4. Shaolin monks might be Buddhist, but they were famous as soldiers
Buddhism normally advocates pacifism, but 16th-century Shaolin monks were recruited by the government to fight off pirates! The Ming Dynasty faced huge problems with bandits invading from the coast, but its army was disorganised and unreliable. Among the groups hired to defend the Empire instead (including mountaineers, sailors and salt workers), the Shaolin monks were famed as the most successful and effective.
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Bruce Lee statue in Hong Kong
5. Kung fu was banned. Twice
Kung fu might now be popular at home and around the world, but Chinese authorities have opposed it at least twice in its history. Under the Qing Dynasty (who conquered China from the north in 1642) the public performance of martial arts was banned – although this meant that practising in private got a reputation for patriotic resistance. And while the post-1949 Communist authorities initially promoted martial arts as healthy, nationalistic exercise, during the Cultural Revolution of 1965-1975 they were branded feudal and elitist: competitions and formal training were stopped, and books and weapons confiscated.
6. Kung fu fiction has always been a big deal
Long before cinema swept the world, fantastic adventures about kung fu experts were captivating the Chinese public. As early as the 16th century, commercial publishing boomed, leading to hit novels about heroic martial artists (including the highly-influential The Water Margin). These saw a resurgence alongside early movies in the Republican period (1912-1948) and again after neoliberal reforms of the Communist state in the 1970s – but in the meantime, martial arts had begun to take off overseas...
7. Bruce Lee was the greatest, but not the first
Bruce Lee is the icon of kung fu cinema in the West, and did much to popularise martial arts around the globe through his TV appearances, training schools and movies. However, a generation before, individuals fleeing the Maoist regime had begun to bring their martial arts skills to the world – and the Hong Kong film industry had seized on this.
Even after Bruce Lee began his career, his films weren’t the first kung fu movies released in the US: that belt goes to The Five Fingers of Death (aka King Boxer, Tiān xià dì yī quán) released in 1973 and kick-starting the “kung fu craze” of the 1970s. Lee’s Enter the Dragon came out later that year.
8. Kung fu magic doesn’t just happen in the movies. (Maybe!)
Kung fu films are often filled with superhuman feats and mysterious magic, but it’s been claimed that martial arts can give you “extraordinary powers” in real life. The 16th-century manual called the Sinews Transformation Classic suggests that dedicated practise of Shaolin kung fu can make you invulnerable and immortal; and in the 1970s and 1980s, even the Chinese government investigated theories that Qigong enabled you to ‘read’ unseen objects or move things with your thoughts. Fact or fantasy? You decide...
