Old School Kung Fu Night at AFS Cinema

We went to the brand new Austin Film Society cinema this weekend to see an old school kung fu movie. AFS has been around as an organization for awhile, setting up screenings of independent, foreign, and classic films. Until very recently, however they never had their own space.

For the last few years they've been renting out this event space fairly regularly for screenings, but now they've taken over the place and have refurbished its two theaters and lobby/bar area.

It's great that AFS can now bring more film screenings (that are actually projected on film) to Austin that otherwise wouldn't be seen here. I'm also very happy that it happens to be right near my house.

For the Old School Kung Fu weekend, AFS invited Dan Halsted, aka the Indiana Jones of Kung Fu film collectors. The films he brought, which are mainly from the famed Shaw Brothers studios made in the 1970's-80's, were at one point all thought to be basically lost.

The originally 35mm prints had all been destroyed or hidden away, and only old VHS transfers were available. Dan made it his personal mission to find better quality versions, and in 2009 he got lucky.

He received some 35mm trailers of old kung fu movies from a Canadian distributor and tracked their source to a Shaw Brothers theater in Vancouver that had been abandoned since 1985. In the decrepit building in the middle of Vancouver's skid row, he found thousands of reels of film underneath a decaying stage.

Dan had discovered a treasure trove of 35mm martial arts prints, along with some other obscure prints such as some "off-the-wall Chinese horror" films. Dan told us before the screening that they literally had to sweep away the needles and crack pipes to cart the films out of there.

Luckily for Kung Fu fans everywhere, Dan now travels around booking screenings for his amazing collection and is now known as the "Indiana Jones of Kung Fu movies."

The film we saw, Fists of the White Lotus, looked great in 35mm. Sure it had it's fair share of scratches, but overall the quality was fantastic and the film scratches just added to the aesthetic.

Fists of the White Lotus, which was quite an enjoyable ride even if the plot was a bit thin at points. The main villain, Pai Mei played by Lo Lieh (who also directed the film and choreographed the fight scenes), was the star of the show. His facial expressions were ridiculously overstated and hilarious. After watching this movie, I feel like Lo Lieh is the original Samuel L Jackson.

Who else but Lo Lieh and Samuel L Jackson are such masters of the condescending gaze?

Even if Samuel L Jackson has never seen Fists of the White Lotus, it was clearly a strong influence on Quentin Tarantino.

Pai Mei is a well known Chinese mythical figure and has been portrayed many times, but the Pai Mei of the Tarantino's Kill Bill series is a direct copy of Lo Lieh's performance. Tarantino even got the hero of this very film, Chia Hui-Liu (aka Gordon Liu), to play Pai Mei in his movies.

There are lots of other little nuggets Tarantino borrowed from this film, including the inspiration for the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. In Fists of the White Lotus there are a few different versions of this move, with differing amounts of steps allowed before death, but otherwise it's a very direct homage.

If you're a film buff or kung fu fan, you need to make it out to a screening when Dan Halsted comes to your area. It's a unique and classic experience, I only wish we had gotten to see more of them.

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Read more about Dan Halsted and his Indiana Jones-esque search in this interview he did with the Austin Chronicle

AFS cinema picture taken by me, other image sources 2, 2

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