style of kung-fu. This separates him from many of his peers in the sub-genre, who were all-purpose entertainers trained in the “theatrical” Opera-style. As such, you could call this strand “light kung-fu” or even “alternative shapes”, although neither does it complete justice. While Lau uses many of the narrative models above, his films stand apart from his Indie/Cantonese peers. While they’ll play with genre conventions, it’s more gentle ribbing than outright spoofing. While they have broad comic elements, they never lean as heavily on the vulgar. More importantly, the films never stop taking martial-arts seriously. Lau Kar-Leung’s dramas often deal with incompatibility of kung-fu ethic with violence; often, the pursuit of revenge is seen as “despoiling” the martial-arts. His comedies, therefore, are the flipside, depicting martial-arts as a force of spiritual and cultural enrichment. The main objective: to supplant the kung-fu’s usual preoccupation with revenge and violence, by adopting an atmosphere that is light, breezy, even charming. The cycle was initiated by his brilliant Heroes of the East (1978), the rare kung-fu film in which: no one dies; national and ethnic differences are not only honored, but valued; and the film is supported by a narrative that owes less to the revenge drama than the comedy of manners and romantic comedy. Many slapstick entries use the “odd-couple” pairing as a surrogate father-son relationship, pointing towards some sense of the family as dysfunctional or broken. Lau’s films, instead, attaches a highly positive value to the extended family, of which the martial-arts school is treated as an extension. Also the kung-fu comedy continued the earlier genre’s poor attitude towards woman: they’re either absent, marginalized to the decorative, or the brunt of misogynistic humor or panic. Not in Lau’s films: his films are important in maintaining a strong presence for female martial-artists, no more apparent than in the star-making turns by Kara Hui.
- The fourth group takes on a rather different character. This is what could be called “supernatural kung-fu”, kung-fu comedies with heavy horror and fantasy elements, almost always Taoist in nature. Lau Kar-Leung’s Spiritual Boxer films laid some of the ground work, but the true beginning comes with Sammo Hung’s Encounter of the Spooky Kind (1980). This was followed by Wu Ma’s acclaimed The Dead and the Deadly (1982), which went as far as winning Best Picture at the HK Film Awards. Then there was the series of ridiculous, raunchy carnivalesque Yuen Clan fantasies: Yuen Woo Ping’s The Miracle Fighters (1982) and Shaolin Drunkard (1983), Yuen Cheung-Yan’s Taoism Drunkard (1984), Chen Chi-Hwa’s late The Young Taoism Fighter (1986), as well as the unofficial “homage”, Chiu Chung-Hing’s Exciting Dragon (1985). Actor Billy Chong also made a series of horror kung-fu films for Eternal Films, which walk a line between New Wave inventiveness and Z-movie schlock. Ultimately, the main problem with assessing this strand here is that it is very much a transitional one, pointing outwards beyond the old-school era and towards the Second Wave. As the strand progresses, the horror elements begin to take predominance over the kung-fu ones, and the Hong Kong supernatural film should perhaps be treated as its own genre. By the time we get to something like the Mr. Vampire films, we are squarely outside our original subject of inquiry. Nevertheless, it is a distinct sub-class of the Kung-Fu Comedy worth further consideration, if one that can’t quite fit within the parameters we’ve established.
Ultimately, the
Kung-Fu Comedy, like the
Hong Kong Crime Film, was the bridge linking the
Old-School with the
New and
Second Wave. Not everyone made it across… scattered around it were the ruins and debris of Taiwanese ninja films and Shaw Bros. slapstick films. Ultimately, the
kung-fu comedy was the victim of its own success. More than just a change in dialect, the transformation initiated by the
Cantonese Comedy was one of subject matter: after an era of mostly period films, the late 70s saw Hong Kong grow more confident in exploring its own local, modern identity. Helping them were rapid modernizations of film techniques and technology and sharply increasing budgets.
Kung-fu filmmakers who were able to retain relevance and popularity followed these trends, and ended up essentially outside the
kung-fu genre. Someone like Karl Maka quickly grows confident enough to make comedies not reliant on
kung-fu. The “supernatural” wave of the early ‘80s similarly sheds the vestiges of the martial-arts, and ghost stories remain a favored subject matter even after the
kung-fu film declines. More importantly, directors like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung update their films in the face of new audience tastes for modern settings, subject matter and technology. The result is that the
kung-fu recedes and is replaced by the straightforward action film. Films like
Dragon Lord and
The Progidal Son are clearly
kung-fu; films like
Project A and
Pedicab Driver, however, are something else entirely. By the time Shaw Brothers folds in ’84, even the most die-hard devotee of the genre can see the writing on the wall. The era of the
kung-fu film is over.