In the past, film posters served not only as promotional graphics but partially fulfilled the function of today’s theatrical trailers, and therefore had to contain more information than they do today. The poster for The Story of Wong Fei-Hung is an excellent example of this.

The large inscription on the upper left reads: The crimson of beautiful women illuminates the blood of heroes! The torments of love ensnare the soul of a brave warrior! It refers to the traditional cosmetics and lipstick worn by women, thereby juxtaposing the red of women’s make-up with the red of blood. Slogans of this kind were intended to assure potential viewers that beyond spectacular fight sequences, the film also offered strong romantic threads – a device used to attract a diverse audience to the cinema.

Below, on the left, specific styles and techniques of the hung ga martial arts style featured in the film are listed. These are preceded by the announcement: Fei-Hung’s Ten Hands and his four great, unique, secret techniques! The following are specified:

• Bāguà gùn – Eight Trigrams Staff (a celebrated long staff fighting technique)
• Tiě xiàn quán – Iron Wire Fist (the most advanced, internal form of the hung ga style)
• Wú yǐng jiǎo – Shadowless Kick (Wong’s popcultural trademark – a lightning-fast kick that cannot be blocked)
• Hǔ hè shuāng xíng quán – Tiger and Crane Double Form Fist (the flagship technique of the entire hung ga style; split across two columns on the poster)

Below the list, in small print, is added: Two hundred years of secret Shaolin tradition revealed on the silver screen for the first time!

The techniques listed and the lofty descriptions were clearly intended to position the film in contrast to fantastical wuxia shenguai, in which warriors floated through the air, leapt to great heights, and employed magic and so on. The Story of Wong Fei-Hung was to introduce realism and physicality into action cinema broadly conceived, and represented a turning point for Hong Kong martial arts cinema, shifting the emphasis away from shenguai fantasy towards corporeality, regional southern traditions, and displays of “real” kung-fu. The fact that specific techniques were invoked by name appealed to a large portion of the audience who were familiar with local martial arts styles. The filmmakers thus underscored not only that they had a thorough command of their subject but also – and also through the reference to Shaolin – that they were presenting genuine national heritage on screen.

To the right of the title, running from top to bottom, are four groups of characters. The smallest, placed at the very top, entices viewers with the following words: See what has been a rare sight for decades:, followed by:

• Shīzi tàn xiè qīng – Lion Exploring the Crab’s Greens
• Fēishé tàn gāo qīng – Flying Snake Exploring the High Greens

The real Fei-Hung Wong was known in Guangdong not only as a master of hung ga and a physician, but also as the King of Lions. In southern Chinese tradition, the lion dance was inextricably linked to kung-fu schools. The slogan refers to the ritual of Cǎi qīng (picking/lifting the greens), in which the warrior controlling the lion mask must overcome obstacles to obtain a lettuce containing a hidden cash reward. Crab Greens is a difficult challenge in which props placed on the ground are arranged in the shape of a crab, and the dancer-warrior must demonstrate perfect footwork (employing appropriate kung-fu stances, for instance) to navigate through them. High Greens, on the other hand, required climbing bamboo poles several metres tall or forming human pyramids. Below this, the director and producers of the film are listed.

On the left side of the promotional graphic two slogans appear:

Entirely based on authentic, hard kung-fu!
Entirely performed by real masters!

The first employs the popular Cantonese idiom ying qiao ying ma, derived from southern martial arts styles. It uses the words “bridge” and “horse”: “bridge” refers to forearm work, and “horse” to stable, deep stances – conveying rawness, strength, and authenticity. In the context of the film it underscores its realism, which was the primary focus of the marketing. The second sentence uses the phrase performance of a real army, which in the language of theatre and cinema meant that a given production or scene employed not extras or actors simulating combat but experts in the relevant discipline.

Below the central graphic there are additional slogans. The first proudly declares: You only need to see this film once! It is better than ten years of eating porridge! In Cantonese martial arts schools the expression sik zuk (eating rice gruel/porridge) was a synonym for enduring poverty, rigorous discipline, and the grinding, monotonous daily physical training through which an adept builds a warrior’s body. The filmmakers suggest that watching the film will give viewers more knowledge of martial arts than ten years of training. Alongside appear further emphases on the film’s realism: Fight, fight, fight! These are no children’s games! and Every single movement and form is grounded in authentic martial arts study!

On the right side of the poster information about distribution and screening times is provided. The Story of Wong Fei-Hung was screened at, among other times, 11 PM; late-night screenings were the norm in Hong Kong and were held primarily for workers returning from evening shifts. In the same section of the poster it is also written: Adapted from the most magnificent and most moving chapter from the biography and historical life of Master Wong Fei-Hung, one of the Ten Tigers of Guangdong. This sentence underscores the fact that Wong is a historical, real-life figure.

Within the graphic itself, above Wong’s head, appears the inscription: Celebrated martial arts masters of the Lingnan region, followed by the names of the real kung-fu masters involved in the production: Wing-Kwai Yuen (unrelated to the famous Yuen family, which includes Woo-Ping Yuen), Kwai-Yat Pun, Wan-Fei Wu, and Hon-Chung Chan. Added below: Specially invited as martial arts consultants. The most significant of these is undoubtedly Chan, who was at the time the most celebrated student of Sai-Wing Lam, who in turn had been a student of Fei-Hung Wong himself. Chan later founded the Hong Kong Martial Arts Association.

The actors are listed below. Among them, however, it is not the lead roles but the guest appearances that attract particular attention. Also cast are:

• Master Wing-Hang Leung, with added information about his kung-fu lineage. He was an authentic practitioner of traditional medicine and a hung ga master, as well as a student of Sai-Wing Lam.
• Hon-Hei Wong, with the note natural-born child of Fei-Hung Wong. Hon-Hei was Wong’s fourth son. As far as I am aware, he had no connection to the martial arts; his participation lent the film prestige and authenticity.
• Kwai-Lan Mok, with the note spouse of Fei-Hung Wong. Kwai-Lan was the last wife and widow of the celebrated master. She played a small role and also served as an adviser on set.

The poster also notes the involvement of Yu-Chai Chu in the making of the film. In the 1930s Chu wrote stories about Wong for local newspapers and exerted a considerable influence on his popularization. In reality there is no confirmation that Chu actually participated in the work on the film, though his stories certainly served as the basis for the screenplay.

The Story of Wong Fei-Hung, Part 2
aka Wong Fei-Hung Burns the Tyrant’s Lair
Huang Fei Hong zhuan: Da po Ba Wang Zhuang

Direction: Wu Pang
Screenplay: Ng Yat-Siu
Cinematography: Chow Chi-Hap
Music: no info
Martial arts choreography: Leung Wing-Han
Asst. director: Hoh San
Studio: Yongyao
Premiere: 08.10.1949

Cast: KwanTak-Hing , Walter Tso Tat-Wah, Lee Lan, Chan Lo-Wah, Lau Cham, Ma Siu-Ying, Lee Pang-Fei, Tsang Choh-Lam, Sek Kin, and others.

After the Second World War, the popularity of wuxia – or more precisely, fantastical wuxia shenguai – in Hong Kong’s Cantonese cinema declined significantly. 1949 saw the birth of a new genre, named kung-fu, which focused on local martial arts traditions. Its popularity was secured by the first in a series of films about the Cantonese hero Fei-Hung Wong. This meant that shenguai began to gradually fade, and attention shifted increasingly towards “real” unarmed combat, zhen gongfu.

The director responsible for the new series was Pang Wu. He had observed that audiences had grown tired of fantasy productions, all the more so since these were frequently devoid of interesting ideas and packed with poor special effects. While shenguai filmmakers had attempted to add colour to their films by painting coloured emanations of power onto black-and-white film stock, using “flying” blades, or adding sparks to weapons clashing on screen, these tricks had done little to help. Wu, meanwhile, proposed not only a story that required no special effects but one that told of a real and widely celebrated heroic figure, drew inspiration from popular theatre, and was grounded in the regional, southern school of martial arts. Of no small significance was Wu’s declaration that kung-fu derived from the tradition of xia – the noble, chivalric warriors – which constituted a clear bridge between wuxia and kung-fu cinema and helped attract the attention of fans of the older genre.

The figure of Fei-Hung Wong rose to fame in the 1930s, when his person was first documented. He was said to embody the ideals of xia – courageous, heroic, and helping those in need through extraordinary martial arts skills. His adventures were recorded in the wuxia fiction texts of the Guangdong School, a term applied to literary works featuring warriors from the Guangdong region, meaning those rooted in the traditions of southern Shaolin. Through literature and film, Wong became the model upon which subsequent xia figures were based. As such he expressed patriarchalism, celibacy, nationalism, Confucianism, and Buddhist principles with tolerance, virtue, and patience at their fore. The series begun in 1949 with Tak-Hing Kwan in the title role cemented Wong’s place in popular culture and ran uninterrupted until 1970, comprising at least seventy-seven instalments.

The Wong films were not, however, the first to be counted among kung-fu cinema, nor was Wong the first folk hero to appear on celluloid. In 1938 another popular master – Sai-Yuk Fong – was the protagonist of The Adventures of Fong Sai-yuk (Fang Shi Yi da lei tai, Chung-Ho Hung). The production has not survived to the present day, but it most likely served as an inspiration for the creation of the Wong series: both protagonists were described in the prose of the Guangdong School, both were Cantonese figures, and both fought in styles from southern Shaolin (which in cultural tradition has always stood in opposition to the northern Shaolin and Wudang styles). Although attempts were made in 1948–49 to repopularize Fong in cinema, the more technically accomplished Wong series won the hearts of audiences. From the post-war period onwards it was Wong who remained the dominant figure, despite later attempts by Cheh Chang in the 1970s and Corey Yuen in the 1990s to revive Sai-Yuk Fong.

The Wong series is significant for several other reasons as well. Tak-Hing Kwan, the actor playing the lead role, came from Cantonese opera, where he had already achieved star status – a fact that inextricably linked martial arts cinema with opera. Furthermore, realistic fight choreographies were prepared for the films, leading to the practice of hiring professional kung-fu practitioners to create them. This soon became standard procedure, through which many people from the martial arts world entered the world of cinema.

All of this contributed to the series achieving such enormous popularity that it was singlehandedly capable of sustaining the Cantonese film industry. It attracted the interest of producers and businesspeople from Singapore and Malaya, which initiated the custom of selling distribution rights to Hong Kong films at an early stage. An interesting detail, as recalled by Pang Wu, is that spectacular scenes (usually lion dances or variations thereof) were frequently shot before a screenplay had been written or any other preliminary work on a given instalment had begun. This was done in order to show them to foreign investors and secure funding.

The films in the series are currently unavailable to view with English translation, but the first instalment – The Story of Wong Fei-Hung, Part 2, also known as Wong Fei-Hung Burns the Tyrant’s Lair, from 1949, shot back-to-back with Part 1, can be found without great difficulty.

And already these early productions show the series in a very favourable light, despite numerous screenplay problems and the obvious archaism of the action sequences. The second film opens with a dragon dance scene during which we are introduced to Wong, presented as a respected master of martial arts. We then move immediately to his school, where he speaks of the ideals underlying martial arts – helping the weak and serving the nation – and makes reference to Shaolin, while one of his students performs a taolu, a forms demonstration. The film contains three taolu scenes; these are of particular significance because Wu invited real kung-fu masters of the time to perform them – men who, while pretending before the camera to be the protagonist’s students despite being older than the actor playing Wong, demonstrate techniques from southern martial arts grounded in actual practice.

Wishing to portray the Cantonese region more fully and to preserve its customs on film, Wu invited musician Fei Fei Chao to the production, who performs a so-called dragon boat song. These were folk songs, sung to the accompaniment of a small drum or gong, that told of the lives of the lower social classes and were most often performed by beggars on the streets. They followed no fixed rules in terms of lyrics, and their lines were of irregular length with fairly colloquial language. They were sometimes published, though in such cases the texts were revised to be less vernacular. In the film the song appears somewhat out of nowhere – at a certain point the action simply stops and for several minutes we watch Chao’s performance while a few people listen on. The words of the song he performs tell of a woman suffering from her work as a prostitute. The song’s text then motivates one of the characters to visit a brothel, where enemies are lying in wait for him.

In terms of narrative, Part 2 consists of two segments. In the first, Wong is asked to help rescue a kidnapped married woman – which naturally leads to martial arts scenes containing quite respectable acrobatic and stunt displays, particularly given the year of production. Wong then meets a young woman (Lan Lee) who falls in love with him. Later – after all the preceding threads have been definitively resolved – the production focuses on a rivalry with another kung-fu school whose masters insult Wong and his sifu. The situation escalates when one of the protagonist’s more impulsive students (Walter Tso) decides to attack the rival school on his own initiative. This thread ends on a cliffhanger promising continuation in the next instalment.

Although the film has a rather simple screenplay and frequently rather stiff acting that betrays its short production schedule and low budget, its importance is difficult to overstate. The influence of the series it inaugurated on kung-fu cinema – and on action cinema as such – is enormous. It not only launched the longest-running Wong Fei-Hung series but also helped establish a new model of Hong Kong martial arts cinema: regional, Cantonese, corporeal, and marketed not through the wonders of shenguai but through the promise of contact with “real” kung-fu.