FA+
Shop
The 36th Chamber of Film Studies
6 years ago
General
KUNG FU CULT MASTERS by Leon Hunt (Wallflower Press, paperback, 978-1903364635)
reviewed by Roochak, who isn't shopping on Amazon Prime Day
https://www.amazon.com/Kung-Cult-Masters-Leon-Hunt/dp/1903364639/ref=sr_1_1?crid=BT0ME0K016HO&keywords=kung+fu+cult+masters&qid=1563207872&s=books&sprefix=kung+fu+cult+%2Caps%2C152&sr=1-1
This is an academic study focused on questions of authenticity (or multiple authenticities), mythmaking, satire, gender roles, transnationalism and postcolonialism in kung fu movies, and while the text is accessible to fanboys who are willing to read footnotes, it's not just another breathless love letter to the genre's best fight scenes.
Just navigating the history of the kung fu genre is a tricky affair, tied up in Mandarin-dialect fight films set in "historical" China and Cantonese-dialect fight films set in more-or-less contemporary Hong Kong, with plenty of overlap. Author Leon Hunt makes several fascinating arguments along the way: that Bruce Lee is the center of the kung fu universe, but a cinematic dead end; that filmmaker Zhang Che's (Chang Cheh's) homoerotic gaze foregrounded and queered (my word, not Hunt's) Chinese masculinity onscreen; that Brigitte Lin's genderbending roles in the 1990s were a correction to the film industry sexism that had dogged Angela Mao Ying and Kara Hui Ying-hung; that Jet Li is effectively the last martial arts superstar, and that the genre has reached a seeming dead end.
There's a final chapter on martial arts videogames, which I don't play now and which I didn't play when this book was published (2003). Is their immersive experience where the kung fu genre now resides? Is kung fu cinema now an exercise in remakes and pure nostalgia?
reviewed by Roochak, who isn't shopping on Amazon Prime Day
https://www.amazon.com/Kung-Cult-Masters-Leon-Hunt/dp/1903364639/ref=sr_1_1?crid=BT0ME0K016HO&keywords=kung+fu+cult+masters&qid=1563207872&s=books&sprefix=kung+fu+cult+%2Caps%2C152&sr=1-1
This is an academic study focused on questions of authenticity (or multiple authenticities), mythmaking, satire, gender roles, transnationalism and postcolonialism in kung fu movies, and while the text is accessible to fanboys who are willing to read footnotes, it's not just another breathless love letter to the genre's best fight scenes.
Just navigating the history of the kung fu genre is a tricky affair, tied up in Mandarin-dialect fight films set in "historical" China and Cantonese-dialect fight films set in more-or-less contemporary Hong Kong, with plenty of overlap. Author Leon Hunt makes several fascinating arguments along the way: that Bruce Lee is the center of the kung fu universe, but a cinematic dead end; that filmmaker Zhang Che's (Chang Cheh's) homoerotic gaze foregrounded and queered (my word, not Hunt's) Chinese masculinity onscreen; that Brigitte Lin's genderbending roles in the 1990s were a correction to the film industry sexism that had dogged Angela Mao Ying and Kara Hui Ying-hung; that Jet Li is effectively the last martial arts superstar, and that the genre has reached a seeming dead end.
There's a final chapter on martial arts videogames, which I don't play now and which I didn't play when this book was published (2003). Is their immersive experience where the kung fu genre now resides? Is kung fu cinema now an exercise in remakes and pure nostalgia?
And....
Wow, you are alive. I have not seen you in a looong time...how is?
Since then I've run across a plethora of devices capable of doing what his two devices do, but I'm having to wade through a pile of devices, reviews, tips, tricks and reports of firmware updates. My application is just digitizing old VHS recordings (lots of animated material not available on dvd or streaming), plus offloading recordings from my DVR. Prime day will likely be done with by the time I'm finished researching though :D
Also, I miss new art from you :(
Now we are in the land of Ong-Bak, Thai Warrior, and Indonesian movies like The Raid.