By
Nicholas Raymond
Published 14 minutes ago
Nicholas Raymond is an author and journalist based out of Alabama, where he proudly roots for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team. A graduate of the University of Montevallo, he has a degree in mass communication with a concentration in journalism.
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One movie character stands above the rest in terms of his importance to the martial arts genre, if for no other reason than the number of memorable films he's been a part of. And that's not because of a single, long-running franchise, but because many different martial arts filmmakers across different eras decided to bring him to life on the big screen - to amazing results in several instances.
The character in question is Wong Fei-hung, a person who existed in real life. Movies and TV shows have been bringing their own versions of his life story to the screen for decades, going all the way back to the 1940s. Admittedly, many of these adaptations have been forgettable, whereas others have been masterpieces.
Over the years, a long list of martial arts movies - mostly ones produced in Hong Kong - featured Wong Fei-hung as the main character.
Wong Fei-hung Was A Real-Life Kung Fu Master
Jackie Chan as Wong Fei-hung preparing to fight in Drunken MasterOriginal SR Image by Yailin Chacon.
Wong Fei-hung was a prestigious, 19th-century martial artist based in China's Guangdong Province. Born in 1847, he was the son of a well-respected physician named Wong Kei-yung, one of the region's best-known experts in Hung Gar kung fu and a member of a group of martial arts masters widely known as the Ten Tigers of Kwantung.
Like Wong Fei-hung himself, his father and the other members of the Ten Tigers of Kwantung have been the subjects of several kung fu movies over the years.
From his father, Wong Fei-hung learned both kung fu and medicine, allowing him to carry on Wong Kei-yung's legacy as a physician and a martial arts master. With his skills, he was able to operate martial arts schools in the Guangdong Province, sharing his knowledge with a long list of soon-to-be kung fu experts.
Over the course of his life, Wong encountered multiple martial arts experts, picking up various ideas and adding them to his arsenal along the way. One technique in particular - the Shadowless Kick - became his signature move, and one that plays a big role in many of his movies.
Due to his fame and alleged prowess in martial arts, Wong Fei-hung became a massive folk hero. A multitude of stories have romanticized his life, making him a force for justice against the Japanese and the British in the early 20th century. Due to all the legends that surround Wong's life, much of what he actually did and didn't do has been lost to history.
It's partially for that reason that Wong Fei-hung's life story has been somewhat of a fountain of stories for Hong Kong studios. All the tales regarding his past has lended them all sorts of different directions they can take a Wong Fei-hung movie, meaning that they don't have to repeat the same stories audiences are already familar with.
Wong Fei-hung Was The Main Character In Several Of The Best Martial Arts Movies
Because of his legendary status in China, Wong Fei-hung was among the most popular options for a lead character in a kung fu period piece produced by a Hong Kong studio. That was especially true in the 1970s when the kung fu craze was at its peak, but Wong Fei-hung's relevance outlasted that, with the character still being crucial to Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s.
In the 1970s, studios had a lot of fun with the Wong Fei-hung mythos, making movies of varying quality. Quite a few were worthwhile entries into the genre, including Master of Kung Fu and Challenge of the Masters.
And then, in 1978, Golden Harvest offered a surprising take on Wong fei-hung via Yuen Woo-ping's martial arts comedy, Drunken Master, which cast Jackie Chan as the folk hero. This version looked at one of the myths about Wong Fei-hung, wherein he learns drunken boxing from fellow martial arts legend Beggar So.
With its entertaining blend of humor and intense martial arts action, Drunken Master turned out to be a career-making role for Jackie Chan, who went on to become the genre's next big star after Bruce Lee. In 1994, Jackie Chan revisited the role of Wong Fei-hung for Drunken Master II, which amounted to a rare case of a sequel surpassing its already-legendary predecessor.
Chan's second outing as Wong Fei-lung came at an interesting time, as it was just two years after another martial arts star - Jet Li - had just taken his own turn at playing the Hung Gar master. 1992's Once Upon a Time in China served as a biopic centered on Wong Fei-hung with Jet Li in the lead role.
The spectacular wire-work, worldbuilding, and grand storytelling culminating in Once Upon a Time in China carving its own special place in the history of the martial arts genre. What's more, it formed the foundation of an entire franchise. As a series of seven films, Once Upon a Time in China is a more comprehensive - yet still highly fictionalized - profile of Wong Fei-hung that goes over years of his adventures.
As is the case with so many martial arts movie franchises, the Once Upon a Time in China series ultimately suffered from a dip in quality - but not before delivering a second all-time great kung fu classic. Similar to the original, Once Upon a Time in China II is one of the best martial arts movies of the 1990s, thanks in large part to an incredible fight scene that famously pit Donnie Yen against Jet Li.
Made after Jet Li's first two Once Upon a Time in China movies was Iron Monkey, which followed the earlier years of Wong Fei-hung (played by Yu Rongguang). Iron Monkey, which portrayed Wong as a masked vigilante, featured some of the best choreography ever seen in the martial arts genre, as evidenced by its impressive 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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