Who Do You Think You Are?

Yuen Woo-ping grasped what Chen Qi wanted and went back to work with Li Lianjie. After grinding away together for a few days, they finally worked out the style of Tai Chi Chen Qi was looking for. Then, Yuen Woo-ping did two things. First, he taught them how to rig wirework. Proper wire rigs required specialized fine steel wire imported from abroad, but how could Beijing Film Studio possibly have anything like that? It was good enough just to find ordinary steel wire at all; they brushed it over with black paint and figured that so long as they were careful while shooting, the wire wouldn't be too glaringly obvious on film. Second, he started dusting white powder over the actors. Anyone who had watched Hong Kong movies knew that whenever a punch landed on someone, it would puff out plumes of white smoke. Coupled with resounding thuds and sharp choreography, it delivered an incredible sense of impact. What did "sense of impact" mean? It meant the hits didn't look hollow—they felt solid, crisp, and real. Many such little tricks were techniques the Hong Kong stunt community had accumulated through years of bruising trial and error. Having received Chen Qi's instructions, everyone practiced and learned as they went. By now, May had arrived. Chen Qi fulfilled his promise to Zhang Xinyan, and *Tai Chi* officially began filming! After easing in with a few simple action sequences, they moved straight into shooting the tower-clearing battles. Yuen Woo-ping felt considerable pressure. It was his first time taking on such a massive undertaking: seven fights, each showcasing a distinct style, and the final clash featured a two-handed sword! He had never even seen a two-handed sword before, so he spent all day buried in thought, trying to puzzle it out. ... Early one morning. Chen Qi arrived early at the soundstage where the indoor set had just been dressed. Looking around, he remarked, "Very nice. Really looks the part." "Yo, this shaman mask is hung in a great spot! Your idea?" "Right? A sudden flash of inspiration hit me, and that's how I came up with it," Li Wenhua chuckled, looking around before waving his hand. "Qingli, come over here!" "I don't think you two have met yet. This is Zhao Qingli, a senior prop master at the studio, from the same production collective as me." "Oh, hello, hello! Pleased to meet you!" Chen Qi held out a hand with his usual genial smile. Zhao Qingli gave him a look, suddenly rolled his eyes, and walked off, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, "A brand-new era indeed. Any random person can get into this line of work nowadays." Li Wenhua looked awkward and whispered, "That's just how he is. Er... not very likable." "Is he this way with everyone?" "He was all right when he was younger. Then his wife ran off with someone else, he never got assigned an apartment, and his wages never went up, so he turned into this. Once his temper flares up, he'll cuss out anyone—he's even talked back to the studio head." Oof! Chen Qi didn't feel a shred of sympathy. Of the seven grandmasters, today's shoot started with Xiong Xinxin. Chen Qi had outfitted Xiong Xinxin in a green robe, a wig, and a conical bamboo hat, with a prominent mole painted between his eyebrows. "The first two fights need to be resolved quickly, or the pacing will drag. This Korean ruffian has no martial virtue—no polite greeting, just attacks right off the bat with swift, fierce kicks. But once Yang Yugan weathers his initial flurry, he finishes him off with ease. Then after losing, the guy tries a sneak attack and gets clobbered all over again, losing both shoes in the process—utterly disgraced, fleeing in complete disarray..." "Got it, I understand!" Yuen Woo-ping was amused. It seemed Chen Qi harbored a pretty big grudge against Korean ruffians—or rather, Korean ronin? Still, the great thing about Yuen Woo-ping was that he never asked unnecessary questions. Next, he taught Li Lianjie and Xiong Xinxin the choreography. So-called fight scenes were simply pre-arranged routines: once the actors memorized the moves, as soon as the cameras rolled, they just executed the choreography step by step. "Xiao Xin, how are you feeling? Nervous?" Chen Qi asked. "Brother Qi, could you maybe not call me Xiao Xin?" "Call you Little Bear instead?" "Stick with Xiao Xin, please!" Eighteen-year-old Xiong Xinxin hung his head in defeat. Who told his parents to give him a name like that? "Let me tell you, you're the first to appear at the Tower of Seven Heroes, and you're the first one to shoot. Give it everything you've got! Don't worry if you don't memorize every move right away—we can run through it as many times as needed, and we'll only roll when you've got it down." "Don't worry, I understand!" Xiong Xinxin nodded vigorously, his facial muscles twitching with nervous tension. He kept pumping himself up inside: *You can do it, you can do it! You're here representing Guangxi! You're the only Guangxi native in the entire crew, so you can't bring shame to your hometown!* He was from Liuzhou, the birthplace of river snail rice noodles. "All right, get ready!" "Let's do a run-through first. Three, two, one, action!" No sooner had the words left his mouth than Li Lianjie and Xiong Xinxin began trading blows with rapid-fire crackles. Li Wenhua shouted, "Cut, cut, cut! Didn't I tell you two to slow down? If you move that fast, the camera can't even catch it!" "Sorry, Director!" "Again!" "Cut! That movement was wrong just now!" Yuen Woo-ping yelled too. "Again!" After several rehearsals, they finally mastered the sequence. Their technical skill was never in doubt; it was purely a matter of getting into the right mindset. "All right, this is a real take!" "Action!" Xiong Xinxin glared, charged forward a few paces, leaped into the air, and threw a flying kick. Li Lianjie raised an arm to block. The moment Xiong Xinxin's feet touched the ground, he followed with a spinning back kick, then snapped into another spinning kick, swept low with a leg sweep, and whipped into a whirlwind kick... Crisp, nimble, fierce, and powerful. This five-kick combination was choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping only after confirming he was capable of pulling it off. "Good!" "Beautifully done!" Li Wenhua and Yuen Woo-ping clapped in unison, and Chen Qi gave him a thumbs-up. "Way to go, Xiao Xin!" Watching from the side, Ge Chunyan, Wang Qun, and the others were thrilled as well. The atmosphere Chen Qi had fostered on set was truly infectious—they were competitors, yet also comrades. Xiong Xinxin scratched the back of his head, grinning foolishly. After filming a few more shots, it was time for the wirework. Li Lianjie was supposed to strike him with a palm strike, sending him flying backward three meters and high into the air, which required rigging him on a wire. Yuen Woo-ping gathered several young men from the prop crew and gave them strict instructions: "The moment he thrusts his palm out, pull backward immediately so he lifts into the air... You have to pull him right to this point. Not an inch more, not an inch less!" "Got it, got it!" "Are you sure you understand?" "My apprentices might not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they aren't stupid either. It's just pulling a rope," Zhao Qingli chimed in from the side, even egging his apprentices on: "Pull properly now, don't embarrass me!" "Let's do a test first!" Why did the Hong Kong stunt community organize into stunt teams—the clans? Because shooting action was teamwork: designing moves, performing stunts, rigging wires, pulling wires—all of it required experienced stuntmen who shared an instinctive tacit understanding, naturally forming a dedicated crew. Yuen Woo-ping hadn't brought any stuntmen on this trip, so he had to rely entirely on the staff of Beijing Film Studio. Li Wenhua was anxious as well; none of them had ever worked with this sort of thing before. Xiong Xinxin put on the wire harness with his costume layered over it. The straps dug fiercely into his shoulders, waist, and hips, but he still comforted the director: "Don't worry, unfamiliar the first time, second nature the next." "Watch it now!" "Just a gentle pull first. Three, two, one, go!" Xiong Xinxin whooshed upward, then came back down to earth. "Not bad, not bad!" "Once more, a little harder this time!" After two or three practice runs, Yuen Woo-ping saw that it seemed fine and signaled to start filming. "Three, two, one, action!" Xiong Xinxin was hyper-focused. Remembering Yuen Woo-ping's instructions, the moment he heard "action," he leaped backward with all his might, leaving the rest to the guys on the wire. He pushed off his toes and sprang backward; his body shot into the air in a flash. He remembered to sell the reaction of being knocked backward through the air, but suddenly realized something was wrong! Why was he so close to the ground?! From the perspective of the onlookers, Xiong Xinxin lifted off at first, but only reached about two meters before the pull suddenly went slack, like a kite whose string had snapped, and he plummeted straight down. "Holy shit!" Chen Qi had the fastest reflexes and bolted forward. "Good grief!" Li Wenhua nearly had his soul scared out of his body. Seeing Xiong Xinxin crash down and lie motionless on the ground, he rushed over as well. Chaos erupted among the rest of the crew—the Yuen brothers, Yu Chenghui, and others surged forward, while someone ran to fetch a doctor from the studio clinic. "Don't move, don't move! Nobody touch him!" Chen Qi spread his arms to shield Xiong Xinxin and shouted, "Don't crowd around so tight! Back up a bit!" "Where's the doctor? Did someone fetch a doctor?" "Someone went!" "Xiong Xinxin? Xiong Xinxin? Can you hear me?" Xiong Xinxin lay prone on the ground, hands shielding his head in a self-protective posture, eyes shut tight and completely still. After a moment, he slowly opened his eyes. "You're fucking annoying!" "Damn near killed me!" Chen Qi didn't understand the first phrase, so he just took it as a compliment and asked hurriedly, "How are you? Where does it hurt? Do you think anything's broken?" "Everything hurts, but I can take it." "Don't talk yet!" Yu Hai and Yu Chenghui squeezed through. Both were martial arts coaches with plenty of experience handling bruises, sprains, and fractures. After a quick inspection, they said, "We'd better take him to the hospital for a checkup!" "No need, I'll be fine after a little rest!" "Cut the crap. If we tell you to go, you go!" Shortly after, the clinic doctor arrived and likewise recommended the hospital, so Xiong Xinxin had to be carried away on a stretcher. An ill omen on the very first day. The cheerful mood from earlier plummeted straight to the bottom. Li Wenhua spun around and immediately laid into the prop guys who had been pulling the wire: "What are you people good for? You can't even manage to pull a rope?!" "I didn't mean to! I just lost my grip for a second!" "This brother's life was in your hands, and you lost your grip? Please take this seriously!" Yuen Woo-ping said as well. "Exactly! He fell like that—how are you going to take responsibility?" "What's all this ruckus about?" Zhao Qingli wasn't happy and hopped into the fray. "That's enough! They've never done this before. How were they supposed to know he'd be that heavy?" "This isn't about whether they knew or not! Someone's safety is on the line! Even if you run out of strength, you hold on!" "If you're out of strength, how are you supposed to pull?" Zhao Qingli spoke with a thick Beijing accent, wearing cloth shoes with the backs stepped down under his heels, shuffling around with an utterly reckless, brazen scoundrel air. Li Wenhua was furious, but felt powerless—after all, the man was a veteran employee. "From now on, we'll pull it. We have the strength!" Yu Chenghui spoke up suddenly. "Right, we can do the pulling!" Yu Hai agreed. "Well, that works out great, saves us the trouble—and spares us from getting blamed for scams," Zhao Qingli scoffed. "What did you say?" Chen Qi suddenly turned around. "What if I said it?" Zhao Qingli raised his brows and glared. He had resented Chen Qi from the start, and now felt he had found the perfect opening. "I've been wanting to have words with you for a while now. A wet-behind-the-ears punk throwing his weight around the studio—who do you think you are? Others might not dare speak up, but I do! So what if the old studio head is backing you? I'm a veteran employee too. When a senior colleague criticizes you, you shut up and take it!" "..." Chen Qi stared at him for a moment, as if checking whether the man had a mental illness. Then he waved a hand and said, "Ji Chunhua, pin him down!" "Got it!" Ji Chunhua had been suppressing a bellyful of rage. Striding forward in a few large steps, he grabbed him like a little chick and shoved him face-first onto the ground in seconds flat. Li Wenhua moved to intervene, but Sun Jiankui quietly blocked his way. "Holy shit!" "You dare lay a hand on me?! I'll report you! I'll put up big-character posters about you! I'll never let you have a moment of peace!" Zhao Qingli thrashed wildly. Chen Qi was already in a damn foul mood over Xiong Xinxin's injury, and now this idiot had to pick a fight. He walked over, squatted down, and looked at him: "You're going to report me? Who do you think you are?"