Martial Arts Movie Junkie has reported via Film Business Asia that Bill Kong is aiming to reboot the story of Chinese kung fu Master Wong Fei-Hung. The film will be titled Rise Of A Legend, offsetting a China/Hong Kong co-production under’s Kong’s banner, Edko Films Ltd., joined by BDI Films Inc. and Irresistible Delta. Film Business Asia also reports that True Legend scribe and Fearless co-writer Christina To-Chi Long is signed to bring the story to life, revamping Rise Of A Legend as a story that will mainly focus its plot on a younger version of the kung fu master.
Wong’s life story and legend have been immortalized in novels, film TV for decades, with the first incarnation of Wong’s story brought to life in the 1934 serialized publication of Legend Of Wong Fei-Hung, written by author Chu Yu-Chai, one of several student who studied under the real-life Lam Sai-wing. In the decades that followed, Wong’s story has seen the rise and popularity of famous Hong Kong and mainland actors, directors and fight choreographers. Legendary actor Kwan Tak-Hing‘s portrayal as the master was featured in over 70 films from 1949 through 1970, with director Wu Peng, aided by son and surviving wife, Hon-Hei and Mok Wai-Lin. And since then, more films would tell Wong’s story between different eras of his life, between dueling studios, Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers. These films included The Master Of Kung Fu (1973), Challenge Of The Masters (1976), Drunken Master (1978), Dreadnaught (1981), and Martial Club (1981) to name a few. Other renditions of the famed Hung Kuen master and founder of Po Chi Lam include the famed Once Upon A Time In China Series that began under director Tsui Hark in 1991 with then-rising action star Jet Li, the 1993 Yuen Woo-Ping-directed Iron Monkey with actress Angie Tsang Sze-Man playing the younger version of the role alongside Donnie Yen portraying real life hero Wong Kei-ying, and the 1994 Jackie Chan/Lau Kar-Leung collaboration, The Legend Of Drunken Master.
Of course, these are just some of the films among other venues by which Wong’s story has been told over the past century, many of which are said to be by largely sensationalized and flawed by factual accounts. Interesting though that it probably didn’t matter much to the surviving members of the Wong family at the time, but that’s just me speaking. However, a new film that would ultimately reboot the story of a master whose legacy would forever help shape martial arts in cinema and the real world could be a good thing.