In recent years, films such as Wilson Yip Wai-shun's Ip Man (2008) and Teddy Chen Tak-sum's Bodyguards and Assassins (2009) have breathed new life into martial arts movies. But even while fans in the West get a kick out of viewing these re-tooled works, they are still nostalgic for the old-school classics of the 1970s and 1980s, says Goran Topalovic, director of New York's Old School Kung Fu Fest, a nine-film, three-day event which ends today at the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan.
"Martial arts films have gone through a lot of changes since the 1970s, and the idea of this festival is to celebrate films from that period," says Topalovic, who is also executive director of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), which takes place every June. "For many of us, these films served as an introduction to martial arts, so we feel a lot of nostalgia for them. They had a powerful effect on kids and teenagers of that period," he says.
The Old School Kung Ku fest is an adjunct to the NYAFF, which has made its name by screening a broad selection of cutting-edge genre films from across Asia. The kung fu festival has no guests or events, concentrating on the movies.
This year's focus is on late maestro Lau Kar-leung, best known in the US for 1978's The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Of the seven Hong Kong films in the programme, five were directed by Lau.
American fans' enthusiasm for kung fu films from this period is undimmed, Topalovic says. "These films are … classic works of cinema. They don't rely on special effects, and they don't use actors who do not have a martial arts background," he says.
"Fans like the fact there's not much editing in the fight sequences, and nothing is done to obscure the performances. People who come to our festival appreciate that the actors are really doing martial arts. It is a purely physical form up there on the screen, and that is very inspiring - a bit like great theatre."
Lau, who died last June aged 78, is popular with kung fu fans in the US, Topalovic says. The filmmaker and martial arts master, who could trace a line of study back to legendary sifu Wong Fei-hung, is admired as much for his philosophy as for his skills in Wong's preferred hung kuen (or hung ga) style.