The Wuxia Clan

Long before Hong Kong auteurs John Woo, Sammo Hung, and Jackie Chan revitalized the flagging fortunes of their beloved Triad, kung fu, and action-overload epics stateside in the mid-Eighties -- dealing out cinematic blows to Asian and Western audiences alike with a jaw-dropping, knee-crumpling series of now-classic films that included Woo's seminal The Killer, Chan's exhilarating Police Story installments, and Hung's Aces Go Places comedic action wonders -- what is now considered the birth of Hong Kong cinema began in the Sixties at Shaw Brothers studio, with a type of film known as the wuxia, from wu, meaning force or power, and xia, meaning a person of great principle or honor.

While the idea of heroic bad guys taking up swords and fists against their dishonorable brethren is not completely specific to the later work of the currently somewhat more Americanized Woo, these "code of honor" films were the beginning of a film movement that later led to everything from Bruce Lee's wildly popular work in the Seventies all the way to Ang Lee's Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon two years ago.

Wuxia films have managed to slip in the back door of American culture in even odder ways, chiefly via hip-hop acts like the Wu-Tang Clan, who have appropriated and applied the rigidly specific moral codes of wuxia to their own ghetto mythos. Probably not what the original filmmakers had in mind, but an unstoppable force in current Western pop culture nonetheless.

The Austin Film Society's upcoming series, "Heroic Grace: The Chinese Martial Arts Film," which runs Tuesday nights at 7pm at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown beginning Sept. 2 and ending Oct. 21, brings together eight of these original Shaw Brothers classics, starting with King Hu's 1966 epic Come Drink With Me, in which Chen Honglie's Jade-Faced Tiger must match wits (and fists) with the infinitely more honorable Golden Swallow (Cheng Pei-pei). This in a ramshackle country inn that becomes the center for a massive display of rousing swordsmanship and high-flying acrobatics.

Speaking of Wu-Tang, 1978's The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, directed by Liu Chia-Liang, is obviously one of that group's direct inspirations: As the oft-repeated story goes, Shaolin monks were the guardians and masters of a secret form of martial arts. When legendary Han Chinese commoner Lau Kar-fai (here played by Gordon Liu Jiahui) seeks sanctuary among the monks while fleeing from his Qing Dynasty Manchu followers, he's initiated into the mysterious (and often bruise-inducing) world of the Shaolin. Once there, he must work his way through a series of various fighting-style chambers, where he learns to master the Shaolin combat style by degrees while getting more of a workout than any fugitive should have to endure.

AFS's series, which is part of a traveling exhibition by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, also features a number of lesser-known examples of wuxia films, including Zhang Che's Vengeance! (1970), which, for a change, is set in the dawning days of the 20th century and is notable for its extreme violence, as Beijing Opera performer Di Long's (Ti Lung) murder at the hands of local thugs results in an explosion of retribution from his brother David Jiang Dawei (David Chiang).

These days, of course, in a pop-culture climate simultaneously ruled by Hollywood and Hong Kong (and with more and more of the former imitating -- if not outright stealing from -- the latter), it can be difficult for Westerners to appreciate the full scope of what came before the sudden arrival of Bruce Lee, who, oddly enough, was playing Kato to Van Williams' Green Hornet right about the time the Hong Kong wuxia films took off. It wasn't all Jackie Chan-style comedic action and John Woo's bullet ballets, as these eight miraculous slices of high-flying action prove with timeless -- and honorable -- force.

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The Austin Film Society's "Heroic Grace: The Chinese Martial Arts Film" takes place Tuesday nights at 7pm from Sept. 2 to Oct. 21 at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown (409 Colorado), except where noted.

Admission is free for AFS members with current membership cards or for new members signing up on the night of screening; $4 (cash only) for nonmembers.

For more information and updates, check out www.austinfilm.org.

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Sept. 2: Come Drink With Me (Dai Zui Xia)

Sept. 9: One-Armed Swordsman (Dubi Dao)

Sept. 16, Alamo Village, (2700 W. Anderson): Golden Swallow (Jin Yanzi)

Sept. 23: Vengeance! (Baochou)

Sept. 30: Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (Ai Nu)

Oct. 7: Blood Brothers (Ci Ma)

Oct. 14: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (Shaolin Sanshiliu Fang)

Oct. 21: Return to the 36th Chamber (Shaolin Dapeng Dashi)