Get reel: Hong Kong has its own brand of superhero
Yvonne Teh, Film Editor
" I'm holding out for a hero," sang Bonnie Tyler in Footloose. Over the almost three decades since that 1984 release, countless heroes and superheroes have made their appearances in the movies. And these days, it's a rare summer month that doesn't have at least one blockbuster in cinemas with a heroic figure attempting to save the world from evil forces, alien beings, or both.
The Hollywood superhero season started early this year - Iron Man 3 made its appearance in late April. Man of Steel flies into local multiplexes this week. Due out next month - and already hotly anticipated by fans of comic book adaptations - is The Wolverine, and there are also movies whose heroic protagonists aren't from either the DC Comics or Marvel Comics stables, such as The Lone Ranger, in the offing.
Hong Kong cinema got into the superhero act, too, in 1975 when the Shaw Brothers produced The Super Inframan, a campy sci-fi actioner with Danny Lee Sau-yin playing a superhuman bionic fighting machine. In the main, though, our heroic personalities tend to be martial arts masters rather than masked men, and real life ones at that.
In recent years, the hero of choice has been Ip Man, the Wing Chun sifu (teacher) whose students included Bruce Lee. But it's Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung who has been the subject of the greatest number of Hong Kong productions - with Kwan Tak-hing (1905-96) alone having played him in more than 70 films.
Master Wong also has been played by other actors, including superstar actor Jet Li Lianjie, whose filmography includes portrayals of other real-life martial artists such as Fong Sai-yuk (in Fong Sai Yuk I and II), the founder of tai chi ( Tai Chi Master), and grandmaster Huo Yuanjia ( Fearless) along with the entirely fictitious superhero known as Black Mask.
The existence of these films notwithstanding, an argument could be made for Hongkongers generally favouring anti-heroes over more conventional heroic figures. As Exhibit A, consider that Hong Kong cinema's favourite son, Bruce Lee, played complicated characters who may have had heroic elements to them, but were rebels as well as role models.