Here’s a look at our final evening: a time-lapse video showing the vacant lot transformed into a movie theater (and then back again).

[Can't load our video? View on YouTube instead.]

(In 2001, Jean Lukitsh, Films at the Gate curator, interviewed actor Donnie Yen and director Yuen Wo-Ping about their work on IRON MONKEY.)

Tonight’s film will be preceded by a 10 minute performance by Bow Sim Mark Tai Chi Arts Association and Rick Wong’s Chinese Martial Arts at 7:20 PM.

Come join us as we conclude Films at the Gate 2008 this evening.

When people talk about old school kung fu movies—they mean this one. Also known as MASTER KILLER, from its dubbed-in-English 1980s video release. Gordon Liu (KILL BILL) plays San Te, a Shaolin monk who masters the 35 training chambers of Shaolin kung fu and persuades the monastery to open a 36th chamber in order to train lay students to fight the oppressive Qing government (thereby setting up a scenario played out in countless kung fu films). Directed by Lau Kar-leung. Starring Gordon Liu. Special thanks to Bey Logan at The Weinstein Company, for permitting the screening of the Dragon Dynasty DVD of 36th Chamber.

Due to rain, tonight’s screening was held at Wolff Auditorium, Tufts Medical Center (map). Thanks to Tufts Medical Center for use of the auditorium.

Learn more about small things 2, an art installation next to Films at the Gate.
Visit the department of micro-urbanism and click on “small things project_2″.

On Friday, Films at the Gate features the 1929 silent film RED HEROINE with an original score created and performed live by Devil Music Ensemble. This silent film from 1929 is the oldest complete swordplay (wuxia) film in existence. It’s also a good example of the classic “nu xia” or “female knight” plot, where the young heroine learns to fight the bandits who have taken over her town. Jean Lukitsh, Films at the Gate curator, has posted an entry on her blog Electric Shadows about the return of Red Heroine to the screen. Friday’s performance begins Devil Music Ensemble’s nationwide 32-city Red Heroine Tour 2008 with funding from New England Foundation for the Arts.

Friday’s film will be preceded by a lion dance, performed by members of the Nam Pai Kung Fu Academy. The lion dance will begin around 7:15 PM.

Last night, nearly all 200 rented chairs were in use. We encourage you to bring your own seating if available—there’s plenty of room to set up more chairs on the lot. See you tonight.

Wednesday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008

For five nights this September, for the third year in a row, a vacant lot near Boston’s Chinatown Gate will become a free, outdoor theater, showing Kung-Fu and classic Chinese-language films under the stars. Thanks for helping us bring back a tradition of watching movies together in Chinatown.

• Film schedule. 
• Directions and event details. 
• How to Help. 
• More about this project.

The Hudson Street Gallery seeks to “honor the history and heritage of Chinatown and its immigrant communities while providing a home for contemporary artists to explore issues of geography, ethnicity and urbanism.” The gallery features several contemporary photographers and also historical images of Chinatown provided by The Asian Community Development Corporation. The historical photos include images of Hudson Street and the destructive impact the former Central Artery had on the neighborhood and its people.

On Sunday night, Sep. 7, Films at the Gate will wrap up five nights of outdoor films with IRON MONKEY (1993) directed by Yuen Wo-ping. Yuen Wo-ping is one of Hong Kong’s most prolific and successful filmmakers. His father, Yuen Siu-tin, was a popular actor in the early kung fu movies, and Yuen Wo-ping has been acclaimed worldwide as one of the all-time top action directors. In 2001, while working on the MATRIX sequels, he discussed his work in IRON MONKEY with FATG programmer Jean Lukitsh. 

Q: How old were you when you started martial arts training? 

Yuen: I started learning martial arts at about 10 or 11 years old.

Q: And how old were you when you started to work in the Hong Kong film industry?

Yuen: I started in the film industry when I was about 18 or 19 years old.

Q: So this is pretty much your life’s work, practicing martial arts and making movies about martial arts?

Yuen: Yes.

Q: When you first started making your own movies, choreographing them and then directing them, what other choreographers or martial arts directors influenced and inspired you the most?

Yuen: Chang Cheh (Zhang Che) was the main person that affected me the most. Chang was the main director of the Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong. (note: Chang Cheh directed a number of prominent kung fu films in the 60s and 70s, including THE ONE ARMED BOXER, HEROES TWO, and FIVE VENOMS.)  

Q: Are there any directors from the West that you liked or influenced you? Or have you mainly been focused on Asian cinema?

Yuen: I feel my influences have been mainly through Asian cinema, mainly from China, Hong Kong, and other parts of Asia.

Q: You’ve been working in the Hong Kong film industry for more than three decades. How has filmmaking in Hong Kong changed over that time period?

Yuen: The Hong Kong film industry has gone through many changes these last 30 years. I’ve had the experience of working for big companies like Shaw Bros. and small independent businesses.

In the 1960s, if a film was from Shaw Brothers, its quality was a lot better because Shaw was a very big operation in Chinese cinema. So every day, they would do 1 to 2 shots (scenes), without rushing. And with the budget, we could afford the slow and good quality work. Because of the fact that there was more money to experiment - if something didn’t work, we could redo it. Thus we could say it was more professional. On the other hand, when we worked for the small independent businesses, everything was very rushed and tightly budgeted, with no room for mistakes. 

Nowadays in Hong Kong, the movie production is very different from before. There’s a lot of high quality work because of higher budgets.

Q: IRON MONKEY is one of the best martial arts movies ever made. It’s obviously inspired by the ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA series, but stands alone as a skillful and funny re-imagining of the Wong Fei-hung legend. Weren’t Wong Fei-hung and his father, Wong Kei-ying, real people in the 19th century?

Yuen: The two main characters Wong Fei-hung and his father Wong Kei-ying were real people but the movie’s story was created. 

Q: You’ve made movies about Wong Fei-hung before, most notably DRUNKEN MASTER, with Jackie Chan, which also focussed on the father/son relationship between Fei-hung and Kei-ying. But in the earlier movies, young Fei-hung is always shown as a troublemaker, and the relationship between the two is explosive and punitive. In IRON MONKEY, a more tender bond is shown between father and son. Where did that idea come from?

Yuen: The way that I created the father and son’s character, I strongly believed that I should put in love, family and feeling.  It is not only respect that is shown, it also needs to have love. The father brought the son with him to search for herbs. Medicine was one of the main examples in the movie which also showed the father and son’s relationship. I created scenes with Wong Fei-hung and his father expressing different emotions for each other within different situations.  

Q: You did a wonderful job, especially the scenes where the little boy imitates the father. It shows how much affection there is. You really came up with a physical equivalent of that relationship. Like when his father would eat a certain way, young Fei-hung would do the same. It was like the boy was the mirror image of his father, and shows how close they really are to each other.

Yuen: The way I wanted it, as the director of this movie, was to show the son’s form of admiration and respect by doing exactly what his father would do, such as copying and imitating him as an expression of his heart. 

Q: Now I want to ask you about some of the fight sequences in IRON MONKEY. There’s quite a range of weapons and martial arts techniques that are used. How do you start the preliminary work of choreographing a fight scene? What sort of planning do you do? How much is planned, and how much is improvised? 

Yuen: The way that I produced the martial arts sequences in the movie was first I had to think and plan ahead of time. Before we shot the scene, we had to plan and organize. I had to work the choreography out on site with the action team. The major emphasis is the martial arts output - the visual result is based on how I form the kung fu fight and how it all moves together. The most important element is how to relate the good characters and bad characters together in the movie. The weapons are based on using the actors’ ability to work with the weapon. It took me about one month to plan out the final fight sequence.

Q: That final sequence in IRON MONKEY looks as though it must have been extremely dangerous and difficult for both you and the actors. How did you plan that scene? How long did it take to shoot? Were you ever concerned for the safety of the actors or stuntmen?

Yuen: The way I think about and plan the martial arts sequences can take a long or short time, depending on many factors. Like the final sequence of the movie, I spent a month thinking about how I wanted to film it to be really good. It took me 2 weeks to actually shoot the final sequence, after the planning was complete. We were very experienced and were very accurate and careful, so the whole team knew the fight action was very safe.  But we did worry about how we could control the fire to be as least dangerous as possible. It was really not easy to control because it was hard to tell whether the fire would spread.

Q: The fight scenes in IRON MONKEY display an impressive range of weaponry and martial technique. How do you decide what weapons to use?  Do you decide based on what techniques you’d like see on screen, or do you use whatever the actors are familiar with? For instance, in IRON MONKEY, we see Iron Monkey use the chain- whip against bad guys with straight sword and double broadswords, and we see Wong Kei-ying fight four monks who each have double daggers. These are all traditional Chinese weapons, so how do you decide which weapons the characters are going to use?

Yuen: I had to plan ahead of time on which actor is using which weapon. In the movie, you will see the monks using long and short swords. This important decision was based on what the character’s personality was and what would bring out the best performance out of each actor - so the audience can see the most beautiful performance from the movie.

Q: So you use weapons that would help advance the characterization of the movie, with each weapon representing the character’s personality?

Yuen: Weapons in the movie also represent the personality of the character, and the way the character fights with that weapon also indicates his capability and skills.

Q: How important is it for you to show the strategy behind the techniques? For example, the father, Wong Kei-ying, fights using empty-handed technique with the four monks - then they come out with their double daggers. Wong has to adapt and change his technique. How important is it to put this strategic component into the scene?

Yuen: The fight with Wong Fei-hung’s father and the four monks started with both sides without weapons. Then in the middle of the fight, Wong was still empty-handed and the monks pulled their weapons out to show how unfair they were in order to save themselves as they were on the weaker side. They did not care much of the rules or manner, thus showing how uneducated they were. They turned out to be very nasty. My strategy in the movie is to show the relationship between kung fu, manner, behavior and weapon. The bad guy would not win. For example, Wong, under bad conditions, had his skill and technique like his No-Shadow kick. He was still powerful, even without a weapon. It is important to show that bad guys can never win by being unfair. It is very important to include this strategy in the kung fu movies.

Q: One of the most memorable sequences in IRON MONKEY is the scene where Dr.Yang and Orchid “fly” through the air to gather papers scattered by the wind. While not a fight scene, it establishes the kung fu ability of the characters. What was the inspiration for this scene? What were you trying to show about Chinese martial arts?

Yuen: Inspiration is created through the movie’s story. In the movie, the actor and actress are showing that, among the relationships in kung fu and martial arts, between humans, there was also love. The scene of the “paper” was a creative way I could show the fantastic and romantic relationship they had.

Q: From your work with Wu Tang sword technique in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, it seems that you are interested in the “internal” or soft styles of Chinese martial arts. That scene has a very strong internal feel. Is that what you intended?

Yuen: Yes. 

Q: Do you feel that Americans are appreciating martial arts movies more?

Yuen: American audiences will be very happy if our Chinese martial arts is a really great production, as everybody looks for high quality products.

Q: We’re also looking forward to seeing your work in the next two MATRIX movies.

Yuen: I am very happy to know that audiences appreciate my movies. 

Thanks Catherine Lim of the Asian Community Development Corporation and Diane Chen of Asian Voices of Organized Youth for Community Empowerment for creating these materials.

Films at the Gate 2008 Postcard

Films at the Gate 2008 Poster

Films at the Gate 2008 Poster Large

Q: Since the choreography in a Yuen Wo-ping film is usually the work of “the Yuen Clan”, perhaps you could explain what it was like to work in a Hong Kong martial arts/filmmaking clan at that time.  

Yen: I’ve been working with Yuen Wo-ping for many years. We have a very long mutual working relationship. For every project, we try to be as creative as possible. With IRON MONKEY, which was Yuen Wo-ping’s first directing project after working with Tsui Hark and Jet Li on the ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA series, we were going back to “traditional kung fu” style, which we hadn’t done since starting the TIGER CAGE series (1988). The challenge was to take the standard higher, give audiences something they hadn’t seen before.

We had meetings before we even started shooting. We decided to go back to the traditional martial arts choreography and film it the traditional way too. That means long shots, more movement seen, uncut, in one shot. We wanted to show genuine martial arts skill, on camera.

Yuen Wo-ping asked me, “What do you want to do this time?”, and I said I wanted to do real Hung Gar style. You know, there isn’t really any Hung Gar in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA. But it was popular in the ‘70s, in the Shaw Brothers movies, for instance. And Yuen said, “Isn’t that outdated?” And I said, “Not the way I do it - I’ll use my own rhythm and flavor to interpret it.”

Q: Did you ever study Hung Gar?

Yen: I’ve studied a lot of different styles, starting with my early years, learning from my mother (Yen’s mother is famed wushu master Bow Sim Mark), and moving on to many years of research and hands-on experimentation with the essence of various martial arts styles. You have to be able to pick up moves fast, and learn new styles fast, if you’re going to work with an expert like Yuen Wo-ping. In IRON MONKEY, I primarily kept the signature animal style of Hung Gar, the Tiger and Crane  techniques which I used as the skeleton of the combat choreography. And I emphasized another traditional technique, one of the Hung Gar classic moves, the hand technique with one finger extended. The name of this technique is translated as “To control the central land with one finger” - some say it dates back to the days of secret societies, with hand signals to identify the anti-Qing dynasty patriots.

So I took what I knew of Hung Gar, and gave it “Donnie Yen flavor”. Actually, shortly after IRON MONKEY, I was cast as Hung Gar founder Hung Hsi-kwan in the Hong Kong TV series THE KUNG FU MASTER. 

Q: What is the Shadowless Kick? What does that mean?

Yen: Well, a lot of kung fu moves have those poetic names. Obviously, in real martial combat, the Shadowless Kick is less dramatic. It was glamorized in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, where it was geared toward wire work rather than the origin of the technique itself. I wanted to build on that image of Wong Fei-hung by showing how the son learned from the father, but also to find a way to bring out the most realistic approach toward the essence of martial art, while still creating a dynamic effect which the audience would enjoy.

Q: What about the scenes where you draw a circle on the ground with your foot before kicking? What’s that all about?

Yen: It’s like a warning: Don’t come too close or you’ll be sorry. Like a gentleman’s warning, don’t come any nearer unless you want to feel my kick.

Q: In one shot, you jump up in the air, kick two guys simultaneously, then swing one leg to the side to kick a third guy before landing! Was that done with wires?

Yen: No! 

Q: It’s a real jump?

Yen: Oh yeah. I have always tried to limit wirework. After all, what separates good martial arts films from great martial arts films is not cinematic techniques like wirework, computer graphics, rapid-fire editing, etc., but the actual skill of the actor himself!

Q: How do you train for something like that?

Yen: Of course one needs to have a solid martial arts background as well as knowledge of the language of film.

Q: What do you know about the monk’s deadly palm strike?

Yen: We choreographed his moves first, looking for something that would look good on film. When we found something we liked, we gave it a name. “This looks good, let’s call it Wonder Palm!”

Seriously, there are a lot of myths around traditional martial arts. “Iron Palm” technique, “Iron Body Armor”…I believe there’s something to it, but the kung fu writers probably exaggerate it. It’s easier to show these techniques in historical films. As the stories get closer to modern times, it’s harder for people to accept it.

Q: There is quite a range of weapons displayed in IRON MONKEY, from unusual types like the Monk’s Spade and Chain Whip to a simple staff. But the most unorthodox weapon used is an umbrella. Once again, it foreshadows an experience of the adult Wong Fei Hung in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA II. How do you do “umbrella kung fu”?

Yen: In the highest standard of Hong Kong martial arts choreography, one can turn any prop into a weapon, to allow the characters in the story to be more versatile, and to give each movie something new, something different.  For example, many classic kung fu films use props like wooden benches, wine jars, chopsticks - whatever is on hand -as weapons. In IRON MONKEY, we wanted to transform the umbrella by giving it the characteristics of various traditional weapons, e.g. chops and blocks from broadsword technique and thrusts, jabs, and Wu Dang-style wrist movement  from double edged sword (Wu Dang sword technique is a specialty of Yen’s mother Bow Sim Mark). The handle of the umbrella was also used for hooking and trapping joints. Basically, anything is possible - the key is how you use it! 

Q: The scene at the end of IRON MONKEY, where you and Yu Rong-guang and Yan Yee-kwan balance on flaming poles as you fight is one of the finest examples of “wire fu”. But were you really standing on those poles? How did you keep from slipping off as you fought?

Yen: That scene was designed to be very dramatic, kind of over-the-top. But real martial arts skills are still there. You can’t take the skill away. We were fighting on poles! We were stepping around from pole to pole. The wire catches you if you fall, but it can’t make you look stable. You have to be a superb martial artist to work with an expert like Yuen Wo Ping. 

We spend a lot of time on these movies, doing retake after retake, trying to get it just right. In the West, (fight scenes) aren’t as much of a priority. The support they give martial arts scenes in the West is a lot less than the typical Hong Kong movie, let alone a Yuen Wo-ping movie.

Q: How long does it take to shoot a Hong Kong fight scene?

Yen: That depends on who’s doing it. For my scenes with Jet Li in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA II, we spent about 3 days on our first  battle. Something like that would take maybe 20 days in the USA, to get the same level of quality. Yuen Wo-ping used to take one month to shoot his more complex action scenes, in the old days. The filmmaking is just as important as the action. Hong Kong camerawork is more sophisticated when it comes to getting the movement on screen. We know how to emphasize little details.

Q: What was the hardest part about making IRON MONKEY?

Yen: The hardest thing was pulling off the concept! First, can we top the action in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA? That’s what we were measuring ourselves against. I was playing Wong Fei Hung’s father, and audiences know what Wong Fei Hung can do. That was a challenge. And second, we were using Hung Gar, not the Northern style kung fu associated with the Jet Li version of Wong Fei Hung. That was hard, not knowing how audiences would react to a return to traditional Hung Gar style.

Q: How did audiences react?

Yen: They loved it!   

When I came to Boston in 1978, there were three Chinese-language movie theaters in Chinatown: the Star, the China, and the Pagoda. The Star, on Essex St. at Harrison Ave., and the China, on Beach St. near the Gate, were owned by Mr. Stanley Wong. The Pagoda was on Washington St. It’s now the Empire Garden restaurant.

One of the projectionists from the China studied tai chi with my teacher. I was looking for a job and I loved movies. Someone was leaving the Star in a couple of months, and I was able to take his place. That turned out to be the best job I ever had!

The Star was an old vaudeville theater that had been partitioned at some time into two side-by-side screens. The original theater was so big that the subdivided spaces were still sizable rooms. At first, only the left side was used. It showed movies from the giant Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong. Around 1983, the right side was restored and opened, and indie movies from Hong Kong, like the Cinema City and Film Workshop productions, ran there. The China, tucked under a parking garage where the Hei La Moon restaurant is now, specialized in Taiwanese films. From 1979 to 1986, I worked at both the Star and the China, running double features on all screens in programs that changed weekly.

The ones that made an impression on me back then were Lau Kar-leung’s kung fu epics like SHAOLIN MANTIS, 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, and MY YOUNG AUNTIE, Shaw studio wuxia films like THE LADY HERMIT and JADE TIGER, and Jackie Chan’s early kung fu comedies: FEARLESS HYENA, DRUNKEN MASTER, and YOUNG MAS- TER. I have to confess, though, that those last two films played at the Pagoda. Not one of my boss’ theaters. But I went there, paid for a ticket, and spent my day off in a Chinese theater, watching yet another kung fu movie.

As little mom-and-pop video stores appeared all over Chinatown in the late 1980s, the theaters lost their audiences and closed down. It was cheaper for a whole family to rent a video instead of buying tickets. In some ways, the new video technology is good. It’s made Asian film available to a wider audience, and has helped to preserve old films that otherwise may disappear or be forgotten. But the community lost a space where people used to come together and sit for a couple of hours, see old friends and get caught up with each others’ lives.

Jean Lukitsh is the curator of the Films at the Gate series. Jean is a former resident of Chinatown, and was the projectionist for two of the three cinemas that existed in Boston’s Chinatown in the 70s and 80s. Jean is a regular contributor to the popular website Kung Fu Cinema, a student of local wushu Master Bow Sim Mark, and a martial arts teacher in Boston.

Update 8/30/08: Jean Lukitsh, Films at the Gate curator, has posted an entry on her blog Electric Shadows about the return of Red Heroine to the screen.

See photos from 2006-2007, now on Flickr.

See 2007 event video on YouTube or at higher resolution here.

See 2006 event video and preview reel.

Read about Films at the Gate in the news from Sampan (9/7/07),  WBUR Boston (9/15/06), and the Boston Globe (8/18/06).