Xu Haofeng’s Hardcore Martial Arts

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In recent years, there has been a wave of martial arts with a unique authorial style in the domestic film industry. The filming, screenwriting, and martial arts are all handled by one person, and the dialogue and action are crisp and clear. Investigating the origin, he is the legendary middle-aged director Xu Haofeng.

Xu Haofeng's films have a strong personal style and are highly recognizable, because few people in China shoot martial arts movies with such exquisiteness. Lenin once said: "Of all the arts, film is the most important and the most popular art." However, Xu Haofeng's film art is a relatively minor part of this vast array of popular art.

Xu Haofeng became famous for directing his first film "Trace of the Japanese Pirates". At that time, he did not have much fame or funds. Relying on the popularity accumulated from his previous hard-core martial arts novels, some book fans provided money to support him in filming his debut novel. You seem to be a bit of a pretty boy. Book fans pay for your books, but in the end you ask them for a bicycle?

However, this first work did not make Xu Haofeng a slap in the face. "Trace of the Pirates" caused a sensation as soon as it was screened. It was shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival and won several awards. It was also shortlisted. He was nominated for the Best New Director at the 48th Golden Horse Awards and later won the Best Screenplay Award and Best Director Award at the Beijing University Student Film Festival, etc.

Your debut novel is so impressive. What is "Trace of the Japanese Pirates" about?

Don’t worry, take a look at the unique promotional poster of “Trace of the Japanese Pirates” first:

The story is actually very simple: During Qi Jiguang’s campaign against Japanese pirates, Japanese swords were improved and developed, and in the martial arts spread among. However, because it originated from Japanese pirates, this sword technique was regarded as evil by the martial arts. In order to rectify the name of this sword, the masters of the Qi family camp decided to establish a sect in the martial arts. However, they were opposed by the four major families in the martial arts, so a dispute ensued.

The dialogue in the movie is concise and the fighting scenes are very interesting. For example, in the "Like Shadow", you only need to judge the position and sound of the opponent's shadow and then take action to defeat the opponent one by one, so that it is completely A foreign woman who did not know martial arts used a bamboo tube through the curtain to defeat countless masters based on simple instructions from the masters. And so on, the whole film is hearty to watch and makes people applaud.

It is said that Xu Haofeng’s style is tough, but what is so tough about it?

First of all, Xu Haofeng's background is "hard".

Xu Haofeng’s numerous titles are rare in the domestic director circle. To break it down, his identities include director, screenwriter, martial arts instructor, martial arts novelist, and film critic. He studied painting before getting admitted to Beijing Film Academy and was accepted as a close disciple by a painting master. He even starred in a film that won the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. The important role in "Journey" won the Film Festival Golden Camera Special Attention Award. I have to sigh that it is not easy for Xu Haofeng to do this in the current environment.

He has profound painting skills and is a director majoring in Beijing Film Academy. His ability to control images is naturally at his fingertips.

However, the hardest part about his background is that his second grandfather was Mr. Li Zhongxuan, the last generation successor of Shang Family Xingyiquan. He is known as "the last witness to the peak period of Chinese martial arts."

With such a magical grandfather, Xu Haofeng’s martial arts knowledge is of course also “hard”.

A few years after Xu Haofeng graduated from university, he quit his job and went home to study Tantra and Taoism in the Tang Dynasty. In addition to Li Zhongxuan, he also had an old friend of Li Zhongxuan at home, the first-class Taoist scholar in the country. Mr. Hu Haiya. Just imagine, you are surrounded by masters who are nurturing you, it is not just as simple as inlaying gold.

Xu Haofeng has been in seclusion for eight years. Based on the exchanges with two old people, he published "Memoirs of Li Zhongxuan" in a martial arts magazine, which aroused enthusiastic pursuit among domestic martial arts enthusiasts. The magazine once Out of stock. Martial arts sects from all over the country, large and small, also began to take the initiative to contact Xu Haofeng, so he became a key figure in communicating with each other among domestic martial arts sects.

When Wong Kar-wai was preparing to make his own martial arts film "The Grandmaster", in order to be rigorous in martial arts, he visited various martial arts sects in the north and south to inquire and learn. The one whose name was mentioned the most was Xu Haofeng. Seeing that all the martial arts people highly praised him, Wong Kar-wai visited him.

Xu Haofeng is a humble man, and the two of them chatted about speculation and hit it off immediately. Wong Kar-Wai decided to let Xu Haofeng write the script, so we can see many pure martial arts interpretations in "The Grandmaster", including an in-depth portrayal of Xingyiquan's "taking off the gun and turning it into a fist". In this way, Xu Haofeng won the 33rd Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Screenplay with "The Grandmaster" and has become more famous ever since. (Then his novel "The Taoist Descends from the Mountain" was bought by Chen Kaige for filming, which ruined Xu Haofeng's life.)

The most important point is that Xu Haofeng's fighting scenes are tough. Since Xu Haofeng was born in a martial arts family, he has been learning martial arts since he was a child and has pure martial arts skills, which were reflected in his later film works.

In 2012, he completed the filming of his second work "Arrowman Willow White Monkey". He did everything from script directing to action design. It can be seen that there is no Wia in "Arrowman Willow White Monkey" There are no special effects or DuangDuangDuang. The fighting scenes are all solid traditional kung fu, often defeating the enemy with just a few moves. The use of bows and arrows is extremely sophisticated, so the fighting scenes are realistic and exciting. Unfortunately, the style is too idiosyncratic to be easily accepted by the public. In the end, "Arrowman Willow White Monkey" was only nominated for Best Action Design at the Golden Horse Awards that year.

It wasn’t until 2015 that Xu Haofeng got an investor and made his first commercial work “The Master” based on his short story. With the participation of big names Liao Fan and Jiang Wenli, as well as the plot's rapid twists and turns, and the 18 kinds of weapons used in street battles, it is definitely the biggest surprise after King Hu for those who love martial arts themes, and the industry has also received unanimous praise.

The fourth part of the "Diamond Sutra" contains the following: "Subhuti, if a Bodhisattva gives alms without abiding, his merits will be the same, which is immeasurable." Under the package of business, Xu Haofeng still He persisted in his hard-core martial arts style, and finally was not let down: "Master" won the 52nd Golden Horse Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Action Design, and he gained a lot.

As a person born in 1973, Xu Haofeng has accumulation and experience that are inconsistent with his age, which makes his film career shine. I'm ready to see the premiere of his next film, "The Back of the Blade" anytime. After all, if you watch this kind of hardcore martial arts movie, you may really want to watch one less one.