R.I.P. Jimmy Wang Yu (March 28, 1944 - April 5, 2022)

Rest in Peace, Jimmy Wang Yu (March 28, 1944 - April 5, 2022)

Jimmy Wang Yu was a champion swimmer who entered the martial arts movie scene in the mid 60s. At a time when powerful swordswomen and effeminate male counterparts defined the genre, Wang Yu became the violent, revenge-driven male hero that would inspire the sort of character Bruce Lee would play half a decade later. Movies like THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN and the now-lost TIGER BOY set the template for that.

After several years of making wuxia (mo hop - swordplay) films for the illustrious Shaw Brothers studio, Wang Yu innovated once more by making THE CHINESE BOXER (1970), considered by many to be the first modern kung fu (i.e. open-handed fighting) film. While he made a few classics, like THE ONE-ARMED BOXER (1972), he was quickly eclipsed by other actors with actual martial arts backrounds, like Bruce Lee, Ti Lung, Chen Sing, Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, etc. Wang Yu was a brawler and street fighter, but not a formally-trained martial artist.

After leaving the Shaw Brothers in 1970, he jumped back and forth between Golden Harvest studios in Hong Kong and lower-budgeted Taiwanese fare, where it felt that his general philosophy was, "If I can't out-fight them, I'll out-weird them." He made the cult classic MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE and TIGER AND CRANE FISTS, the latter of which was edited into KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST in 2001. His career slowed down in the 1980s. Wang Yu essentially retired from filmmaking after making the wuxia fantasy The Beheaded 1000 in 1993. It was only 18 years later that he eventually made something of a comeback in the Donnie Yen film WU XIA (released stateside as DRAGON) in a memorable role as the film's main villain. Wang Yu received three different nominations for Best Supporting Actor for WU XIA -- the Taiwan Golden Horse Award, the Hong Kong Film Award, and the China Film Media Award. He did win a Best Actor Award at the Taipei Film Festival for his work on the film Soul (2013).

Wang Yu also won two Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Taiwan Golden Horses and the New York Asian Film Festival. Wang Yu famously acted as a mediator for Jackie Chan and director Lo Wei when the former broke contract for greener pastures and Lo Wei wanted to sick the Triads on him. This act of kindness resulted in the Chan showing up in films like the bizarre FANTASY MISSION FORCE (1984) and the prison-centered flick ISLAND OF FIRE (1990), released stateside as THE PRISONER.

My Thoughts on Jimmy Wang Yu

I saw my first Jimmy Wang Yu movie relatively late in my Hong Kong/Chinese movie watching. I never made any effort to track down any of his films when I was living in the United States previous to my departure for Brazil in 2004. I mean, I saw his cameo as Chinese folk hero Wong Kei-Ying in Millionaire's Express (1986), but that was it. I think I allowed all of the negative reviews of his early 70s movies posted at Teleport City.com to shy me away from taking his work seriously.

It was in 2006, when I started writing my first (and still unpublished) book about the Best Fight Sequences of all time, that I finally started checking out his work. After all, the man was an Icon in the genre, so a book of that nature should feature at least one Jimmy Wang Yu fight. The first movie of his that I watched from start to finish was Master of the Flying Guillotine. However, it was the final set piece from the 1968 wuxia film Sword of Swords, in which a blind Wang Yu annihilates a small army with a pair of daggers, that made it into the book. To this day, it is my favorite Wang Yu moment, although I enjoy the lengthy finale to Blood of the Dragon, too.

A notorious brawler, Wang Yu knew his way around a real fight. I think that was what he was shooting for when he had Shaw Brothers collaborator choreograph The Chinese Boxer. That film set the standard for the "basher" film, which defined action style for most kung fu movies made during the first half of the 1970s. Few movies in that same vein--excluding the Bruce Lee movies, which are their own creature--matched the raw energy and brutality of The Chinese Boxer. Oh sure, some of them improved upon the choreography model and upped the anté on the techniques displayed, but there is an intensity and viciousness to Wang Yu's maiden kung fu film that so many imitators, including many of Wang Yu's later movies, failed to copy. I understand that many martial arts purists and choreography buffs do not care for his work. The words of the Martial Artist's Guide to Hong Kong Films summed him in the following way:

"Wang Yu...starred in an endless stream of violent "chop sockys" (primarily from [1970] to [1974]) which featured agonizingly long fights with flailing arms, loud cracks, unintentionally hilarity and very cheap cinematography (if you could even call it that). Wang Yu was once the king of this stuff. Wang in real life had numerous fights to the death, so he knows how to fight. But on film, his unorthodox moves were hard to watch.[1]"

Nonetheless, the man was a pioneer. He was the Wuxia Hero of the late 1960s and the first Kung Fu Hero of the early 1970s. And despite his limited abilities, once you put a sword or spear in the man's hand, few people could sell the wholesale slaughter of entire armies like Wang Yu could. He has earned his keep in the genre, belonging in the Annals of the Greats alongside Bruce Lee, Lau Kar-Leung, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and others of great kung fu stature.

My Jimmy Wang Yu Reviews:

The Chinese Boxer (1970) Blood of the Dragon (1971) Ma Su Chen (1972) A Man Called Tiger (1973) Wang Yu, King of Boxers (1973) Beach of the War Gods (1973) Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976) Tiger and Crane Fists (1976) Point the Finger of Death (1977)

Totals and Statistics: Actor: 81 movies Director: 10 movies Producer: 13 movies Writer: 5 movies Action Director: 1 movie

Collaborations with Lung Fei: 33 movies (according to the IMDB - list includes Kung Pow: Enter the Fist)

Action Director Collaborations:

Lau Kar-Leung - 11 movies Tong Gaai - 10 movies Kwan Hung - 4 movies Lau Kar-Wing - 4 movies Huang Kuo-Chu - 4 movies Han Ying-Chieh - 3 movies Chen Shih-Wei - 3 movies

Yu Tien-Lung - 2 movies

Chang Yi-Kuai - 2 movies

Sammo Hung - 1 movie Luk Chuen - 1 movie

Shan Mao - 1 movie

Wang Yung-Sheng - 1 movie

[1] - http://www.magthkf.ronlim.com/martial1.html#anchor38534 - Corrections made by me.