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Wire-fu
Wire fu is an element or style of Hong Kong action cinema used in fight scenes. It is a combination of two terms: " wire work" and "kung fu". Wire fu is used to describe a subgenre of kung fu movies where the stuntmen's or actor's skill is augmented with the use of wires and pulleys, as well as other stage techniques, usually to perform fight-scene stunts and give the illusion of super-human ability (or qinggong). It is exemplified by the work of Tsui Hark, Yuen Woo-ping, and Jet Li. Hollywood has subsequently adapted the style for the American film industry. Almost all modern wuxia movies fall in this category. Not all martial arts films use wire work. In practice The basic concept is not very complex and originates in the mechanical effects of stagecraft. Planning and persistence are important, as it often requires many takes to perfect the stunt. Typically, a harness is hidden under the actor's costume, and a cable and pulley system is attached to the harness. When live ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qinggong
Qinggong is a training technique for jumping off vertical surfaces from the Chinese martial art Baguazhang. The practitioner runs up a plank supported against a wall. The gradient of the plank is increased gradually over time as the training progresses. Etymology Puns play a significant role in creating Chinese terminology. While the characters used for this skill are 輕功 \ 轻功 (Trad.\ Simp.), where the meaning of the first character is ''light n weight easy; soft; gentle'', and the second means ''achievement; effort; skill; good result'', since the training involves incrementally changing the slope or incline of a plank of wood used as a platform, there's a suggested pun with substituting 傾 \ 倾 (Trad.\ Simp.) for the first character, where its meaning is ''to overturn; to collapse; to lean; to incline''. Note that both 輕 \ 轻 and 傾 \ 倾 are pronounced identically, with the same tone. Popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hong Kong Action Cinema
Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. Action films from Hong Kong have roots in Chinese culture, Chinese and Culture of Hong Kong, Hong Kong cultures including Chinese opera, storytelling and aesthetic traditions, which Hong Kong filmmakers combined with elements from Cinema of the United States, Hollywood and Japanese cinema along with new action choreography and filmmaking techniques, to create a culturally distinctive form that went on to have wide transcultural appeal. In turn, Hollywood action films have been heavily influenced by Hong Kong Film genre, genre conventions, from the 1970s onwards. The first Hong Kong action films favoured the ''wuxia'' style, emphasizing mysticism and swordplay, but this trend was politically suppressed in the 1930s and replaced by kung fu films that depicted more down-to-earth unarmed martial arts, often featuring folk heroes such as Wong Fei Hung. Post-war cultural upheavals led to a seco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wire Removal
Wire removal is a visual effects technique used to remove wires in films, where the wires are originally included as a safety precaution or to simulate flying in actors or miniatures. It uses a lot of rotoscoping, motion tracking, and painting over footage. Wire removal can be partly automated through various forms of keying, or each frame can be edited manually. First, the live action plates of actors or models suspended on wires are filmed in front of a green screen. Editors can then erase the wires frame by frame, without worrying about erasing the backdrop, which will be added later. This can be accomplished automatically with a computer. If the sequence is not filmed in front of a green-screen, or with a green wire a digital editor must hand-paint the lines out. This can be an arduous and time consuming task. The modern technique of wire removal was pioneered by Industrial Light and Magic, when they used it in films such as ''Howard the Duck'' (1986), ''Back to the Futu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1999 In Film
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootings in the United States; the Year 2000 problem ("Y2K"), perceived as a major concern in the lead-up to the year 2000; the Millennium Dome opens in London; online music downloading platform Napster is launched, soon a source of online piracy; NASA loses both the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander; a destroyed T-55 tank near Prizren during the Kosovo War., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 Death and state funeral of King Hussein rect 200 0 400 200 1999 İzmit earthquake rect 400 0 600 200 Columbine High School massacre rect 0 200 300 400 Kosovo War rect 300 200 600 400 Year 2000 problem rect 0 400 200 600 Mars Climate Orbiter rect 200 400 400 600 Napster rect 400 400 600 600 Millennium Dome 1999 was designated as the In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Matrix
''The Matrix'' is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in ''The Matrix'' film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano, and depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality that intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias "Neo", uncovers the truth, he joins a rebellion against the machines along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix. ''The Matrix'' is an example of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. The Wachowskis' approach to action scenes was influenced by Japanese animation and martial arts films, and the film's use of fight choreographers and wire fu techniques from Hong Kong action cinema influenced subsequent Hollywood action film productions. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron Monkey (1993 Film)
''Iron Monkey'' is a 1993 Hong Kong martial arts film written and produced by Tsui Hark and directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Donnie Yen, Yu Rongguang, Jean Wang, Angie Tsang and Yuen Shun-yi. It is not related to the 1977 Hong Kong film of the same title. The film is a fictionalised account of an episode in the childhood of the Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung and his father Wong Kei-ying, and their encounter with the "Iron Monkey". In 1996, a separate film titled ''Iron Monkey 2'' was released, but it is unrelated to the 1993 film. Plot The plot centers on a masked martial artist known as Iron Monkey. Iron Monkey is actually the alter ego of a traditional Chinese medicine physician called Yang Tianchun. During the day, Yang runs his clinic and provides free medical treatment for the poor, which he subsidises by charging his rich patients. At night, he dresses in black and travels around town to rob the rich and help the poor. Once, he breaks into the governor's residenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1993 In Film
The year 1993 in film involved many significant films, including the blockbuster hits ''Jurassic Park'', '' The Fugitive'' and '' The Firm''. (For more about films in foreign languages, check sources in those languages.) Highest-grossing films The top 10 films released in 1993 by worldwide gross are as follows: Events * January 1 – China Film Import & Export Corporation ends its 40-year monopoly distributing all films in China, with 16 other Chinese film studios now responsible for distributing their own films. * January 29 – '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' opens in the United Kingdom setting an opening weekend record of £2,633,635 million. * March 31 – Actor Brandon Lee is accidentally killed during the filming of '' The Crow''. * May 27 – Actress Kim Basinger files for bankruptcy after a California judge initially orders her to pay $8.9 million for refusing to honor a verbal contract to star in the film ''Boxing Helena''. As a result, Basinger loses the town that she p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fong Sai-yuk
Fong Sai-yuk (or Fang Shiyu) is a semi-fictional Chinese martial artist and folk hero from Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province of the Qing dynasty. Fong was also associated with Hung Hei-gun and the Five Elders of the Southern Shaolin Monastery. He was a disciple of Shaolin and his martial arts techniques were considered to have contributed to development of Hung Ga Kuen. He was first mentioned in ''wuxia'' stories dating from the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), such as ''Shaolin Xiao Yingxiong'' (少林小英雄; ''Young Hero of Shaolin''), ''Wan Nian Qing'' () and ''Qianlong You Jiangnan'' (乾隆游江南; ''The Qianlong Emperor Visits Jiangnan''). Although Fong Sai-yuk is a fictional character, the stories about him treat him as if he really existed. He has been the subject of various novels, movies and dramas. Stories about Fong have been adapted into films and television series since the 1950s. The most notable ones are the 1993 Hong Kong film '' Fong Sai-yuk'' and it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1974 In Film
The year 1974 in film involved some significant events. Highest-grossing films (U.S.) The top ten 1974 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: Events *February 7 – ''Blazing Saddles'' is released in the United States. *May 28 - Joseph E. Levine, the founder of Embassy Pictures, resigns as president. *June 20 – ''Chinatown'', directed by Roman Polanski and featured Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston, is released to worldwide critical acclaim. *November 1 – Technicolor ceases its legendary dye-transfer printing process. *November 8 – Frank Yablans announces his resignation as president of Paramount Pictures with effect from January 5, 1975 following Barry Diller earlier becoming chairman and chief executive office. *Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with big fanfare, including '' That's Entertainment!'', a retrospective documentary celebrating its prestigious musicals (e.g. '' The Wizard of Oz'', ''Singin' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sister Street Fighter
is a spin-off of '' The Street Fighter'' (1974). The plot revolves around Lǐ Hóng-Lóng (李紅竜 ''Li Kōryū''), the female martial artist of the title. When her brother Lǐ Wàn-Qīng is kidnapped by drug lords, she seeks revenge. The drug lord's colorful collection of "killers" includes a toga-clad group of Thai Boxers called the "Amazons Seven", along with representatives of almost every martial art. Hóng-Lóng breaks into the drug lord's compound with the help of Seiichi Hibiki (Sonny Chiba) and other members of the Shorinji Kempo dojo. After all of his minions are defeated, the drug lord himself battles Hóng-Lóng, wearing a steel claw in imitation of Han, the villain from '' Enter the Dragon'' (1973). This was the first in a trilogy of films. It was followed by '' Sister Street Fighter: Hanging by a Thread'' (1974) and ''The Return of the Sister Street Fighter'' (1975), each with Shihomi as star. Plot When Lee Long (Hiroshi Miyauchi), a shorinji kempo champion and Hon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Sun Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago Tribune''. The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the ''Chicago Sun'' and the '' Chicago Daily Times''. Journalists at the paper have received eight Pulitzer prizes, mostly in the 1970s; one recipient was film critic Roger Ebert (1975), who worked at the paper from 1967 until his death in 2013. Long owned by the Marshall Field family, since the 1980s ownership of the paper has changed hands numerous times, including twice in the late 2010s. History The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' claims to be the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city. That claim is based on the 1844 founding of the '' Chicago Daily Journal'', which was also the first newspaper to publish the rumor, now believed false, that a cow owned by Catherine O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magical Realism
Magical is the adjective for magic. It may also refer to: * Magical (horse) Magical (foaled 18 May 2015) is an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse who excelled over middle distances and was rated in the top twenty racehorses in the world in 2018 and 2019. She showed considerable ability as a juvenile in 2017, winning the Debu ... (foaled 2015), Irish Thoroughbred racehorse * "Magical" (song), released in 1985 by John Parr * '' Magical: Disney's New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations'', a 2009–2014 summer fireworks show at Disneyland * Magical Company, a Japanese entertainment company {{Disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
