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David Golombek\\
21F.030\\
Journal \#11\\\\
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Once Upon a Time in China has large blocks of historical drama added
into the normal plot of a kung fu movie.  With the exception of the
results of the fights, the kung fu scenes could be entirely eliminated
from the movie without greatly changing its overall message, although
the tone and aim of the movie would be destroyed.  Indeed, the only
part that would be missed would be the emphasis of Huang's
superiority over all the other fighters.  Although the exact
situations depicted in Once Upon a Time in China (henceforth OUTC) are
completely imaginary, the historical background given in the movie
(the treaty ports and the leasing of Hong Kong), and the tensions
depicted within, were at least reasonably accurate.  Indeed, all the
action of the movie is hypothetical, but the characters have fairly
realistic reactions to the situations, given their backgrounds and
lives.

OUTC includes a lot of additional details, such as the attempts of the
American traders/slavers to induce Chinese to move to San Fransisco to
help with the gold mining and railroad construction there, and the
massive internal fighting among the Chinese that limited their ability
to resist the foreign governments.  These details are again quite
accurate in their generalities, although the specifics may be entirely
fictitious.  In this way, OUTC is much like James Clavell's
\underline{Shogun} series --- there was obviously some good research
done in the historical department, but in order to make the story
properly exciting, additional plot lines were added later.

OUTC works well as a kung fu movie because the plot is one of great
struggle, and one of the new against the old.  Kung Fu is an ancient
art, and the depiction of it against guns is both realistic in its
outcome and apocraphyl in the larger picture.  The kung fu fighting
scenes add a lot to the pace of the movie, making it seem much shorter
than the two hours twenty minutes that the film ran.  It also helped
to reinforce the greatness of Huang, showing his amazing kung fu
abilities, leaving no doubt that he's the true protagonist of the
story, in case there was any doubt.  It was very interesting that his
most difficult fight was not against the head villain, as is often the
case, but instead against a basically decent Chinese guy (Yan
Zhendong) who has been forced by circumstances to work for the enemy.
the Americans and the Chinese gangsters/authorities are shown to be
mostly incapable fighters, with the exception of Tiger, the American
bodyguard, who is only mildly better.  The message is possibly that
those who are not virtuous are incapable of becoming kung fu masters,
but this runs contrary to the vast majority of kung fu movies.

The movie is a great depiction of the fight for Chinese nationalism,
in that the Chinese were basically badly beaten until they began to
adapt to Western ways a bit.  Direct combat against the Westerners was
a dead end approach in most cases, so other approaches needed to be
tried.  The Chinese were very proud of their martial arts abilities,
and to be beaten so easily (by the Westerners with guns) was a great
blow to the pride and egos.

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