Wire fu is an element or style of Hong Kong action cinema used in

fight scenes Stage combat, fight craft or fight choreography is a specialised technique in theatre designed to create the illusion of physical combat without causing harm to the performers. It is employed in live stage plays as well as operatic and ballet pr ...

. It is a combination of two terms: " wire work" and "

kung fu Chinese martial arts, often called by the umbrella terms kung fu (; ), kuoshu () or wushu (), are multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater China. These fighting styles are often classified according to commo ...

". 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 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 progr ...

). It is exemplified by the work of

Tsui Hark Tsui Hark (, vi, Từ Khắc, born 15 February 1950), born Tsui Man-kong, is a Hong Kong film director, producer and screenwriter. Tsui has directed several influential Hong Kong films such as '' Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain'' (1983), the ...

, Yuen Woo-ping, and

Jet Li Li Lianjie (courtesy name Yangzhong; born 26 April 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese film actor, film producer, martial artist, and retired Wushu champion. He is a naturalized Singaporean citizen. After three years o ...

. Hollywood has subsequently adapted the style for the American film industry. Almost all modern

wuxia ( ), which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although is traditionally a form of historical fiction, its popularity has caused it to be adapted ...

movies fall in this category. Not all

martial arts film Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature numerous martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expres ...

s 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

take A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production. Film In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup". Takes of each s ...

s 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 sets are used,

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 o ...

is done in post-production. Another later-developed technique of creating wire fu is using a

greenscreen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and displa ...

and post-production special effects. Greenscreening the wire work is done for more complex stunts and

camera angle The camera angle marks the specific location at which the movie camera or video camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles simultaneously. This will give a different experience and sometimes emotion. The diff ...

s. The actors are suspended in the air by green wires, which are then erased digitally during the post-production process. The process by which this was done in older (pre-digital) movies was to use film coloration techniques in a method similar to animation; artists (usually animators), would painstakingly go frame by frame over the raw footage and color in the wires to match the background. Wire work is often used in kung fu movies to simply allow actors to perform stunts beyond their physical abilities. In films such as '' Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'', it is used to create a more dramatic effect and adds

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 ...

to the world in which the film takes place.

Examples of wire fu movies

* ''

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'' ( 1974) * ''

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'' (

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) (''Fang Shi Yu''), also known as ''The Legend of Fong Sai-yuk'' * '' Iron Monkey'' (

) (''Siu Nin Wong Fei Hung Chi: Tit Ma Lau'') * ''

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'' (

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) * '' Charlie's Angels'' (

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) * '' Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' (

) * ''

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'' (

) * ''

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'' ( 2002) * ''

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'' ( 2002) * ''

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'' ( 2003) * '' Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'' ( 2003) * ''

House of Flying Daggers ''House of Flying Daggers'' ( Chinese: 十面埋伏) is a 2004 ''wuxia'' romance film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Unlike other ''wuxia'' films, it is more of a love story than purely a marti ...

'' ( 2004) (''Shi Mian Mai Fu'') * ''

Mulan Hua Mulan () is a legendary folk heroine from the Northern and Southern dynasties era (4th to 6th century CE) of Chinese history. According to legend, Mulan took her aged father's place in the conscription for the army by disguising herself as ...

'' (

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) * ''

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'' (

)

References

Theatrical combat Action films by genre Cinema of Hong Kong Film genres {{film-genre-stub

In practice

Examples of wire fu movies

See also

References