Personnage désormais mythique autant pour les chinois que pour les occidentaux, le célèbre docteur expert en arts-martiaux incarné par Jet Lee puis Chew Man Chuk méritait bien un petit hommage...

Jet Lee, Il Etait une Fois en Chine (1991, Tsui Hark)

Biographie :

 Wong Fei-Hung was born in 1847, and passed away in 1924. He was a martial arts master, teacher, healer, and revolutionary. He would protect and help those who were weak and defenseless. Wong Kei-Ying was his father, and he was a physician and great martial arts master also, and part of a group known as the "Ten Tigers of Canton", and he and his son lived in the city of Canton.

Wong Kei-Ying's famous medical clinic was Po Chi Lam, and Wong Fei-Hung was there assisting his father. He learned traditional Chinese medicine, and also learned many important values such as generosity and compassion. Wong Kei-Ying always treated a patient, even if he or she was rude and impolite or was poor. He would also secretly treat revolutionaries who were the resistance against the corrupt Ch'ing Dynasty.

The Ch'ing Dynasty consisted of Manchu emperors, who had conquered China from their home in Manchuria. They were foreign invaders to the southern Chinese. The southern Shaolin Temple in Fukien was a place where revolutionaries would go to train to fight against the Manchus. The temple was destroyed in 1734, but the few monks and students who escaped traveled throughout China to teach their skills. Some styles such as Wing Chun (Bruce Lee's original style) and Hung Gar Kung Fu (Wong Fei-Hung's style) emerged. The creator of Hung Gar was Hung Hei-Kwun (another martial arts master that was portrayed by Jet Li in New Legend of Shaolin). He was a Fukien tea merchant.

Wong Fei-Hung's martial arts training began when he met with his father's teacher, Luk Ah Choi. Luk Ah Choi taught Wong Fei-Hung the basics of Hung Gar. After, Wong Kei-Ying took over his son's training. By his early 20's, Wong Fei-Hung had made a name for himself as a dedicated physician and a martial arts prodigy. In addition to becoming a master of hung gar, he created the tiger-crane form and added fighting combinations now known as the "nine special fists." Wong Fei-Hung was also skilled with many weapons, especially the long wooden staff and the southern tiger fork. One occasion where he utilised his skill with the staff was when he defeated a thirty-man gang on the docks of Canton. He also protected the weak and poor from both criminal gangs and government forces. He set up his own school, "Bao Zhi Lin", a branch of Po Chi Lam, which was reknowned for both martial arts and doctoring. He instructed the Cantonese Black Flag militia, and taught his private students his Hung Gar techniques, the most famous of these being a pork butcher, Lam Sai-Wing, also known as "The Magnificent Butcher".

However, his life was not all joy and triumphs. Wong Fei-Hung came to Hong Kong after the branch of Po Chi Lam opened by Lam Sai-Wing was challenged by a rival school. After a bloody battle at Possession Point resulted in the death of the challenger, Wong was forced to return to Canton.

Wong Fei-Hung's son, Wong Hawn-Sum, followed his father's foot steps by protecting the weak and poor of Canton. Unfortunately, he was killed in the 1890's after being gunned down by the drug gang Dai Fin Yee. After this tragedy, Wong Fei-Hung vowed never to teach his remaining 9
sons martial arts, unless they were targets themselves.

Wong Fei-Hung's first three wives died young, and after, decided to live the rest of his life alone. But in 1903, during an outdoor martial arts demonstration, he met a 16 year old girl named Mok Gwai Lan, and asked for her hand in marriage. She was also a skilled martial artist who taught all of the women's classes, and even taught some of the men's classes, which was rare since hardly any women mastered kung fu at the time. No photos or drawings were taken of Fei-Hung during his lifetime. In 1924, Wong Fei-Hung died peacefully, a happy and humble man.

Wong Fei Hung in the movies

Wong Fei-Hung is a popular figure in Chinese action cinema. Many movies have been made about his exploits. Although the more popular movies about him portray a martial arts master, the producers of these films never forget to include Fei-Hung's other sides, especially the side of him that was a caring doctor. The films also include a surprising amount of historical information. In the film, Once Upon a Time in China, the character Porky Lang was based on the 'Magnificent Butcher.' Others details also include Fei-Hung being the head of the Black Flag militia, a doctor who treated the poor and revolutionaries such as Sun Yat-Sen. Despite the number of historical coincidences in the films, there are many inaccuracies as the films were mainly made for entertainment purposes.

The first Hong Kong cinema was a series of films about Wong Fei-Hung (played by Kwan Tak-Hing), so popular they lasted for 99 episodes, running from 1949-1979. It is in this that the now legendary "Wong Fei-Hung" theme song, also called "Under the General's Orders", was first used to represenet Wong Fei-Hung. A different side of Wong Fei-Hung was shown in the film "Drunken Master", starring Jackie Chan, and directed by Yuen Woo Ping. In this film a young, rebellious and mischevious Wong Fei-Hung is portrayed as being punished by his father and sent to study with a crazy old master, to learn his secret 8 Drunken Fairies technique. This is based on the real life Wong Fei-Hung's Drunken Boxing technique that he was rumored to have practiced as his secret weapon. A sequel to "Drunken Master" was made in 1994, again with Jackie Chan, continuing on the adventures of the young Wong Fei Hung.

The most famous series about Wong Fei Hung is the "Once Upon A Time In China" series, starring Jet Li (Li Liang-Jie) and directed by Tsui Hark. In this series Wong Fei-Hung is portrayed as a noble, serious martial artist, a traditional Eastern man coming to terms with Westernization and the changes around him. "Last Hero In China" is more of a comedy, again starring Jet Li. In this film he opens a new branch of "Po Chi Lam", only to find his neighbour shop is a brothel.

As great as these movies are, they are only half-truths - Jet Li as Wong Fei Hung kills General Lan, a Manchu commander, in the film Once Upon A Time In China 2. If he had really done this, he would have been hunted down and executed. But Wong Fei-Hung was a great man, defender of the weak, upholder of justice, and a big part of Chinese culture.

Wong Fei-Hung is truly a hero of China. A hero is somebody noted for feats of courage. A hero does righteous things not for money, not for any other venal motivations
except, for the benefit of everybody else. And Wong Fei-Hung is truly deserving of the title.