How Lau Kar-leung movie Legendary Weapons of China showed true martial arts style wasn’t just about fighting with your fists
- Director Lau Kar-leung wanted to show the gamut of Chinese martial arts weaponry and illustrate the traditional ‘18 weapons of kung fu’ in the film
- The movie has a strong cast featuring Lau, his brother Lau Kar-wing, Kara Hui, Gordon Liu, Hsiao Ho, and Alexander Fu Sheng in a comic extended cameo role
Although kung fu generally concentrates on hand-to-hand combat, many styles do involve weapons. The Shaolin monks, for instance, were experts at using staffs, and would also use swords when they fought in military battles.
The “18 weapons of kung fu” are often mentioned in martial arts literature, although the weapons on the list vary depending on the historical era and the martial arts style of the list’s compiler.
Historically martial artists may have equipped themselves with three types of weapon – a primary one such as a sword or staff, a secondary weapon hidden on the body, such as twin daggers concealed in their boots, and long-range throwing weapons like the star-shaped “mother-Son cross dart”, variations of which often turn up in ninja movies.
Lau’s Legendary Weapons of China features the whole gamut of Chinese martial arts weaponry, although some of them are shown so fleetingly as to be difficult to spot. The film’s two-part finale, which features a character played by Lau himself battling numerous assassins – including a character played by his brother Lau Kar-wing – does indeed feature 18 weapons of the director’s own choosing.
The film is chock-a-block with weaponry throughout, and there is also much hand-to-hand combat. Although scenes laden with special effects depict the apocryphal “spiritual” (magical) kung fu of the Taoist Maoshan sect, this looks to have been included for commercial reasons, and most of the fights are executed in a down-to-earth style – and are very fast.
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The combat scenes offer perhaps the best demonstrations of weaponry ever seen in a martial arts film.
“Legendary Weapons of China was one of Lau Kar-leung’s final masterpieces. Weapons techniques are not only done correctly, but we are treated to their applications, and shown how one weapon could be used to counter another weapon,” writes Blake Matthews in his book It’s All About the Style.
“The movie aims to give a respectful showcase to as many weapons as humanly possible, and Lau Kar-leung and company succeeded in that aim.”
The film’s weakness is its unfocused plot, which is just a McGuffin for the action. Set somewhere in the late 1800s, the story is based around the inability of martial arts to cope with the firearms of the Western powers.
Lau Kar-leung plays Lui Gung, a martial artist who had been developing techniques to absorb bullets for a mystical Maoshan kung fu sect before realising that this is impossible and running away to spend his life as a woodcutter.
Because of this betrayal, the protagonist is hunted down by the characters played by Liu, Hsiao and Hui, as well as Lau Kar-wing. Lui defends himself from the assassins, some of whom use magic against him, and sums up the theme of the film with the line, “All these magic powers are not kung fu, they are witchcraft.”
Hui wound up playing the role of a woman whose body is manipulated to fight by Gordon Liu. Hui has said that Lau called her performance “amazing”.
She has always professed a love for the northern-style martial arts that she learned first, and said her skill in the “graceful” northern techniques brought something special to her work with the director.
“Each weapon has a different meaning and must be used in a particular way, representative of the Northern or Southern styles of martial arts,” Hui told James Marsh in an interview about Legendary Weapons of China. “This movie shows the difference between martial arts for performance and for combat. This is what makes the film a great representation of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema.”
Lau, speaking about Legendary Weapons of China after its release, felt he had more to do to showcase Chinese martial arts weaponry.
“I’ve already made a film called Legendary Weapons of China, but it wasn’t enough,” he said in an interview. “Because, in terms of legendary weapons, there are still some from ancient times that have not been much used. There are weapons that are used for practice, and ones that can just be used for display. The older weapons were generally designed to be used on horseback.”
Lau later made Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter, which concentrated on the staff (pole).
The best breakdown of the 18 weapons used in the finale of Legendary Weapons of China can be found in a review on the Hong Kong Movie Database (HKMDB), which lists them as: rope dart, double tiger hook swords, double hammers, double axe, snake halberd, kwan dao (assault blade), twin sabres, straight sword, single sabre, tassel spear, three-section chain whip, double daggers, double crutch, monk’s spade, staff, trident, butterfly swords and the three-section staff.