Snake vs Crane Wing Chun



Wing Chun: The Science of In-Fighting

Martial Arts Movies: Fist of Legend (1994, Hong Kong)

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The greatest martial arts movie of all time.

No other film combines the high production values, great acting, engaging story line and above all, the escalating series of fights, each a show stopper, each topping the previous fight which seemed to be the best fight you’ve ever seen.

This is Jet Li‘s Citizen Kane, a remake of Bruce Lee‘s iconic Chinese Connection aka Fist of Fury, telling the story of the Japanese occupation of China in the Thirties (clearly an event stamped into the consciousnesses of Chinese everywhere – also depicted recently in the recent hit Ip Man).

Chen Zhen (Jet Li), an engineering student in Japan, must return to Shanghai and avenge the murder of his teacher, who was killed in a challenge match by a Japanese fighter clearly unequal to the task.  Chen Zen blazes a bloody trail through the Japanese martial artists occupying his homeland.

Every fight is the best fight you’ve ever seen and every fight is better than the last.  Jet Lee‘s fighting style, a JKD-esque mix of boxing, kung fu, and wu shu weapons stuff, is dynamic, crisp, and brutally effective.  I always say that fighting and dancing are a lot alike and Fist of Legend‘s climax ( a fight between Lee and Canadian kickboxing champ Billy Chow) is like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Top Hat – the best of the genre.

This movie heavily influenced The Matrix – they used the same choreographer and grabbed many of the shots verbatim.

Bruce Lee: Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do

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From an interview with Wong Shun Leung:

Q: How did you see the evolution of Bruce Lee from Wing Chun to Jeet Kune Do?

A: First of all, Bruce didn’t get to see the best part of Wing Chun during his early days of training under Yip Man. He then came back to Hong Kong, and truly learned the foundation of what would eventually become his own style. He was a very naughty boy at times but also very smart. So once in the United States, he filled in the blanks in order to make things work for him.

In the later days of his life Bruce said to me, “If I could take back Jeet Kune Do, I’d take it back.” He realized that he could make the movements work, but that was because his style was designed for his own specific talents. His students, however, had problems making the techniques work under real situations. While Jeet Kune Do was a significant art for Bruce, it has not been that way for other people who followed his method.

Bruce was a good fighter, but not as good as movies have portrayed him almost invincible. People used to see Bruce Lee and have Kung-Fu dreams. They wanted to do the same things he did and duplicate his methods. Unfortunately, it seems nobody wants to wake up.