Wong Fei-hung is the most famous of all the examples of southern-style Chinese martial arts, and his endeavors have passed into legend. There have been around 100 movies about him, 77 of which feature actor Kwan Tak-hing, who became inseparable from Wong during the 1950s and 1960s. Radio plays, mash books, newspaper story serializations, and TV series have been given to his life. At one point, no under seven newspapers were running serialized books about Wong at the same time.
Who was Wong Fei-hung?
The martial arts master became known to international audiences during the 1990s when he was played by Jet Li Lianjie in Tsui Hark’s especially effective Once Upon a Time in China film series. Regardless of his status as a folk hero, almost no is thought about Wong and his life. Undoubtedly, a lot of Wong’s set of experiences has been hued by the fictional adventures attributed to him. As a line in American director John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance goes, “When the legend turns into the fact, print the legend,” and this has certainly happened in Wong’s case.
Jet Li as Wong Fei-hung in Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992), coordinated by Tsui Hark. Jet Li as Wong Fei-hung in Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992), coordinated by Tsui Hark. Fly Li as Wong Fei-hung in Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992), coordinated by Tsui Hark. “Wong Fei-hung was greatly adored in his lifetime, yet little is actually thought about him,” said Woshi Shanren, who composed books about the martial artist during the 1940s and 1950s. Indeed, even the sole photograph suspected to be of him ended up being an image of one of his children. Inside and out research by Yu Mo-wan, distributed in a 1981 essay, The Prodigious Cinema of Wong Fei Hung, set up some basic facts about his life. From that point forward, other facts have become exposed.
Wong Fei-hung’s Father Was A Respected Martial Artist
Wong was conceived around 1847 in or near Foshan in China’s Guangdong territory. His father, Wong Kei-ying, was one of the famed Ten Tigers of Canton, an aggregate name given to the best martial artists in Guangdong during the nineteenth century. The Ten Tigers were all said to trace their lineage back to the Buddhist warriors of the Southern Shaolin Monastery. In the event that such a place existed, it was said to have been in the Fujian region, southeast China, and was a counterpart to the original Shaolin Monastery in northern Henan territory.
Wong Kei-ying is said to have concentrated under the legendary Luk Ah-choi, a previous abbot of the Southern Shaolin monastery and a specialist in northern-style “blossom” kung fu. and the southern hung ga style. Luk saw Kei-ying performing martial arts and acrobatics in the city as a kid and offered to teach him. (Wong Fei-hung himself later became one of the Ten Tigers, potentially when he was in his twenties, yet he was not one of the original individuals, as is sometimes said.)
Wong Kei-ying became known for his ability to hung ga kung fu and taught martial arts to the military. Notably, as his wages were low, he also functioned as a physician – a herbalist and conceivably a specialist in bone-setting (dit da) – and established the Po Chi Lam apothecary in Guangdong. Wong Fei-hung acquired his father’s medical abilities as well as his martial arts ability and would run a Po Chi Lam apothecary later in his life.
Beginning Of Journey
Wong Fei-hung was taught kung fu – mainly hung ga style – by his father from around the age of five, and would travel to various villages in Guangdong with him to perform kung fu in the roads and offer medication to make a living. The tale of how Wong initially became famous during one of these sales campaigns with Kei-ying is narrated in an article by hung ga grandmaster Frank Yee. At the point when he was around 13 years old, Wong angered another martial artist, Hung Gwan-dai, who was also giving a demonstration in the road, because his presentation was drawing a greater group. Hung Gwan-dai challenged Kei-ying to a battle, however, Kei-ying educated his young child to take up the challenge instead.
A shaft battle resulted, and the youthful Wong immediately beat the challenger by utilizing the eight-diagram post strategy, a long-shaft framework that is a favorite of hung ga types. This match made Wong Fei-hung famous all over Guangdong. Wong also became notable for his expertise at lion dancing, something demonstrated in the movies about him. “Wong Fei-hung, who was one of the region’s best lion dancers, was referred to around Guangzhou as the ‘Lord of the Lions’,” composes Yu Mo-wan.
Wong Fei-hung’s Legacy
Wong proceeded to distill and formalize the hung ga framework, which had been designed by Hong Xiguan, another Shaolin hero. “He was a specialist in the Hung school of Shaolin martial arts, and a specialist in the Iron Wire Fist, the Five Forms Fist, the Tiger Vanquishing Fist, and the Shadowless Kick,” composes Yu. The Shadowless Kick is a sidekick, popularized yet probably not developed by Wong, in which a contender kicks his adversary three times in progression while in the air.
Wong was married four times and had four known kids, yet there is just information about his fourth spouse, Mok Kwai-lan. Mok, who married the aging Wong in 1915 when she was 23, was an eminent martial artist in her own right. She practiced mok ga, a Shaolin style that emphasizes close battling strategies, and Wong incorporated a few components of that into draped ga after they met.
Mok outlasted Wong by many years, passing on at the age of 90 out of 1982. She moved to Hong Kong in 1936, where she ran an apothecary and a bone-setting operation, and taught hung ga. She had married Wong so late in his life that she was unable to give a lot of information about his personal history, researchers have said. The TVB TV series Grace Under Fire was inexactly based on her life.
Mok and Wong Fei-hung’s Story
There is a famous, yet perhaps apocryphal, tale about how the two met. In 1911, Wong was giving a kung fu demonstration when his shoe took off and hit the watching Mok in the face. An incensed Mok got the shoe, got through the group, and slapped Wong in the face, saying that he ought to be more careful, because next time he may make a similar mistake with a weapon and harm an individual from the audience.
The two met again after Mok’s uncle, who was also her guardian and martial arts teacher, searched out Wong to apologize for her behavior. Romance sprouted, and Mok and Wong married. Like his father, Wong also trained the army in martial arts. He filled in as the martial arts teacher for the fifth Regiment of the Guangdong army, and later the Guangzhou Civilian Militia. Towards the finish of his life, he taught martial arts and ran a Po Chi Lam apothecary in Guangzhou, and another in Foshan. According to Yee, Wong became ruined when his home and apothecary torched during anti-government riots in Guangzhou in 1924. Wong became sick and passed on in either 1924 or 1925 or perhaps even 1933. He is presumed not to have lost a solitary battle in his life.
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