Hey New York! Step Up For THE SIFU: LAU KAR-LEUNG At The Metrograph In July!
This year marks thirteen years since kung fu cinema legend Lau Kar-Leung passed away at the age of 78. Nonetheless, his legacy lives on in his extensive film resumé of which four titles will be screened at The Metrograph in New York City lining up The Sifu: Lau Kar-leung screening series kicking off from July 11.
While the names of directors King Hu and Chang Cheh may be better known than that of Lau Kar-leung, it is difficult to imagine the modern wuxia or kung-fu genres, as they developed at Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studios in the 1960s and ’70s, without the innovations introduced by Lau, who, among other accomplishments, helped inject both with a new strain of physical comedy. Born in 1934 in Guangzhou, where he began his intensive study of Southern Chinese martial arts at age nine, Lau moved with his family to British Hong Kong in 1948 and in due time found a demand for his talents in the colony’s burgeoning film industry, which employed him as an extra and fight choreographer. Distinguishing himself in the latter capacity in films by Chang and others, by the mid-’70s Lau was given the opportunity to direct, turning out a total of 25 films for the Shaws (and several more on his own, following their shuttering in 1985), among them some of the uncontested masterworks of Asian action cinema. A virtuoso of the widescreen frame and the punctuating zoom whose cadenced cutting lends his action set-pieces rollicking rhythm, Lau’s directorial efforts are as artful as they are entertaining—which is to say, incredibly so.
The titles include The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin Dirty Ho Drunken Master II and The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter. The mini-retrospective series runs from July 11 to August 8 with encore screenings to follow.
Watch the trailer, and head over to the official website for tickets!
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
