All About Wuxia: An Interview with Sark on the Popular Asian Film Genre

Today, we're sharing a corner in the Cafe with Sark, our resident expert on Asian cinema, to chat about Wuxia films.

Cafe:  Sark, let's start at the very beginning. What is a wuxia film?

An example: Zu Warriors from 
the Magic Mountain.

Sark:  Wuxia is a genre of Chinese films. It began in literature, but in movies, as we know them here in the West, it’s typically associated with period action pieces. An easy way to define it is to compare it to martial arts films with such stars as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or Michelle Yeoh. While martial arts movies tend to focus on hand-to-hand combat, wuxia most often highlights sword-wielding heroes in a fantastical setting, e.g. flying through the air in battle.

Cafe:  What was your first introduction to the wuxia genre?

Sark:  I can’t recall a specific film that introduced me to the wuxia genre. But I do remember a group of wuxia films that I watched while I was in college, such as Ronny Yu’s The Bride with White Hair (1993) and Ching Siu-Tung’s Swordsman II (1991). I had seen similar movies prior to these, but it was during this time that I grew accustomed to watching characters in the air just as much as on the ground.

Cafe:  Who are some of the most famous wuxia stars?

Wang Yu in Beach of the War Gods.

Sark:  Jimmy Wang Yu starred in many films of the genre, including Beach of the War Gods (1973) and Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976/aka One-Armed Boxer 2), both of which Wang also directed. Ti Lung, though more familiar to American audiences as a star of John Woo’s contemporary bullet ballet, A Better Tomorrow (1986), with Chow Yun Fat, had leading roles in his share of wuxia, perhaps his most famous being Chang Cheh’s King Eagle (1970). It’s hard to watch later wuxia movies and not see Brigitte Lin, who starred in the aforementioned The Bride with White Hair and Swordsman II. She was also in sequels to both of those, The Bride with White Hair 2 and The East is Red (1992/aka Swordsman III), both in 1993, Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time (1994), and Deadful Melody (1994/the mistranslated English title is generally accepted, though I have seen at least one DVD release as Deadly Melody). She unfortunately retired from movies in 1994. All three of these actors deftly handle roles in wuxia movies. They play the parts with credibility and sincerity, and make it easy to accept the fantasy as pure reality.

Brigitte Lin as The Bride with White Hair.

Cafe:  If I wanted to sample some representative films, what would you recommend?

Cheng Pei-Pei in Come Drink with Me.

Sark:  Wuxia films that I think are significant: 1979’s Last Hurrah for Chivalry (an early film from John Woo); King Hu’s 1966 Come Drink with Me (a prime example of the genre, and the fact that leading lady Cheng Pei-Pei started as a ballet dancer says much about wuxia’s visual style); most films with Brigitte Lin, but definitely The Bride with White Hair, Swordsman II and an earlier one directed by Tsui Hark, 1983’s Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain; and another movie from Ching Siu-Tung, Duel to the Death (1983), with Damian Lau, who, as it happens, also starred in Last Hurrah for Chivalry and Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain.

Cafe:  What is your favorite wuxia film and why?

Swordsman II.

Sark:  My favorite wuxia film is Swordsman II. I think the visual bravura of Ching, who’s also a choreographer, is amazing, often including tracking shots that frame two or more characters clanging swords in lithe, graceful movement. The cast is outstanding; in addition to Lin, there’s Jet Li, Michelle Reis, Rosamund Kwan and Waise Lee (who co-starred with Ti Lung in A Better Tomorrow). The film is even interesting historically: It’s a sequel to a 1990 movie, and though many characters return, nearly everyone was recast – Lin replaced a male actor because she’s playing a man slowly turning himself into a woman.

Come Drink with Me…Then You Die

The protagonist of Come Drink With Me (1966, AKA Da Zui Xia) is a petite Chinese woman named Golden Swallow (Cheng Pei-pei…yes, the same lady from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Based on this description, you might assume this is one of those Chinese teahouse stories where the main character is either a peasant or a princess who finds herself caught in a love triangle. You would be wrong, but at least you were right about their being a teahouse.  No, Golden Swallow is a sword-wielding badass who likes to lure her adversaries into a false sense of security by sipping tea before she uses her two daggers to slice them up. 

Director King Hu truly revolutionized the martial arts film genre with this 1966 classic.  The overall production standards and fight sequence designs were a great leap forward for Hong Kong cinema.  Concentrating on the areas of color and movement, King Hu creates a martial arts film full of grace and style. His lead actress’s ballet training no doubt helped with the overall gracefulness of her character’s deft movements. Watching her precise and fluid movements in the fight sequences is something to behold.  It is strange to say, but watching her engage in these acts of violence one is reminded of a beautifully choreographed Chinese opera. And she does all this wearing long gowns and large hats, which I suppose makes her seem even more skilled, as no doubt it was not easy to maneuver in such costumes. King Hu deliberately chose Cheng Pei-pei for Golden Swallow because of her ballet background. An admirer of Peking Opera, King Hu constructed his fight sequences based on the principles of dance.

In addition, King Hu benefits from his other star, Yueh Hua, who plays Drunken Cat, a drunken beggar who assists Golden Swallow in her quest to free her brother, a local government official, from a group of bandits. We first meet Drunken Cat when Golden Swallow meets with the bandits at a teahouse to negotiate the release of her brother. Things escalate when she refuses to trade the bandits’ leader for her brother—enter Drunken Cat as her secret weapon. More than ten years before Jackie Chan played a drunken master, it was Hua Yueh who brought this martial arts technique to the big screen. It is rumored that he consumed two bottles of wine before filming his fight sequences. It is quite comical to listen to him sing songs from famous Peking Opera’s to help Golden Swallow. 

Though they have completely different personalities, Drunken Cat and Golden Swallow work well together.  He serves as a wise advisor and capable accomplice. She’s a hothead who often acts before she thinks. It is through one of Drunken Cat’s opera songs that Golden Swallow finds the bandits’ hideout—a spectacularly designed Buddhist temple. The realistic-looking temple was entirely constructed on the Shaw Brothers’ lot. When Golden Swallow is injured there by a poisoned dart, it is Drunken Cat who nurses her back to health and helps her plan her assault on the temple.  Of course, Drunken Cat has his own debt to settle with his brother (Chan Hung Lit), who is both a criminal and an abbot at the temple.  As such, there is eventually a  showdown between the two brothers…and Golden Swallow has her own showdown with the bandits—but in an interesting twist she has a mini-army of female warriors who help her defeat them. 

Come Drink With Me might not be the best martial arts film of all time, but it certainly is one of the most important. King Hu truly changed the Wuxi genre by creating fight sequences that could be viewed as both artistic and powerful. A sequel, Golden Swallow, followed two years later, but it was not as good as the original and there is no Drunken Cat.  However, King Hu would score another hit in 1971, with his best film A Touch of Zen, which I will be reviewing next week.