![]() The sequel ( Sword Spirit, Pearl Light) has the two caught up in the struggle over a book of secret martial arts techniques, still unable to declare their love for each other. ![]() Meng tells Li this, but when Meng dies saving his life Li decides that he cannot follow through on it. When Li meets Meng he does not know who he is and tells him about his feelings for Yu, and Meng decides Li would be better for Yu than him. Meng is at the time on the run for defying a local tyrant. (Much later, in the Crouching Tiger film, they would be played by Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh.) Li falls in love with Yu, but she is already engaged and he takes on the job of rescuing her fiance, Meng Si Zhao. (The title is a quote from Chinese poetry with relevance to the plot, like the rest of the series.) It told the story of two star-crossed lovers – Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien. Wang wrote the first book in the series, Precious Sword, Golden Hairpin, in 1939. The first of those three films are what we’re going to look at today. In 2010 he returned to the director’s chair for True Legend, and he has directed three more films since then. One of these was Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle, proving that Yuen’s ability to work with emerging talent was still strong. ![]() Yuen, meanwhile, went on to direct the action in Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies as well as the Matrix sequels and quite a few Chinese films. It pulled in a very respectable fourteen million dollars, going on to become a hit on DVD and laying the path for many classic wuxia movies to follow it onto the new format. (In fact it was the first foreign-language film ever to break the $100 million mark at the US box office.) The same year another fan of his, the director Quentin Tarantino, arranged for Iron Monkey to get a US theatrical release eight years after it originally came out. Two years later in 2001 Yuen added another notch to his belt as action director for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – the first wuxia film to become a major international hit. The result made Yuen a recognisable name for Western audiences. Rather than try to imitate his style, they were humble enough to bring the man himself across to do it for him. They had seen his work in Iron Monkey and as action choreographer for the 1994 Jet Li movie Fist of Legend. The Wachowskis did this by bringing someone they considered a peerless action director in to direct their action: Yuen Woo-Ping. Most notably it permanently raised the bar for action in Hollywood movies, bringing the high octane energy of Hong Kong across the Atlantic. It popularised the “smart action movie”, mixing philosophy into the story. It revitalised the science fiction genre. ![]() It’s no exaggeration to say that The Matrix is one of the most influential films of the 90s. It was around this time that Yuen began moving away from pure directing and into the role that would make him famous in Hollywood: action choreography. Nine years later, after starring as the villain in Once Upon A Time In China 2, Yen reunited with Yuen to create one of the classics of 90s Hong Kong cinema: Iron Monkey. The film didn’t do that well, but Yuen gave his leading man plenty of opportunities to show off his impressive physical presence. In 1984 the lead in Yuen’s 11th film, Drunken Tai Chi, was the first acting role for a young stuntman named Donnie Yen. This created the slapstick style Chan became famous for, and established Yuen as both a great director and a great person to work with. Yuen recognised that Chan was something far different, and worked with him to draw that out in his next film, Drunken Master. His first film, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, featured a young actor who some saw as “the new Bruce Lee”, Jackie Chan. A legendary Hong Kong film director in the 80s and 90s, he’s responsible for launching the career of not one but two martial arts legends. Even if you’ve never heard of Yuen Woo-Ping, I can almost guarantee you’ve seen his work. ![]()
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