Wing Chun

Plot synopsis:
Wing Chun is a talented kung fu practitioner who lives in a mountain village with her father, sister, and aunt. Out of all the villagers, she is the only person who will stand up to the local bandits, led by two nefarious brothers. One day, a young and beautiful widow Charmy comes to town, catching the attention of the bandit chief Flying Monkey. Wing Chun rescues the hapless widow and gives her a job in her family's tofu shop, earning the enmity of Flying Monkey and his brother Flying Chimpanzee. Meanwhile, Leung Pok To arrives in town, fresh from studying kung fu. He is Wing Chun's childhood friend and has returned to claim her hand in marriage. He at first mistakes Charmy for Wing Chun and she encourages the mistake, believing he will not care for her in her current masculine, kung fu fighting avatar. Charmy is enamored with the handsome stranger, but Pok To is disappointed to find that his Wing Chun has changed. When Flying Monkey kidnaps Charmy, he uses her for bait, luring Wing Chun to a battle in the bandit's mountain fortress. She rescues Charmy, but is unable to completely defeat Flying Chimpanzee. She seeks help from her master, a Buddhist nun who created Wing Chun's style of kung fu. Pok To discovers Wing Chun's deception and when she realizes that he doesn't mind that she is a kung fu fighter, she agrees that she will marry him if she can defeat Flying Chimpanzee. Using her master's advice, she defeats Flying Chimpanzee in a final showdown and marries her childhood sweetheart.

Tags: cult, adult comedy, entertaining, violence, romantic

Review:
Wing Chun is an entertaining combination of slapstick humour and amazing martial arts fights.
Most of these feature Michelle Yeoh as the charismatic and beautiful Yim Wing Chun.
Donnie Yen's unusual turn as Leung Pok To, a man who has come to town to wed Yim Wing Chun is also of note.
All in all, there's enough character development, humour, fights, and good scenery here to make Wing Chun one of the best martial arts films ever.
The soundtrack has a classic 80s sound to it which makes the movie stand out in a nice campy way.The film isn't really a drama or action film, but rather a fast-paced slapstick.
I rented "Wing Chun" on VHS several years ago, after watching "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." I was impressed with Michelle Yeoh and the whole wuxia/martial arts fantasy genre.
I'm glad I did because this is one of my favorites.In addition to Michelle Yeoh (who plays the Wing Chun character), the movie stars Donnie Yen ("Iron Monkey"; "Hero") as well as Waise Lee, Norman Chu, King-Tan Yuen, and Catherine Hung Yan. Pei-pei Chang has a cameo.The story is light and comic.
Much of the plot will seem familiar to those who have seen a number of Shakespearian comedies--girl dressed as guy, mistaken identities, love triangles, suiters sneaking in and out of bedrooms just in the nick of time, plays on words, sexual innuendo, etc.
The martial arts in the movie are not brutal death-matches, but of the spin-through-the-air, prop-using, wonderfully choreographed, skilled ballets that are indicative of the film's action choreographer Woo-ping Yuen (who also choreographed "The Matrix," "Crouching Tiger," "Kill Bill," and many more).
Donnie Yen contributed a lot to the choreogrpahy and action directing also.And what great fight scenes they are!
Michelle is simply wonderful, especially in the last third of the movie when she stops dressing in men's clothes and goes into cute and perky mode.Perhaps the most famous scene from the film is one where one of the local bandits has come to challenge Wing Chun in her place of business (a tofu store).
Michelle's facial expressions are priceless as she goads the hapless bandit into just "one more try" before slamming him back to the ground yet again.Anyone remotely interested in martial arts romantic comedies should rush to pick this film up..
Despite that fact that different plot ideas for Kung Fu movie has been fully exploited by now and no new ideas are coming, Wing Chun still stands out in its uniqueness mostly because Michelle Yeoh is its star.
One of the best movies in the careers of Michelle Yeoh and Yuen Woo Ping.
Michelle Yeoh stars as the titular Yim Wing Chun, the spiritual mother of Wing Chun kung fu (the kind they teach in Prodigal Son, amongst others).
As you would expect from Yeoh, she is vibrant on screen, kicking a lot of arse and  showing us the sensitive side to a martial arts hero.Wing Chun's village is constantly under threat by bandits led by theerm flying simian family (well two brothers, Flying Monkey and Flying Chimp).
After she cracks some skulls, while rescuing the widow Charmy', she makes enemies of the local martial artists, who lose face after Wing Chun shows them up, and the bandits, who want her dead and for Flying Monkey to marry Charmy.
The scene where Wing Chun shows the local martial arts heros the Art of fighting without fighting' in the soya shop is amazing.
With inevitable consequences.When Wing Chun isn't giving us great fight sequences, it plays it like quite a lot of HK cinema.
Concentrating on that old Kung Fu film staple, getting laid.Wing Chun was one of the first great high flying new style kung fu films and stands the test of time, nine years on.
Many of the scenes with Michelle Yeoh are examples of why she is the Queen of Hong Kong action films.
Michelle Yeoh combines earthiness beauty with physical endurance as Yim Wing Chun.
I show Wing Chun(1994) at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge and became a big fan of the film and the career of Michelle Yeoh..
Anyway the fight scenes are good, good and varied techniques, though not looking like really wing chun.
It would be good to see Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen together in a modern film..
This is a great showcase for Michelle Yeoh, playing the legendary first practitioner of the wing chun style, Yim Wing-Chun.
The problem is that though the wing chun system is a very effective style in real life, it's not very visually engaging, so Yuen Woo Ping had to throw in some high kicks just to spice up the action a little ...
but then, we don't watch kung fu films for historical or technical accuracy.Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen are both pretty good here.
Michelle Yeoh does a great job of convincing you she really knows Wing Chun and utilizes her dancing abilities to bring that to life.
It's such a unique combination of action/martial arts, humor and romantic comedy I don't see how this movie does not have higher ratings!
This is not "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with its subtlety, lyricism, and views about love, freedom and the consequences of one's allegiances.Wing Chun (Yong Chun) is a light-hearted comedic martial arts movie, and it is a very good one, too.Michelle Yeoh is amazing, she kicks butt and does so in her trademark elegance.
The dialogue leaves something to be desired, and is a bit tacky at some points, but again, it's a comedy, so it's pretty easy to take into stride.The tofu scene, where Wing Chun (Yeoh's character) schools her opponent, is probably one of the best in this film genre..
Wing Chun is a memorable film because Michelle Yoeh epitomizes the female heroine at a time when it was not allowed for women to be as strong or in this case, stronger and smarter and more skilled than men.
Kim Wing Chun is a skilled kung fu master; well "mistress" to be correct, although you wouldn't know it since she dresses like a man and has no interest in the opposite sex.
It seems a fair point but from my point of view this device was good enough for Shakespeare to use it several times so it is probably good enough for the plot of a comic martial arts movie.
The wire work is perhaps overdone but mostly it looks good and the fight choreography is slick while the camera doesn't edit around the skill of those involved – although the speeding up of the camera stock seems unnecessary.The performances vary and disappointingly one of the weaker ones comes from one of the names that attracted me to the film – Yen. Yen mugs a bit too much and comes off as too young and too light to be a match for Wing Chun, his comic touch isn't really here either and often it just feels like he is pulling faces.
On the other side Yeoh is really good – she judges her character well so that she works in the action and the comedy, working well with whomever she is in the scene with.
Woo-Ping maybe overdoes the wire work but his direction of the action is solid; on the comedy side he also likes things OTT but for some reason the film's biggest problem is that it has terribly earnest musical tracks running throughout.
These give the film an odd tone too often and it does hurt it because it detracts from the light entertainment feel the majority of the content has.Despite this though Wing Chun is actually pretty good.
Worth seeing if you are in the mood for good martial arts action within a light entertainment "Carry On" style film..
if you see one kung fu movie, make it Wing Chun.
Silly comedy and wire-fu action from Yuen Woo-Ping..
The lovely Michelle Yeoh plays Wing Chun, a brilliant martial artist who lives in a tofu shop in a small village, with her aunt, Abacas Fong (King-Tan Yuen).
Unfortunately, the husband dies, so the young widow goes to work in the tofu shop, where she attracts many new customers, including local scholar Wong (Waise Lee).Enter Leung Pok-To (Donnie Yen), a fighter who has returned to the village after many years in order to marry his sweetheart, Wing Chun.
He believes Charmy to be his wife-to-be and Wing Chun to be a man (because of the clothes she wearsa common plot device in Eastern movies) and this sets the scene for several farcical moments involving mistaken identities and sexual innuendo (including one in which Wong is tricked into bedding Abacus).After much lame smutty comedy, the film returns to the action, with nasty bandit, Flying Monkey (who also has a thing for Charmy) attempting to abduct the pretty tofu girl.
If she loses, she must stay in the bandit lair where Flying Chimp hopes to 'tame' the beautiful fighter.With its talented cast and proficient director (Yuen Woo-Ping), I had high hopes for Wing Chun.
Unfortunately, the film didn't live up to my expectations, ending up as a pretty average mix of silly comedy and over-the-top martial arts sequences that rely far to heavily on clever editing and Woo-Ping's trademark wire-fu trickery.I do not deny that Wing Chun is pretty inoffensive fun and there are worse ways to spend your time, but with a film starring two of my favourite HK stars, Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen, I was really hoping for something special..
Yuen Woo Ping, the choreographer for The Matrix, brilliantly directs this piece starring martial arts delight Michelle Yeoh.
The story is classically clever with Yeoh in the role of butched-up Yim Wing Chun, the woman who was famous for the Wing Chun style of Kung Fu, taught by her Buddhist Nun, Ng Mui.
If some of the high-flying kicking seems familiar, it's because the director of this movie later choreographed the kung fu sequences in "The Matrix"..
It's filled with lots of fast-paced martial arts action, but all of it is comic-book style and completely over the top.
Great fun, and Michelle Yeoh is in top form..
Asian action movies, especially those of the martial arts genre, have yet to truly grasp the importance of a plot.
Unfortunately, the acting is merely average, and with the exception of Michelle Yeoh, the characters uninteresting and the comedy little more than overexaggerated goofy faces and toilet humor that would do well to amuse a 12-year old.Of course, nobody in their right mind would ever sit themselves down in front of this movie for the plot, the acting, or the comedy.
You come for the action, which WING CHUN doles out in abundance.In its martial arts choreography, WING CHUN is quite original.
Heavy use of wire harnesses allow for wide array of creative attacks and counters, with the film appropriately sped up to emphasize the acrobatic feats of the actors.WING CHUN presents us with an array of various fighting styles to differing weapons to "prop" fighting, the highlight of the latter coming in a scene where an opponent is challenged to smash a tray of soybean curd (tofu).
As the movie wears on, so wears the willingness to watch the use of wires in every fight scene, to the point where the final battles seem little more than a full-contact version of Cirque de Soleil.However, it's not the marionette fighting that left me somewhat unfulfilled by this film; it's the obscene devotion to what can only be described as general goofiness.
And just like the aftermath of a toddler brawl, the villains never get angry for losing; they're all forced to shake hands, after which they smile, laugh and become friends.And finally, while I don't need, or always expect to see scenes in which the Master trains the student or fights (often losing to) an adversary, with WING CHUN I felt this was a poor omission.
It's very rare to have a leading martial arts role played by a female; it's more rare still that it's one with the grace and charishma of someone like Michelle Yeoh.
Combined with Wing Chun's unique fighting style, the filmmakers could have spent more screen time showing inventive training techniques, and less involving the plot.WING CHUN is worth a good look for fans of the genre, or for those whose only exposure to Michelle Yeoh has been Supercop or Tomorrow Never Dies.But for those looking for harder action, varying choreography, fewer laughs (and wires), you would be served better by a number of other period pieces -- such as FIST OF LEGEND, featuring Jet Li..
This I think is the case with Wing Chung, a rather poor movie with excellent combat.With an absurd mistaken identity plot and a lot of low, broad comedy often centered around sex, Wing Chung puts very little effort into its story and goes for only the cheapest laughs, where even if you laugh, you feel bad about it.
While King-Tan Yuen makes the most of her shrewish, lustful character, and Michelle Yeoh is likable as the one non-slapstick character in the film, the other actors range from forgettable (even Donnie Yen!) to painfully bad (notably Waise Lee as the scholar).On the other hand, some of the wire-fu fights are great, particular a brief opening number in which Wing Chung uses a man as a puppet to fight while she sits in a chair and a terrifically entertaining battle over a dish of tofu.Unfortunately there is a lot more plot than action, so unless you're a fan of low comedy you're better off fast-forwarding through the predictable story..
This was by far Michelle Yeoh's best movie in my opinion.
'Wing Chun a great female fighter :).
First of all, ''Wing Chun is a system of Chinese martial arts with an emphasis on close-range striking and interception and low kicks.
So, the name of the movie is part of because of Michelle's Yeoh character and part of because the martial arts she practices.
And I really like this Chinese movie with a simple story, since it is very delightful to watch, and we have Michelle before she coming the big celebrity she is now.
( And known as ''Michelle Khan'')Wing Chun, is a woman living in a remote village attacked by robbers and thieves all the time.
Action-adventure film also works well as romantic comedy..
I saw Michelle Yeoh first in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), next in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), then in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) before I saw her in the film under review, Wing Chun (1994).In the first three films, hers was a strong, polished presence, showing an accomplished actor capable of nuance as well as swift direct action.
The screenplay and the other actors were just good enough to carry the film to the next part where Yeoh was present.Wing Chun the character was a woman who had moved away from her early home to study kung fu in seclusion.
She expected to live out her life with her dignity, but not have a husband.Life changed for her when her childhood sweetheart Pok To rolled into town; she recognized him, but he did not recognize her, which started a sequence of misadventures.The leader of the bandits (Flying Chimpanzee) gets discouraged with being thwarted by Wing Chun, and decided to make a cause of her.
This involved lots of choreographed kung fu fighting, fighting with weapons, fighting on horseback, and so on.The fighting and the romantic entanglements resolve in ways that were happy for almost everyone.----Scores----Cinematography: 9/10 Very good in most of the film.Sound: 8/10 Fine, except for the over the top Foley for the fighting sequences.Acting: 8/10 The main players were fine, but many of the supporting cast not as much.Screenplay: 8/10 This is the best comedy I've seen in many years..
wing chun a story about a beautiful woman..
donnie yen as wing chun's lover..
the tofu scene, the fortress scene, flying chimpanzee scene,, even michelle and donnie yen had some fight scenes together,, also this movie mirrored the Chinese tradition of marriage..
Warning: Some may consider this comment as a spoiler, but in fact this is only a brief introduction on who Yong Chun (Wing Chun) is and why she is a famous character in the history of modern kung fu.
A fun martial arts comedy.
This doesn't please everybody in the village; Wing Chun is a woman and the men feel they are making them look bad.
One day young woman, Cheery, comes to town hoping to get medical treatment for her husband; she is kidnapped by bandit Flying Monkey but Wing Chun rescues her.
One day a man, Leung Pok, To, returns to the village after ten years away hoping to be reunited with his sweetheart; Wing Chun.
If that weren't enough Flying Monkey's brother, Flying Chimp, has Cheery kidnapped and challenges Wing Chun to a fight; if she loses she must marry him.If you are looking for a film that isn't too long, is packing with brilliantly choreographed martial arts fights and plenty of laughs then this is probably the film for you.
Michelle Yeoh does a really fine job as Wing Chun; she is great in the fight scenes and convincing in the 'acting' scenes.
She is ably supported by Donnie Yen as Pok To; Kingdom Yuen as Wing Chun's sister; Catherine Hung as Charmy; Norman Chu as Flying Chimpanzee and Waise Lee as Scholar Wong, a man who keen on Wing Chun.
It was indeed a light action/comedy and lived up to that.Michelle Yeoh,Donnie Yen, and Norman Chu were very fun to watch in their fights (Wing Chun, Pok To, and Flying Monkey, respectively.)King-Tan Yuen has won me over with her Abacus Fong, Wing Chun's aunt.
That this guy, Pok, was the only one to *continually* believe that the real Wing Chun was a man is just insane- several other characters, had no real problem realizing that Wing was a female, just a freaky one (to their way of thinking.)It was a point that made the movie lessen in my estimation of it.