Baylan Fitterman
English 1102
Dr. Perez-Tejada
12 March 2009
The influence of Hollywood by Hong Kong action cinema
Most trends of how international film is formed usually points in one direction. Most of the film influence comes from Hollywood. Usually, Hollywood influences films, and other cinemas adopt the conventions and plot lines of American cinema. The films usually add their own flavors and themes to the traditional Hollywood style. This is what happened in the 1930's when the Hong Kong film industry was just starting. However, this is one case where Hollywood was influenced by an outside film industry. The Hong Kong action cinema has influenced Hollywood, through many conventions, and these conventions are especially prevalent in The Matrix.
Hong Kong action cinema has always been designed to make money. There were no subsidies or other monies given to directors from outside sources. These films tended to rely on proven formulas and sticking to certain story lines. The earlier films were based on the concept of Wuxia. In “Exploring Wuxia Themes and Philosophies,” they explain how this is a different kind of Wuxia than the Shaw Brothers' films:
With their pondering of the nature of heroism, their beautifully elegant gestures, their emphasis on form rather than fight, the films seem to be emphasising the xia part of the term, wuxia. Wu refers to the martial arts, xia to the philosopher-warrior hero or his values. The traditional wuxia novels, on which the movies were based, also emphasised the xia aspect (3).
This idea is somewhat similar to Japanese Bushido or English chivalry. This was what Chinese popular literature was based on at the time. These stories are usually based on a mystical artifact such as a mystical sword being retrieved and the central character having supernatural powers. This is the basis of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. They are trying to retrieve a legendary sword that can cut all other swords in half and never loses its edge. In The Matrix Neo has legendary powers, and he has the ability to remove all of the humans from being trapped in the Matrix.
The idea of the folk hero is prevalent in these films. In the early wuxia films, made in the 1930's (these are not the Shaw brother's films), the early stories were based the folk hero Wong Fei Hung. Here is a description of Wong Fei Hung: “Young Wong Fei Hung began his martial arts training at the age of five. By the age of 13 he was already an accomplished martial artist... Wong was not only good at martial arts but also had exceptional Mo Duk (martial virtue) and medicine”(Yee 2). He was a folk hero that fought the people. Chou-Yun Fat's character is based off of Wong Fei Hung. Neo is also similar to him in the fact that what he fights for is the betterment of all mankind.
One of the most prevalent elements in both of these films is the fights. These fights are not realistic in any sense of the word. This is not what they are designed to be. The fights are artistic and are designed to allow the viewer to enter a fantasy world during the fight. In fact, both of the films have the same choreographer: Yuen Woo-ping. He started by making Jackie Chan's first major film: Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978). He was involved in Hong Kong action cinema for a long time, so he is a direct descendant of the older films, and therefore is a link to the past with the contemporary films. He is famous for using wires to simulate gigantic leaps in the air that are not realistic under any conditions. AP says this about his fight scenes “Gravity? What gravity? Yuen Woo Ping doesn't let a little thing like that slow down his fights” (Pearson 1). They are very beautiful because the people almost seem like they are swimming and they weigh much less than they actually are.
The fact that these films need to be given a large dramatic license explains one important element of Wuxia: suspension of cynicism and disbelief. If one is constantly questioning the ability of the characters to fly through the air even though they are just normal people, then the plot will will be ruined by a cynical Western audience used to science fiction movies that throughly explain each and every little thing that is beyond us. The explanations would slow down the movie and they would be irrelevant to the development of the plot. So, that is also why the film has conventions. If a convention has already been established, then it would not be necessary to develop the story again to already express that convention.
Another important element present in Hong Kong action cinema that is shared with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix is the strong female warrior.
There are traditional Hong Kong action films based on Kung Fu, which are usually about brotherhood, and therefore do not feature female characters in central roles, but the films based on Wuxia usually feature strong female characters. The characters Trinity and Yu Shu-Lien are both strong female characters, both are powerful warriors, and both are trying to achieve a quest that takes them on a quest, specifically a spacial rather than temporal quest.
One other quite important element is the central father figure or character. He or she is the leader of the moral portion of the story. They offer guidance and spiritual advice to the central character. The central “father” figure in The Matrix is the Oracle.
He is the one that tries to guide Neo into being the chosen one. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
the father figure guides the central character to the sword.
Love is terms of the Wuxia code is rather difficult and not direct. The characters do not really express their love in the beginning of the movie, and love is always complicated by external issues and other things complicating the development of the characters relationship. This is true of both Trinity and Neo, Li Mu-bai and Yu Shu-lien, and Jen and Lo
It is always obvious to the audience that the characters love each other; however, it is not obvious to the other characters. The characters usually do not get to satisfy their love. It is not meant to be anticlimactic, it is meant to be tragic. Love is also complicated by obligations to society and family. Li Mu-bai and Yu Shu-lien cannot consummate their love because of her dead fiancée. For Jen and Lo, they cannot marry because of their incompatible social statues. Jen is an aristocrat, and Lo is a thief.
The class differences in China make much more difference than in America, but this is just a difference in the story.Ultimately, the Matrix was influenced a great deal by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Both of them were influenced directly by Hong Kong action cinema, and Wuxia literature. This is one of the only times that movie influence flows in the reverse direction than it normally does—from outside Hollywood instead of from Hollywood itself. Considering the quality and influence of Hollywood, it is saying something that these Hong Kong action films with budgets one hundred times smaller than the average Hollywood film influenced a film with a budget of tens of millions of dollars.
Works Cited
Pearson. Ryan. "Master of the deadly airbone ballet," Asap 22 Sep 2006. 12 Mar 2009
Serenity, Perfect. "Exploring Wuxia Themes and Philosophies." Wu-jing.org. 19 Jan 2003. Straits Times. 10 Mar 2009
Yee, Frank. "Wong Fei Hung." Yee's Hung Ga International Kung Fu Association. 03 May 2006. Yee Hung Ga. 10 Mar 2009
