The title of the film is "King of Kung Fu", and it does show a lot of fierce fighting, but the background setting of the film has little to do with Kung Fu. Compared with traditional Hong Kong Kung Fu movies, "Kung Fu King" is more like a martial arts movie. In other words, it is closer to the kind of martial arts novels written by the original poster of Huanzhu, rather than the classic martial arts novels written by Jin Yong. The story borrows the background of the Chinese novel "Journey to the West", and believes that there is a kind of immortal body called "Xianren". This kind of fairy is very close to the gods, but has not completely escaped the human character, so it is more like Olympia. Of the Greek gods. The world of immortals is in the sky, and its monarch is the Jade Emperor (emperor like jade). His name represents the mysterious jade culture of the Chinese. They believe that jade represents immortality and virtue, so they named the monarch of the fairy world. Similarly, they believe that jade is an important ingredient in the medicine of immortality, which can make people obtain immortality.
In addition to this heavenly kingdom, there is also a world on the earth, similar to the real world of mankind. The activities of immortals directly affect people's lives, so the two worlds are not completely separated. Immortals often lurks in the human world for a certain task or just for fun. The biggest difference between humans and immortals is that their most powerful weapon is kung fu. If kung fu reaches a certain level, then it is possible to obtain immortal medicine and become immortals. Kungfu is equivalent to fighting skills in a narrow sense, but in the film Kungfu becomes a kind of perception of nature, which is more similar to "Tao" as the Chinese classical philosopher Lao Tzu said. On the one hand, the acquisition of Kungfu requires arduous physical exercise, but on the other hand, it also requires spiritual comprehension.
Immortals can also martial arts---this is a very natural thing, because a considerable number of them get immortal medicine because of their outstanding kung fu, and eventually become immortals. However, they also possess an ability that mortals don't possess---Qigong. Qigong can be understood as a kind of elemental magic. In the movie, an immortal named Yujiang God of War demonstrated this ability many times. He can control the basic natural elements such as air, water or fire, and exert tremendous energy. This method of control is based on a mysterious substance called "qi", which can barely use "ether" to compare its physical properties. Colorless and transparent, light refraction may occur in the enriched state. It is difficult for ordinary people to discover its existence with the naked eye. In fact, it is almost all objects infiltrated in nature, and its content in some substances may be unusually high (in Jin Yong’s novels, it may be a snake or a snake). A huge frog). Mortals can directly draw from it to quickly accumulate "qi" in the body.
The story is a typical Chinese-style story. Its characteristic is that there is no bad person in the story, and all the problems are only caused by the character defects of the fairy. If you have read the traditional Chinese novel "Journey to the West", you should be deeply impressed. A stone monkey Sun Wukong, who started as a Taoist priest and later became an entry-level monk, accompanied the mortal master Tang Seng to India to study Buddhist scriptures. They were attacked by various demons and monsters along the way, and they were on the verge of extreme danger for many times. However, when the conflict is over, it is often found that the hostile party is a pet, servant or even personal belongings of a certain god or high-level bodhisattva. Therefore, every story often ends with the discovery that everyone is one's own. The structure of this story reflects the Chinese principle of life---degree of closeness is more important than principles and laws.
In "The King of Kung Fu," this conflict was caused by Monkey King. This seems to go back to the beginning of "Journey to the West", when Monkey King disrupted the Jade Emperor’s Pan Peach Banquet and stole the medicine of immortality. In the movie, the Jade Emperor became a tolerant and faint old man. He completely pardoned Monkey King's crimes, and responded with an idiot-like smirk just like President Bush. But his general, Yujiang God of War, was deeply dissatisfied with this, thinking that Monkey King's frivolous behavior damaged the dignity of the Jade Emperor. When the Jade Emperor conducted a 500-year retreat, the Jade War God challenged Monkey King. In the battle, he deceived Monkey King to lose a magical stick---the Ruyi Golden Cudgel. Many scholars believe that Monkey King’s wishful golden cudgel can be long or short, thick or thin, and is a metaphor for Chinese male sexuality worship. The golden cudgel is the male reproductive organ. Therefore, here, the loss of the wishful golden hoop is equal to the loss of masculinity, which makes people weak. A similar phenomenon occurred in Monkey King. After he lost his stick, the God of War of Jade Jiang used qigong similar to the ice seal technique and petrification technique to turn him into a lifeless statue. The only way to save is to find a "Skywalker" among mortals, who can find the wishful golden hoop and use it to liberate Monkey King from the statue.
An American boy in Boston inadvertently became a Skywalker. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Liu Yifei played the role of a group of knights escorting the magic wand to the statue. Cheng and Li are both masters of kung fu among mortals. During the difficult journey, they tried to teach Skywalker some necessary kung fu. The training process was extremely boring, difficult and cruel, similar to the torture incident in Guantanamo prison. Although Skywalker is a minor, he has been subjected to slaps, boxing, clubbing, and various static physical punishments, including weeding with a stick and even staying in a squat state for a long time. Fortunately, during this tragic time, Liu Yifei played "Golden Swallow" as his greatest comfort. Between them, a kind of ambiguous emotions between boys and girls have arisen, but they are always under a high degree of sexual depression, and there are no scenes of hugging and kissing in the whole film. After these cruel abuse and sexual repression, Skywalker finally mastered some kung fu, and finally returned the stick to Monkey King.
In the film, a lot of time was given to Jackie Chan and Jet Li to show them how wonderful the fighting is. Martial arts instructor Yuan Heping has designed many new martial arts moves for them, but they have not surpassed any of the films in which he served as the instructor in the past. A fact that cannot be ignored is that Jackie Chan and Jet Li are both old and their movements are getting slower and slower now. Therefore, Yuan Heping has no way to reflect Jackie Chan's sense of power in "Drunken Fist" and Jet Li's elegantness in "Once Upon a Time" in his action design. In order to conceal this, Yuan Heping made the two martial arts kings wear large and thick clothes, trying to show the "strength" of kung fu, rather than simply counterattacking moves. Strictly speaking, this martial art action design makes them look more like dance than martial arts. A lot of Yuan Heping's energy is used to deal with small details, such as small movements such as two people grabbing a stick.
The movie itself also spends a lot of time and money on the production of special effects, so that the scenery in the background is even more exciting than the story itself. What's more noteworthy is that the film completely breaks away from the antagonistic relationship between martial arts and the court in the past, but directly erases the dynasty and emperor of the world, making it a confrontation between immortals and mortals. The emperor of the fairy is a good man, and his general is also a good man who has done bad things with good intentions. There is no setting of a bad guy, which makes people feel dull about the story itself. At the same time, it breaks away from the logic and behavior of traditional martial arts, making this film more like a myth, which has little to do with kung fu.
The commemorative significance of this film may be far greater than the viewing significance, because Jackie Chan and Jet Li are likely to retire soon. This is their last cooperation before retirement. It is far from perfect, better than nothing.
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