(July 9, 1847 – March 25,
1924) Sigung Wong Fei Hung was a healer, martial artist
and revolutionary who became a Chinese folk hero often
described as the "Chinese Robin Hood". As
a healer and medical doctor, he practiced and taught
acupuncture and other forms of traditional Chinese
medicine at his 'Po Chi Lam' (???) clinic in Foshan,
where he was known for his compassion and policy of
treating any patient.
Wong Fei Hung was born in Foshan
on the ninth day in the seventh month of Daoguan
twenty-seventh year (1847),
brought up in Foshan. When Wong Fei Hung was six years
old, he started to study martial arts under his father
Wong Kei-Ying. As his family was poor, he always followed
his father to go to Foshan and Guangzhou to do martial
arts shows and sell medicines. In the year when he
was thirteen years old, once when he was giving a martial
arts show at Douzhixiang, Foshan, Huang Feihong met
Lin
Fucheng, the first apprentice of Tianqiaosan, who taught
him the "tour de force" of Tianxian Boxing
Arts and Sling etc, which helped him much in becoming
a master of Hongquan. When he was sixteen years old,
Wong Fei Hung set up a martial arts School at Shuijiao,
Diqipu, Xiguan, Guangdong, and then opened a medicine
shop named 'Po Chi Lam' at Renan Street. As a famous
martial arts Master, he had many apprentices. He was
successfully enganged by Jiming Provincial Commander-in-Chief
Wu Quanmei and Liu Yongfu as the military medical officer,
martial art general drillmaster and Guangdong local military
general drillmaster. He later followed Liu Youngfu to
fight against the Japanese army in Taiwan. His life was
full of frustration, and in his late years, he experienced
the loss of his son, the burning of Po Chi Lam. On lunar
year the twenty-fifth day of the third month in 1925,
Wong Fei Hung died of illness in Guangdong Chengxi Fangbian
Hospital.
He was a master of the Chinese martial art Hung
Gar. Wong systematized the predominant style of Hung
Gar and
choreographed its version of the famous Tiger Crane
Paired Form Fist, which incorporates his "Ten Special Fist" techniques.
Wong was famous for his skill with the technique known
as the "No Shadow Kick" (???). He is sometimes
included in the Ten Tigers of Canton, ten of the top
martial arts masters in Guangdong towards the end of
the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), a group to which
his father Wong Kei-Ying belonged. However, Fei-Hung
was not one of the Ten Tigers and was known instead as
the "Tiger after Ten."
Wong died in Canton a
few months after a riot burned his clinic to the ground.
His wife and two of his prominent
students (???,???) moved to Hong Kong, where they continued
teaching Wong's martial art. Wong became a legendary
hero whose real-life story was mixed freely with fictional
exploits on the printed page and onscreen.
Wong Fei Hung museum in Foshan, Guangzhou, China
From
the late 1940s into the 1960s, there was a Wong Fei
Hung movie series in Hong Kong consisting of roughly
100 movies. The star at that time was Kwan Tak Hing
who
gained his nickname "Master Wong" through this
movie series. It is claimed by some sources to be the
most prolific movie series ever, and Wong Fei Hung to
be the most-portrayed character in movie history. Both
Jackie Chan (in Drunken Master and Drunken Master II,
as a trouble-making youth) and Jet Li (as an adult contending
with European influence on China in the Once Upon a Time
in China series and in the comic take Wong Fei-hung chi
tit gai dau neung gung) played Wong Fei Hung. The character
of Wong Fei Hung also appeared as a child (played by
actress Tsang Sze-man) in the movie Iron Monkey alongside
his father (played by Donnie Yen).
Because it was used
as the theme song of the films, the Chinese folk song "On
the General's Orders" (???)
is now associated with Wong Fei-Hung, as is "A Man
Should Strive to be Stronger," its arrangement by
the late Wong Jim.
A Wong Fei-Hung museum has been built in Foshan.
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