Chop Socky Cinema Hong Kong (2003)

[Scott]

Cinema Hong Kong: Kung Fu (2003) - This is a very good Documentary on the history of Kung Fu films from Hong Kong. They really cover all the periods of this genre and even how they filmed action sequences, angles, distances, reverse filming, trampolines, and wires. They also cover the topics of Chinese hero's and legends and fantasy along with interviewing all the top names in the field. This is another IFC production. Better in my opinion than the IFC Spaghetti West documentary probably because the genre is really hard to get a handle on and I knew more about the Spaghetti Western genre than the Kung Fu genre.

(8 out of 10 Stars) Very Good. Recommended Kung Fu viewing.



You can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Here is part 1 of 6.

[youtube=425,350]http://youtube.com/watch?v=8pIAR_rKqBo

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8pIAR_rKqBo
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[lester1/2jr]

something weird used to have two tapes of just kung fu trailers.  I saw both they were great

[Mr_Vindictive]

Saw this doc when it first aired a few years ago, around the same time as Kill Bill.  There is a lot of great stuff in it.  Most of it was new to me and I'm a huge fan of kung fu flicks.

My favorite fact from the documentary is about the little red dangling things on the spears that you see used in quite a few kung fu flicks.  Apparently they were used to block the blood of the opponent from gathering on the spear and the person using the spear.  It's useless information but I found it quite interesting.

[Scott]

Yes, this is a good documentary Skaboi. That blood thing was one of things I also remember from this one. Also the way they would shoot a scene from different directions and distances. Of course we know about these techniques, but they do it differently.

[Jim H]

Saw this doc when it first aired a few years ago, around the same time as Kill Bill.  There is a lot of great stuff in it.  Most of it was new to me and I'm a huge fan of kung fu flicks.

My favorite fact from the documentary is about the little red dangling things on the spears that you see used in quite a few kung fu flicks.  Apparently they were used to block the blood of the opponent from gathering on the spear and the person using the spear.  It's useless information but I found it quite interesting.

The red tuft is supposed to also be helpful in gauging depth and distance.  I think they're mostly decorative though.