contemporary vs. modern martial arts: the ongoing feud

Just to clear up the difference between this film and Jet Li's Shaolin Temple. (There's another Shaw Brother's film called Shaolin Temple that features early work by the Venoms which is more of a Peking Opera Style martial arts, a la, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Corey Yuen, and the Yuen Brothers). Jet's Shaolin Temple while filmed in the Northern Shaolin Temple (probably the original one), which obviously wasn't burned down, features modern day wushu. (There seems to have been at least one other Shaolin in the South, and possibly two more, and by some accounts up to half a dozen other Shaolin Temples, all of which were burned down as a result of revolts put down by the Qings.) Modern day wushu was culled by the communists from a variety of different styles with an emphasis on performance (making it look more balletic). The martial arts connection to Peking Opera, is that after the burning of the Shaolin Temple, the surviving disciples took their rebellion against the Qings underground and posed as Peking Opera performers traveling around and spreading rebellion (the so-called Red Boats). See Executioners of Shaolin. For this reason, to this day, many martial artists still come out of Peking Opera traditions.

In Chinese parlance modern day "Communist" standardization of both martial arts and Chinese Medicine are referred to as "contemporary," while the more practical and violent versions of martial arts are considered "traditional." So wushu has elements of many of the different varities of martial arts found throughout china with a heavier emphasis on theatricality (which may be why it translates so well to film). Masters in the U.S. are trying to bridge this sometimes heated divide by having martial arts tournaments where they have both wushu forms competitions (there are SOOO damn many of 'em) as well as Shiao Jiao (Chinese grappling like judo, but very ancient, judo is a 20th Century invention by Jigaro Kano) and San Shou (Chinese kickboxing with throws, also very old) matches. They even have separate traditional and wushu taiji forms events!

In this film, Master Lau shows us traditional Hung-gar that is the closest form of martial arts that we know was practiced in the Southern Shaolin Temple that survived. Other more modern martial arts are often several degrees removed from Shaolin, but Hung style seems to be the most conservative. The first disciple San Te meets in the cemetary leading the revolt against the manchus is Hung Xiguan (for whom the style is named, as he is the only one to survive, see Executioners of Shaolin).

In a nutshell you can see the difference in the stances. Wushu has a slightly wider stance than "traditional" martial arts, which is supposed to be more oriented towards fighting. Wushu looks much flashier but is not necessarily meant to be practical for fighting, hence the wider stance (there are only forms competitions anyway), whereas, so-called "traditional" martial arts has a slightly shallower stance. (Consider how shallow a boxer's stance is.)

"Traditional" martial artists poo-poo wushu as being quintessentially "flowery fists," which they consider useless for fighting. However, you can go from wushu to traditional (which doesn't look as flashy, but is more effective for real fighting), and this divide is not exactly a fixed one, though factions debate it bitterly. This film is as traditional as martial arts gets, and later films ruthlessly skewer Hung style as being hopelessly old fashioned and slow-looking. Today's films use more Peking Opera Style, which looks much faster (and a little flashier), while Mainland films continue to use the fast and flashy wushu style so wonderfully demonstrated by Jet in his first film (Shaolin Temple) when he was only about 17.

Sadly, when Master Lau goes, this style of film may become extinct. Even a few years ago Gordon Chan lamented that he was the last of the kung fu movie directors and worried that the genre would go extinct. However, 7 Swords featured the return of Master Lau, although there were not really a lot of long sequences like in the old school flicks. (Again, such old school style choreography has long since gone out of fashion and are found laughable by contemporary Asian audiences who demand faster action, more power, bigger special effects, quicker editing, etc.)

Wushu artists may very well bitterly object to such a distinction (again I admit is not really a clear divide), but I admittedly am giving the perspective from "traditional" martial arts, which wushu may deny existing, since they may very well consider the term "wushu" to simply be synonymous with martial arts. Obviously I differ on that point. I define wushu much more narrowly, while wushu artists may draw the category so broadly as if it is a universal, all-inclusive term. (Like I said the "Communist" version). While wushu continues to grow at an extraordinary rate (due to the fact that you can compete in it, as it is standardized-- there are no standard versions of any of the "traditional" arts even the forms, with the obvious exception of Taiji forms all of which congealed in the early part of the 19th Century and is considered essential training for competing in Shiao Jiao), sadly traditional martial arts seems to continue to decline and as masters die, disappear. Again, the obvious exception to this is Taiji, since though it is unnecessary to compete in the forms competition, it is a skill set that you must learn (that is, you must know how to USE taiji in a practical sense) if you're gonna be any good at competing in Shiao Jiao matches, otherwise you'll get tossed around like a rag doll. So Taiji flourishes, on the one hand because its forms have been standardized (there are traditionally 5 family forms Chen, Yang, Sun, Wu (Hoa), and Wu), and because it is a skill one must know how to use to practice many other types of martial arts fighting. And then of course there's medical taiji. Wushu has its own taiji forms, which you can also compete in.

A big source of confusion is that "wushu," literally means "martial arts," another reason practitioners of wushu scoff at the idea of "traditional" martial arts. But often traditional martial artists will use the term "wu-gong" as in "gong-fu."

Though these factions may feud, the reason the line cannot be clearly drawn is that there are so many practioners of both. Also, you can't say that the wushu monks of the shaolin temple don't learn martial arts useful for fighting (consider iron robe, iron head, and iron groin skills!) Either can be used to cultivate power, and either can be utterly useless for real fighting. This divide may be like a yin-yang, where one becomes the other and then back again. So, for example, the distinction made between nei-gung and wei-gung, or internal and external arts. If you look at the high level external styles, they develop tremendous internal power, and for the internal styles, unless they can have an external effect are useless anyway!!! So, in some ways it is much ado about nothing, but from the outside the "traditional"/ "contemporary" split certainly looks very different in the films.


"Sublime rage is deeper than religion,
And burning passion is stronger than love."
-From the poem Nongae by Shiju Pyun Young-Ro (my grandfather)

"Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might." R. Tagore