The Hong Kong Connection
How Asian action flicks inspired Xena’s kinetic fighting style. By W. Bond Warren.
The Official Magazine: Issue 04
Since Edison turned on the first movie camera, a lot of film has been exposed, all over the world. If you watch movies from other countries, you begin to realize how influences spread like ripples in a thousand ponds. And nothing has rippled the Xena pond like the action movies from Hong Kong.
Several years ago, David Pollison, who works for Renaissance Films, read an article about Hong Kong director John Woo (THE KILLER, FACE/OFF, etc). “It said that if Sam Peckinpah’s movies were blood ballets, then John Wo’s were blood operas. I saw his THE KILLER, loved it to death, and in the office on Monday morning, I immediately went to Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi. I said ‘You have to get John Woo, because he will take this script we have called HARD TARGET and make it into something more than just another Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle.’” And lo and behold, this was done.
Soon thereafter, Renaissance began their Hercules series; by this time, Pollison’s interests had spread beyond just John Woo, and he was watching every Hong Kong movie he could find. “Nothing like the action scenes in them was being done in the United States, and I figured if we could find some way to use that style in Hercules, it would be a better show.” However, the intention to make Hercules less of a demi-god with super-powers, and more a wandering hero in the Conan vein, kept the very fanciful, even impossible, Hong Kong stunts from turning up on that series.
“But when we introduced Xena,” Pollison says, “Rob was working on the beat sheet for the story. I read it, and realized that in THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR and SWORDSMAN PART III was everything Rob was trying to do. I just gave him these two movies, and said, ‘Brigitte Lin in these two movies is Xena.’ From then on, we started looking at the Hong Kong films for ideas.”
Don’t misunderstand; nobody is swiping a thing - this kind of influence goes on all over the world. For example, in the episode of Xena that introduced Callisto, there was a spectacular climactic fight. Xena and Callisto squared off against one another on ladders that tip back and forth between facing walls. This was inspired by a sequence movie, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, which starred Jet Li. But the fight was filtered through the minds of the writers and director of “Callisto” (Pollison himself shot second unit on the episode), and the tone is radically different; the ladders are used more extensively, and while really physically impossible, the fight is more realistic than that in the Hong Kong movie.
And yet fans of musicals will realize that the stunt choreographer for ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA was almost certainly inspired by a sequence from the minor Gene Kelly movie, LIVING IN A BIG WAY. Although Kelly’s alone on the ladder, he does tilt it from side to side amidst scaffolding in much the same way as in the later movie. John Woo himself was influenced not only by Sam Peckinpah, but by French policier-film director Jean-Pierre Melville, by Martin Scorsese, and by a dozen other filmmakers from around the world.
These ripples spread wide, and finding the stone that started them isn’t always easy. In the 1950s and 1960s, for example, the Japanese cinema abounded in outstanding samurai movies (called “eiga”) with fights that are mostly starkly realistic although you’ll never see blood spurt quite that way in real life. These movies then influenced the Hong Kong action pictures - though they were also influenced by their own legends of “mystic martial arts” and flying swordsman. The Hong Kong movies became somewhat more realistic, but still are filled with eye-popping, excitingly-staged stunts.
Thanks largely to John Woo’s movies, particularly THE KILLER (a contemporary melodrama about a hired killer and a police detective), the Hong Kong movies began attracting attention in the United States, mostly among dedicated film fans, like David Pollison. “David Chute, our publicist on HARD TARGET, suggested I get ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA and any of its sequels, or SWORDSMAN and any of its sequels. He told me about Laser Wave, a Chinese-run video store in Monterey Park, in the San Gabriel Valley.”
Pollison has become the archivist of reference material for both Xena and Hercules (which is far less influenced by the Hong Kong actioners). “At the beginning, I was just renting these movies,” says Pollison, “and when I found one that was particularly good, I would tell Rob, saying this one is outstanding, watch it. And he would. Then later, he started asking me about particular movies when a sequence would pop into his head. I’d show it to him, then he’d go to the writers and tell them he wanted to put this sequence into an episode. He’ll have them structure the episode so it leads up to the sequence he wants to have happen in it.
“But now I’ve made a series of tapes, which I call ‘Asian Stunts’, 1 through 8. I put them together here; as I watch these movies, I look for things we could maybe do. A lot of times in the Hong Kong films, the action sequences are way beyond anything we can accomplish, so I have to pick and choose what would be cool, and what we can do. The major drawback is always safety; the safety factor increases the time factor. In Hong Kong, especially on a Jackie Chan movie, they’ll spend a month shooting one fight sequence, while we may have half a day of main unit (with the actors), and maybe a day of second unit (with stunt doubles).
“Sometimes, our sequences are dead on, and sometimes you might be able to see where the inspiration came from. And sometimes they come up with stuff on their own that I’ve never seen in a Hong Kong movie - but you can say it’s definitely like a Hong Kong movie.”
There are some Xena fans who’ve been delighted to spot these influences; check out Laura Irvine’s “The Xena*Hong Kong Connection” at http://www.slip.net/~redbean/xena/xena_hk.html. Pollison is most impressed by Irvine’s research. She has even presented a show on the Hong Kong Connection at Xena conventions.
A number of specific HK films were particularly influential on the series, apart from those already mentioned. Pollison’s list includes Jet Li’s THE LEGEND OF FONG SAI YUK, kickoff for the incredible fight scene in Season One’s “Sins of the Past,” in which Xena and Draco ran on top of people to carry on their battle. ASHES OF TIME was the inspiration for the “One Against an Army” episode - but in this case, the TV series improved on the original. IRON MONKEY’s strange battle atop poles provided some ideas; so did LAST HERO IN CHINA. Watch for scenes inspired by DRAGON INN, ACES GO PLACES PART 5 and WING CHUN in Xena’s fourth season, starting in the fall of 1998.
The one actor who was most influential on Xena’s team was the exquisite Brigitte Lin; in fact, they hoped to cast her in the two-part Xena episode “The Debt,” but she has retired from acting. Others of major importance include, of course, Jackie Chan, but also Jet Li (now in LETHAL WEAPON 4) and Michelle Yeoh (last seen in the James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES).
With their talents in such demand, several of the most important Hong Kong directors have already moved to the United States. John Woo is now established here, while Tsui Hark is making Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. Ronnie Yeu (THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR) has moved back and forth between Hong Kong and the United States for several years. But the most important figure for Xena fans, Pollison says, is Ching Siu-Tung (A CHINESE GHOST STORY); not only does he direct features, but he directs action sequences for other directors, including John Woo.
Xena: Warrior Princess is certainly an amazing TV series, by turns funny, romantic, horrifying and deeply dramatic - and it’s always packed with inventive, kinetic action. If you’re a fan of the show, you owe it to yourself to backtrack to the inspiration for these unforgettable sequences: the astonishing, flamboyantly conceived and choreographed Hong Kong movies.