Wu Xia! Hong Kong's Flying Swordsmen at NYAFF 2011

A rustle of silk, a flash of steel, and a swordswoman flutters out of the sky and alights on a tree limb that bends gracefully. This is the image most people associate with wu xia (literally, chivalrous hero) films. Wu xia novels have been popular in China and Hong Kong for centuries and Hong Kong has been putting them on the big screen practically since film was invented. Although wu xia encompasses all martial arts movies, it's come to stand for the flying swordsman (and woman) movies that the Western world fell in love with in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

With the invaluable support of the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office New York, this year's festival is screening a fistful of masterpieces of wu xia, both new and old, to pay tribute not only to this genre, but to our Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Tsui Hark, who has done more than anyone else to bring wu xia into the 21st century.

Before Tsui Hark, the world of wu xia was a regimented hierarchy, sealed off from the outside, subject to its own code of honor. If your father is killed, in turn you must kill his killer. If your master demands you die, then you must die for him.

"Although I like wu xia novels," Tsui Hark says. "I'm skeptical about some of the values they extol, most notably, the blind loyalty and foolish honor." And so, in 1983 he began to remake them in an image that fit the modern day. As Tsui says, "The spellbinding magic of wu xia films lies in the way they empower the oppressed to break out of their physical or mental shackles. I don't mean fighting violence with violence but a spirit to release oneself and having faith in one's potential."

We'll be screening Tsui Hark's latest wu xia, the blockbuster Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, but we'll also be reaching into the past to screen his film, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, that changed everything. His longtime collaborator and action choreographer, Ching Siu-tung, will also be honored with screenings of his directorial debut, the surreal Duel to the Death.

The two granddaddies of the wu xia genre were Chang Cheh and King Hu, and Tsui Hark has remade films by both of them. He remade King Hu's Dragon Gate Inn as Dragon Inn, which features electric performances by the two greatest divas out of Hong Kong, Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung. And then he remade Chang Cheh's One-Armed Swordsman as the astonishing, staggering, rarely-screened The Blade which is a movie that deconstructs the wu xia genre with a fifty-pound sword, and then sets the pieces on fire.

Trailer edited by Matthew Griffin, master of the liquid sword.

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[blade0817]

@blade0817 Not all, but most of these movies were made by Tsui Hark.

[gman4640]

@djyellab0y duel to the death 

[djyellab0y]

what is the name of the first movie shown where those guys fly in the kites????

[MrJuancarlosferrero]

0:52, so thats where they got the character from in Samurai Spirit ._.

[grisflyt]

@khmer2thebone But you are just an idiot.

[khmer2thebone]

it's look fucking stupid.

[Arkansaw]

@jeffdoeskungfu 小刀会序曲 watch?v=eBnIiuF6dVs

[crappywindow]

i got mind fucked 

[jeffdoeskungfu]

What is the name of the song that starts up at around 2:33?

[nimabgouzazhong]

@valkin15 it is a 20 years old movie