The Good the Bad and the Weird?
I mainly watch martial arts films, and it seems like there’s plenty of films from 1800-1950.
Once upon a time in China and America (early 1800’s)
Fist of Legend, Ip Man (Japanese occupation of China in the 1920’s)
Ip Man 2 (Hong Kong right after WWII)
Born to Defense (US occupation of China after WW2)
Of course most kung fu films are products of Hong Kong and subject to different political forces.
That’s South Korean- but definitely worth checking out.
Indeed. There really are alot of historical soap operas and specials and whatnot on TV here, some good some bad some awful. Kind of odd, really. I can’t really think of anything comparable that has been shown in the US about, say, the American Revolution or the Civil War or anything like that. I guess The North and The South, maybe.
You ever notice how the Japanese soldiers on those shows always have round glasses and one of those little Charlie Chaplin mustaches? I swear, there is always at least one in each show.
A biopic or other film significantly featuring any major political leader in the past 100 years could be problematic. Like the saying goes, “the past is not dead . . . it’s not even past.”
As I mentioned earlier, The Founding Of A Republic is a recent (quasi-propaganda) film about Chiang Kai-Shek, Mao Tse-tung, and the Chinese Civil War.
Also, Bodyguards & Assassins is all about a plot to assassinate Dr. Sun Yat-Sen on a visit to Hong Kong in the 1900s.
No. The main actors/characters and most of the production staff were American. Calling this a Chinese historical epic would be like calling Patton an example of Italian cinema.
Check out To Live. One of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen.
I just watched Lust, Caution, an Ang Lee movie set during WWII. It is beautiful and heartbreaking, like most of Lee’s films. I don’t know that it is exactly epic, though.
How about “The Last Emperor”?
This movie was very interesting to me, as it dealt with the end of the Manchu Dynasty, the rise of the Chinese Republic, the War, and then communism.
Of course, it was made by a european-what do Chinese people think of it?
Thanks, all, I’ll have to try to find some of these. I’ve been going by what’s available at Blockbuster.
I’m trying not to . . .
Can’t any Chinese director make a historical epic and keep the kung fu out of it?!
Yes, but those 5000 years were all the same. Dynasty rises, dynasty falls, Empire divides, Empire unites, barbarians conquer, barbarians expelled . . . peasants continue farming their land by hand, generation after generation . . . The last 200 years is when Chinese history starts to get interesting. (In the Chinese sense.)
That’d be like asking a European director to make a film set in the Middle Ages without people in armour or carrying swords, surely? ;)*
I’ve always thought the Chinese fondness for films set in “The Generic Dynasty” was partly political- no risk of offending anyone important (or showing important figures on the winning side of the Chinese Civil War in a bad light) when the story is clearly set 3,000 years ago and follows the time honoured tradition of Warrior Monk on a spiritual journey to defeat [del]Master Pain[/del] [del]Betty[/del] The Evil Sorcerer Warlord.
*Yes, I know it’s been done. I’m just illustrating a point.
I’ll bet the actual role of kung-fu skills in Chinese military history is trivial . . . and I mean real-life kung fu, not the physically impossible wire-fu bullshit that has become whatever-is-Chinese-for-de-rigeur in Chinese films lately.
That explains the ending of Hero.
Sure; it’s an unrealistic trope just like the hero taking on twelve evil minions at once and winning.
I know next to nothing about the history of kung fu, but isn’t it more associated with the peasant class as opposed to professional soldiers? Emphasizing the use of your bare hands in combat, or possibly a limited range of weapons that are basically modified farm implements – those kinds of legends would have appeal to oppressed farmers, not the soldiers that were trampling their fields and backing up the tax collectors.