Wushu Notes
Check out these exclusive clips from Jet's new flick, Romeo Must Die - Sneak Preview Videos.
For all the old school wushu fans out there, check this out - World Martial Arts Exhibition - From 1980, featuring the Beijing Wushu Team. Check it out, its a demo in Oakland from back in the day! Plus its like an hour long! I haven't even watched it all yet. Scroll down to the bottom for the streaming video links.
Rotten Tomatoes has info and reviews up for Jackie Chan's next big release Shanghai Noon, check them out by clicking here.
In case you wanted to see the flyer for that Shaolin Kungfu show last weekend, click here to view it.
The shaolin group was pretty impressive actually. They did about 30 different sets over the span of about an hour - really quick back to back. The kids were definitely good at wushu for kids, but as I've expressed in the past, I don't really like watching kids do wushu, no matter how cute they are.
But surprisingly, the smaller kids were better than the older kids, their sparring and group sets were pretty well rehersed. Their sets were pretty clean and their basics seemed pretty solid. Definitely looked better than the kids in the Shaolin Monk groups that have been on TV lately. After 45 minutes of continues sets, you could tell they were getting really tired as the end of the show approached. Also their musical selections left a great deal to be desired unfortunately (if I ever hear that Jackie Chan Drunken Master II song again, I'm going to go crazy).
The issue that I was really hypersensitive to was the whole "Shaolin"/"Monk" thing. These kids were wearing robes, and did have bald heads, but they never describes themselves as being monks. In fact a lot of the stuff they were performing wasn't even shaolin wushu, it was regular old contemporary wushu.
Worth watching if you get the chance (I have no idea where else they are performing, but I heard they're going to do a bunch more performances.
Monks in Vegas - (from Yahoo News) Thanks to Kiko for this link.
Being the skeptic that I am, and since they so prominently mention the "fundraising" issue, one wonders how much money actually does go towards the Temple? The promoters in Vegas are probably taking a lot, the Chinese government is getting a cut, how man people are lining their pockets before any money sees the inside of the Temple? That's IF these "monks" are really even associated with THE Temple in Shaolin. (If someone has more information about this tour group, I'd appreciate them sharing it).
Secondly, UC Berkeley's Upcoming tournament (to be held on April 15th) registration material can be accessed by clicking here - http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~calwushu/tournament.html. I hope everyone's recieved their hard copy already, but just in case, its up there.
Akko was in the process of building a community center in Oakland for the many martial arts, self defense and cultural arts groups she was involved with. Her family and friends intend to continue the work, I will pass along any information I get along to you guys. (See the 2/19 entry for more information)
On another subject - Sunday March 5th is a performance by the Zhengzhou Martial Arts Major Institute's Shaolin Kungfu Performing Group at Oakland's Kaiser Auditorium. I have a poster, but my scanner is on the blink right now. For more information, call 925-689-6868.
If I get any information about performances, I'll let you guys know. There WILL be a performance by another group from China here in the SF Bay Area in two weeks. I'll put the flyer up soon, but the group is the "Shaolin Kungfu Performance Group - Zhenghou Martial Arts Major Institute" (thankfully the word 'monk' does not appear anywhere on the flyer!) The Pacific Wushu Academy will be performing as well I think, so it should be worth watching for that at least.
I only got to know Akko briefly when we both competed at Li Jinheng's tournament this past summer (click here for my original photoessay). I found her to be a superb competitor and she was very supportive as we competed together in forms and weapons sparring divisions. I didn't get a chance to know her well, only through email after that tournament, but one thing was clear, Akko truly had devoted her life to Martial Arts of all styles and we as a community will miss her.
If anyone is interested, please email me and I will pass along funeral information when I recieve it.
And on an American entertainment front, check out this article Eric forwarded me:
Sounds kind of cool! Russell Wong is making his comeback baby! First Romeo Must Die and now this? Speaking of which, check this other tidbit I found -Gibson Will Monkey Around in NBC Miniseries Reuters Feb 16 2000 3:07AM ET By Michael Fleming NEW YORK (Variety) - "Dharma & Greg" star Thomas Gibson will be paid $1.5 million to co-star with Bai Ling in "The Monkey King," a four-hour NBC miniseries mounted by Robert Halmi's Hallmark Entertainment. Russell Wong is negotiating to play the title role. In the script, by "M Butterfly" playwright David Henry Hwang, a young American businessman and scholar travel to a Chinese land in order to battle mythic monsters. Gibson already has three movies in the can for a 2000 release: Universal's "The Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas," "Psycho Beach Party" for Strand Releasing and "15 Moments" for Alliance Atlantis. Halmi's Hallmark and NBC collaborated on such works as "Merlin" and "Gulliver's Travels."
Jet Li at NAACP Image Awards - (2/13/00 Reuters) - Has a nice picture of Jet presenting an award and an article.
Jet will be appearing at the LA Comic Book and Sci Fi Convention this Sunday, the 20th. He's promoting Romeo Must Die which opens next month. I imagine it will be somewhat like his appearance last last summer which I attended (read about it by click here), basically they show some clips, they have some questions from the audience and he does like million autographs. I encourage everyone to check it out. He's schedule for 1pm.
Personally (for those of you who care how I did), I didn't have that great of a competition, I didn't feel that prepared, but I did ok. I got two seconds, a third, and a forth place in individual competition and a second with my team in the group set competition (a very close second).
I really need to go to sleep now! I will write more when I'm not about to collapse from exhaustion.
Shaolin
Monks Perform Kungfu (China Daily) (from last summer, thanks to
pEtEr)
Temple Planners Come Out Fighting (South China Morning Post) (thanks
to Lisa)
I have some more articles to link to, some of them are in Chinese though :( Anyhow, I'll try to get them up this week. Also I have some special articles to add if I get a chance. And of course look for results from Collegiates up by Sunday morning!
JET LI IS 'INVINCIBLE' AT TNT
TBS has ordered an original two-hour movie/potential series pilot for INVINCIBLE, a martial arts action spectacular from ALLIANCE ATLANTIS Communications, Mel Gibson's ICON productions, and his LETHAL WEAPON co-star Jet Li. Tentatively set to premiere late this year or early next, INVINCIBLE will spotlight the ancient martial art known as wushu, with the choreography and death-defying action scenes you might expect to find in a Hong Kong film. "Introducing wushu through the medium of television will allow us to reach a wider audience than we could with film, and we can use each episode of the series to expand on the martial art's complicated but profound philosophy," said Jet Li. "In addition, INVINCIBLE will feature awesome action sequences that go beyond the light-headed, bang-bang action often found on television. There will be a healthy underlying moral theme, emphasizing control, discipline and the balance of good and evil."
Anyway, just wanted to update you guys on that, and also remind everyone to get ready for Collegiates! Cal is coming in force and en masse!
I finally put up some pictures and a brief summary from that CAAT tournament from last summer. Sorry for taking so long! Now if I can ever get around to finishing Episode V of the Beijing Team 99 extravaganza, then I'll be pretty much caught up (in time for this year's tournaments right around the corner).
Speaking of tournaments right around the corner, Collegiates is only like 3 weeks away! Are you going? It should be fun (as always). I hope to see you guys all there. Stanford has the official website updated, go to http://www.stanford.edu/group/wushu/collegiates to view it. Its great, they've got all the registration materials and info on there. Now if you could only submit your reg form electronically, that'd be something!
Also, Matt from UC Irvine has a report from that "Sanshou vs Boxing" event last month. He gives a first person account of what he saw, click here to read it. Its interesting though, I heard from someone who was just in China, that this event got a LOT of press in China. Everyone there knows about it and thought it was a big deal. It was really hyped up as Chinese martial arts defeating the imperialistic boxing of America or something along those lines apparently. Hopefully someday there will be a real match up between some top quality boxers and top quality sanshou guys.
By the way, the latest issue of Inside Kungfu just hit the stands, I peeked at it briefly today at the bookstore - congrats to Wushu personality Mimi Chan who was named "Woman of the Year." I didn't look through the whole thing, so I don't know who won the other awards. I'll try to find out.
For you Jet Li Fans, you can see the Trailer for his new movie Romeo Must Die at the movie's website, www.romeomustdie.net. There's nothing there but the trailer so far. As for the trailer... I just downloaded it, its kind of weird... the music was kind of "Duel of the Fates"-ish. No release date is given though. I think Jet Li's official website www.jet-li.com has some picturs and more info about the film up there.
I rearranged the front page a little, redistributed some of the content, hopefully things are easier to navigate now. I will be adding my Shaolin Monk tour expose hopefully by the end of tomorrow too, but first I think I'm going to re-do the poll.
Thanks everyone and happy holidays!
First of all, if you have Cable, check out the martial arts related programs now playing on the Discovery and Civilization channel (click for more info and showtimes):
On the Inside - Martial Arts - from a few years back, featuring info on wushu including a few masters including Pan Qingfu, Chan Pui, Dennis Brown and "monk" Shi Yanming.
Ancient Warrios - Shaolin Masters of Kungfu - I've never seen this one, someone let me know if its any good, its supposed to be about the Shaolin temple.
And the other updated info I put up was links to other website's World Games coverage, in no particular order:
Luciano
from Argentina
Michael
from America
Emilio
from Spain (Slide Show)
Unfortunately some of the pictures I had wanted to type up a photessay for were also lost, so I'll have to wait til I get back to California before I can put those up. But look for other updates in the coming days. I also updated the wushu events listing today.
Sports - 11/23/99Still interesting despite the fact we know the outcome. (see below) I'll keep my eyes open for more stuff.
Chinese kungfu or US professional boxing, which is tougher?Chinese kungfu or US professional boxing, which is tougher? This is the question which the First Kungfu vs Boxing competition to be held at the Las Vegas Hilton Sports Center on December 11 seeks to answer. It is the first time a contest between the two sports has been organized, according to report of China Daily.
A total of nine pairs of contestants, most of who are national champions in their respective countries, will take part in the event. One pair will be female. The competition that has been dubbed the "battle of the century" by media at home and abroad is not just a commercial exercise. "It pits the traditional fighting sports of the East and the West against each other for the first time," said Li Jie, the chairman of China Wushu Association, which is one of the organizers. Almost every insider is saying the odds are even. "It will be a good match because both of the sides show their desire to win," said Ron Weathers, a promoter of the competition.
Last Saturday, the two sides held a trial competition. Lewis Woods, the 58kg-grade fighter competed with two of his Chinese counterparts. "It seemed we won according to the score," said Chinese coach Guan Jianmin. "But both of the sides didn't show their real power. Many technical secrets should be kept until the official competition." "Chinese kungfu has the advantage of kicking and wrestling skills," said he. Because professional boxers can only use two fists for the fight, a lot of the body is left exposed, where a person using kungfu can strike, he said.
I wanted to share a couple of articles on the recent Sanshou VS Boxing event held in Las Vegas this past weekend. There in Chinese, if you have a viewer -
"Chinese
Kungfu Mops up Western Boxing" People's Daily
Big
Victory, Chinese Kungfu Wins Big, But Chinese Wushu Personalities Think
its Only a Game." (I'm kind of unsure about that translation) Yan
Cheng Evening News
Basically, from what I've heard and these articles say, China won 7 of the 9 matches. You maybe heard about this event, it seemed kind of weird. The Chinese Sanshou guys could kick and sweep, but the American boxers could not. Thanks to Emilio for finding those links. Matt from UCI mentioned he might put some video up. I'll try to put up some English articles if I find any.
Also, I hope you're preparing for Collegiates! Its February 12th, hosted by Stanford University. Looks like it should be a pretty good turn out, hope to see you all there!
5th World Wushu Games Satisfactory Closing (Chinese)
Final Medal Count (Chinese/English)
Complete Results (Chinese/English)
These results disagree with mine in some cases. Mostly because of the tie-breakers I think. I assume these results are complete and correct, although they only list the top eight comptitors.
By the way, are you any your wushu team preparing for the next Intercollegiate Wushu Championship at Stanford University on February 12th, 2000? If you're not a college student, you are still more than welcome to come to the UC Berkeley Chinese Martial Arts Championships, tentatively scheduled for April 29th, 2000. See you there!
Andy Lau Performs at World Wushu Games (Apple Daily) (Chinese)
China Continues Dominating at World Wushu Championships People's Daily (English)
Today is the Sanshou finals and the demonstrations, actually if I'm doing my math right, they've actually been done for a while. :( Don't worry, the fun continues for all of us here who get to enjoy the results tricking down to us at a nice slow pace!
Here's another article that mentions my pal Kong Xiang Dong:
China Dominate World Wushu Championships - People's Daily (English)
In the meanwhile, here are some more articles, in English and Chinese:
Young gun Chow spears gold for HK South China Morning Post (English)
Chow starts HK run with surprise win HK Standard (English)
Hong Kong Team adds two gold and three bronze Ming Pao Daily (Chinese). This article mentions Mae Hsu (³\ ª´ ¥[) getting third in Spear. It also has a medal count at the end in case you were wondering how well HK and Vietnam were doing compared to everyone else.
HK Team's Li Hui and Zhang Wan Jiang Grab Gold Wen Wei Po (Chinese)
Just to add some additional material that I learned from my sources - They are having a lot of fun, the competition is pretty good, the venue is really nice. The hotel maybe isn't so great. OK more news when I get it.
WOMEN'S SPEAR: 1. Macau 2. Vietnam 3. Mae Hsu, USA WOMEN'S NANDAO: 1. China 2. Vietnam 3. Hong Kong 4. Vietnam 5. Great Britain 6. Japan 7. Holland 8. Macau WOMEN'S STRAIGHTSWORD: 1. China 2. Macau 3. Hong Kong 4. Indonesia 5. Taiwan 6. Korea 7. Singapore 8. Japan WOMEN'S LONGFIST: 1. Vietnam 2. Hong Kong 3. Japan 4. Vietnam 5. Singapore 6. Taiwan 7. Katrina Leung, Canada WOMEN'S STAFF: 1. China 2. Vietnam 3. Canada 4. Ukraine 5. Anne Hsu, USA 6. Clara Shen, USA WOMEN'S BROADSWORD: 1. China 2. Vietnam 3. Hong Kong 4. Vietnam MEN'S TAIJIQUAN: 1. China 2. Hong Kong 3. Japan 4. Vietnam 5. Taiwan 6. Macau 7. Philipines 8. Malaysia 9. Brandon Sugiyama, USA MEN'S CHANGQUAN: 1. Hong Kong 2. Korea 3. Japan 8. Fei Bao Xian, Holland MEN'S NANGUN 1. Hong Kong 2. Taiwan 3. Macau 4. Malaysia 5. Korea 6. Vietnam 7. Malaysia 8. Vietnam MEN'S SPEAR: 1. Hong Kong 2. Hong Kong 3. Macau (tie breaker unknown) Douglas Chin, Canada Macau Phillipines Canada 8. Vietnam MEN'S TAIJI SWORD: 1. Kong Xiang Dong, China MEN'S NANDAO 10. Phillip Chen, USA MEN'S STAFF: 1. Korea 2. Holland 3. Phillipines 4. Hong Kong 5. Macau 6. Russia 7. Korea 8. Indonesia SANSHOU - US TEAM: Cung Le has won first match Al Loriaux has won two matches, will get at least 3rd place Rudy Ott lost first match due to injury Josh Bartholomew lost first match Chinu Ly lost first match
Huang Chun Ni performing Nandao. She won first place with a score of 9.55.
Qiu Huifang. Won the women's Taijiquan division.
WOMEN'S CHANGQUAN 1. Nguyen Thuy Hien, 9.30 2. Lo Nga Ching, Hong Kong, China, 9.26 3. Kawasaki Akiko, Japan, 9.25 MEN's NANGUN 1.Cheng Ka ho, Hong Kong, China, 9.40 2.Liu Jun Wei, Chinese Taipei, 9.3 3.Leong Hong Man, Macau, 9.26 WOMEN'S STRAIGHTSWORD 1. Chen Bei, China, 9.53 2. Li Fei, Macau, 9.30 3. Ng Siu Ching, Hong Kong, China, 9.28 WOMEN'S NANDAO: 1.Huang Chun Ni, China, 9.55 2.Nguyen Phuong Lan, Vietnam, 9.36 3.Angie Tsang, Hong Kong, China, 9.30 MEN'S SPEAR 1.Chow Ting Yu, Hong Kong, China 9.43 2.Cheung Man Keung, Hong Kong, China 9.35 3.Kek Hwang Hwa, Malaysa, 9.21 MEN'S STAFF 1.Park Chan Dae, South Korea 2.Fei Bao Xian, Holland 3.Mark Robert Rosales, Philippine
Asians Dominate World Wushu Championships(People's Daily 11/5)
Chinese
Minister Elected Head of Int'l Wushu Federation(People's Daily
11/4)
Mentions Armenia as next Games Host
The second day's results should be up in the morning. Be sure to check back! I'm waiting for some reports directly from the scene to hear more complete results of our web buddies' performances.
Pretty awesome. Congrats to Dam Thanh Xuan, my friend from Beijing, and to Katrina Leung from Canada. I also recognized our old pal Chan Dae Park up there. Congratulations to everyone actually :PMen's Taijiquan: 1.Zou Yunjian, China, 9.55 2.Cheung Man-keung, Hong Kong, China, 9.31 3.Watanabe Toshiya, Japan, 9.30 Women's Nangun: 1.Nguyen Phuong Lan, Vietnam, 9.23 2.Angie Tsang, Hong Kong, China, 9.13 3.Nguyen Ngoc Oanh, Vietnam, 9.03 Women's Taijiquan: 1. Qiu Huifang, China, 9.58 2. Li Fai, Hong Kong, China, 9.43 3. Tang Jennee See, Singapore, 9.35 Men's Changquan: 1. To Yu Hang, Hong Kong, China, 9.38 2. Park Chan Dae, South Korea, 9.35 3. Sakuma Ryouji, Japan, 9.30 Men's Nandao: 1.Ho Ro Bin, Malaysia, 9.28 2.Leong Hong Man, Macau, 9.18 3.Tran Trong Tuan, Vietnam, 9.16 Women's Staff: 1.Dam Thanh Xuan, Vietnam, 9.25 2.Lo Nga Ching, Hong Kong, China, 9.25 3.Katrina Leung, Canada, 9.16
Lisa has also reported that more countries were added to the IWUF, it now has - 83 countries! check out Lisa's website for Chinese and some English versions of the this news. Click here to go to her main page. Click on 'news clippings' for Chinese and 'article translations' for an English summary of some of the recent news. (more details for the news I reported yesterday).
By the way, if my calculations are correct, the Games should already be underway by now in HK!
In the meanwhile Lisa has been finding all kinds of articles on the Games from Chinese language websites, if you can read Chinese, be sure to check out her news clippings page at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~tpnguyen/wunews.html, Click on "World Wushu Championships" for the Worlds news.
And last but not least, lets be sure to wish everybody good luck in the competition!
Also a heads up to look for the latest issue of Zhonghua Wushu, Tony tells us they've got some stuff about the Beijing wushu team in there. I'm going to try to go to Chinatown next week and see if they have it...
And finally, tomorrow is the Pacific Wushu Academy's Night of Wushu performance here in Berkeley CA. If you're local, I invite you to come and check it out. It should be a really good performance of some top-notch American talent (1/2 the current US Team, a couple of former US Team members). And for those of you not local, its not too late to chip in for our Fundraiser, raising money for America's wushu athletes going to the World Games.
Kong Xiangdong
Liu2 Xiao3 Lei3
Jian Zen Jiao
Special Thanks to Brandon for getting me the info. Speaking of Worlds,
Emilio has shared the schedule for Worlds, here it is -
Thanks to Emilio for getting the 411. Do you have Worlds fever yet???Date Time Event(male/female) -- 11/4 9:00-12:00 changquan/taiji 1430-17:30 taiji/nangun 1930-22:30 nandao/gunshu -- 11/5 9:00-12:00 gunshu/nandao 14:30-17:30 qiangshu/jiangshu 19:30-22:30 nangun/changquan -- 11/6 9:00-12:00 taijijian/qiangshu 14:30-17:30 nanquan/daoshu 19:30-22:30 jianshu/taiji -- 7/11 9:00-12:00 daoshu/nanquan 14:30-17:30 demonstration/demonstration
The particular instances of martial arts labeled as Karate were from Rush Hour, Twin Dragons , Black Mask. You and I know that infact these movies contained wushu! So I sent the website a politely worded email asking him to at least use the generic term Martial Arts rather than referring to everything as karate (since I assumed, like a lot of Americans, they just sort of figure everything is karate). This is the response I got:
