Some of you may have read Adam Hsu's recent book on the Way of Kung Fu, <The Sword Polisher's Record>. In it he laments the negative influence that today's movies, cartoons, comics & video games have on martial science in the eyes of ordinary folks, among other things. The common view is that much damage has been inflicted on the truth that martial artists spend lifetimes to perfect & to protect, degrading all the blood & sweat they have put in into trivial entertainment for the masses. This view is shared by all the traditionalists, not just for Chinese, but also for Japanese masters. So I'd just like to chip in a little of my own views on this as well.

The main source of these influences stems from Japanese pop artists, game programmers & Hong Kong moviemakers, which in turn influences the West. Sure, their works are entertaining (not all of them though), & the casual student will just shrug & say what's the big deal, it's just make believe. I used to be guilty of taking them too lightly too, until I realized how exactly how powerful they are. The people who holds the power of mass media makes ordinary people believe whatever they want them to believe. That's the truth about it all. Many a time I have heard guys who never trained at all, or trained long enough to know what's real & what's not comment on marital science based on what's shown on screen or in comic books. They may not be conscious of it, they may even know it's all make believe, but sure enough, their words reflect that pop culture has left permanent marks on how they perceive martial science. Take for example the 无影脚 "Shadowless Kick" technique of Master 黄飞鸿 Wong Fei Hong (played by Jet Li) in Tsui Hark's <Once Upon a Time in China> movie series. It is done with Master Wong 'flying' sideways (hung on wire) dishing out a fury of continuous kicks to his poor opponent. Everyone accepts this as the truth about the Shadowless Kick now, though it is not. If you tell people it is actually a Hung Gar feint technique where you distract your opponent with quick hand movement, so that he can't see you attacking his lower body with a lightning front kick (thus the name 'shadowless'), they will probably go "what?!" or "huh?!", or maybe even laugh. Such is the sad case of things now, where most half-truths have become gospel truths & vice versa, all thanks to pop culture. There are people going to Hung Kar masters asking to learn the 'Shadowless Kick' - the movie version. When the master tells the student the truth, he knows it erodes respect & integrity in the art that is his soul, whether he likes it or not. Similarly, Michelle Yeoh's portrayal of female Wing Chun Founder 严永春 Yim Wing Chun is laughable; for anyone who know what Wing Chun is about, that is. Her spin kicks, high roundhouses, flying around & cheap one-inch punches make actual Wing Chun students look like clowns. The historical Master Wong & Yim Wing Chun have probably already turned in their grave. The feeling for them must be like a person who spends his whole life building a castle to defend his family & his people, only to have a rich businessman come along & convert it into theme park. Do we in the future want this too? I think if these moviemakers responsible could just make proper martial arts movies like Bruce Lee & Jackie Chan did, without relying so heavily on special effects & silly antics, they would be doing us a great favor. But as long as the money keeps rolling in, they'll never learn.

 Then there are the popular video games created by the Japanese. There are many fighting games produced by many different companies, but the most damaging ones are those that model their characters & skills after actual martial arts, like the 3D <Virtua Fighter> & <Tekken> series. Those 2D fighting games, like <Street Fighter> series are at least not pretentious, with fireballs, tornado kicks & dragon punches. Nobody will be lead to think this has anything to do with the real world, except young impressionable children. But for Virtua Fighter, which features characters using countless real techniques of famous martial arts like Bajiquan, Jeet Kune Do, Tanglang quan, Daito Ryu Aiki-jujutsu etc, with their exaggerated effects, the impression formed on every player's mind is far-reaching indeed. The advertisement these games do for those arts featured cannot be denied, but even more significant are the damage they inflict on their integrity - truly a double-edged sword, sharper on one side than the other. Why do I say that? Imagine, after spending years of sweat perfecting an exceptional technique, you go to the video arcade one day only to see teenagers perform it effortlessly, even better than you, with a simple twist of the joystick & hitting a few buttons. They even add in insightful comments for good measure. No doubt it's just a kid's game, but how would you feel? Not well, surely. The characters can neither feel pain when hit nor have they any emotions. They are just 'data'. How could the programmers or the youngsters playing understand how much effort is needed to perform the techniques in reality? Where does that put us, the real characters behind these arts?

Carrying the same fault are many Japanese comics featuring such martial arts. As much as the artist tries to portray the arts as they really are, they can't because they have to entertain their young readers, and the real stuff is just not dramatic or appealing enough. Which brings us again to the issue of manipulation. The technical aspects of the techniques & their effects are just as inaccurate as in the video games. Further, the artists are not know little about the style, relying heavily on the scriptwriters, which offers one-sided opinions on what they know most of the time. Sometimes we read of many philosophies/ mandates of the writer expressed through the characters in the comics. Though they can be accurate at times, still tend to affiliate too many personal, sometimes undesirable aspects to the style itself. They don't even bother to seek the approval of the people with authority behind those styles they feature. This is very damaging. There will come a time that those Japanese writers will have monopoly of the (wrong) say with regard to the style(s), & their opinions become gospel through the artists' pen. I for one don't wish to see this happen, & I'm sure there are many who agree with me. They have exercised their freedom of expression at the expense of our right to maintain integrity in the art we love. Surely that is wrong. Unless those Japanese pop artists change the names of the styles & their techniques they portray into non-existent ones, they will forever be stepping on other people's toes. If they do not learn, I hope they face legal retribution one day.

It's never good to confront, & I'm no 'sword polisher' like Mr Adam Hsu, but perhaps just too little have been done or said to protect ourselves against the latent negative forces pitted against Chinese martial science by laymen out to entertain at any cost. It's just some humble opinions, but I do hope to raise people's awareness of such things in my own small way. As the Chinese saying goes, when the water subsides, the rock will be exposed. Time will reveal everything, surely justice will be served to us in the future.

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