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What fantasy and kung fu films have in common
Monday, June 21st, 2010 11:34 amWhile thinking about the tangle of features that distinguish fantasy from other genres I just came across one that it had in common with a different genre: martial arts films. Of course, martial arts films often overlap with fantasy anyway, from the historical/legendary wuxia pian of mainland China to frolics like Big Trouble in Little China. That is only to be expected. The point that struck me, though, is that both genres there is a link between a person's power and their personal qualities. When people have unusual powers, it is because they are unusually good—or unusually bad. This is true of many genres, but it is brought out in particular in the fantasy and martial arts traditions.
The whole Campbellian hero's journey thing is about some kid who is the Chosen One, goes through a load of ordeals which prove his moral superiority to the Unchosen Ones and then (often with the help of some magical object which only the Chosen One can wield) kicks ass righteously, thus removing any doubts about his Chosen status. This is very like a typical martial arts scenario, though there is usually less emphasis on the hero's original chosenness and more on the ordeals (martial arts films have a strong work ethic). Aaron Anderson, who has the wonderful dual occupation of academic and fight choreographer, writes in a paper on Kill Bill:
All this is very reminiscent of Star Wars, and not only because Star Wars draws on the same martial arts film tradition. The whole Jedi/Shaolin/Samurai thing serves to mark the hero out as a person whose physical feats come from his spiritual worth, which in turn melds with the "noble blood" (Midi-chlorians) theme of Western legend—unfortunately, in my opinion. Luke's destruction of the Death Star is achieved by his use of the Force, and it is only Luke who can do it. This is one reason why, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Star Wars is on the blurred edge of the fantasy/SF divide. Another example is the light saber, which combines "the iconography of the samurai sword" (as Anderson puts it) with the long tradition of magic swords in the legends of both Europe and the Far East. Certain weapons are such that only certain people are meant to use them: only the true king can draw Excalibur from the stone; to wield the Green Destiny, "first you must learn to hold it in silence."
This is not the approach of most hard science fiction. In SF, a powerful weapon is a powerful weapon; it doesn't usually require a powerful person to wield it. Now you can write a SF story about a weapon which will only respond to a certain kind of person, but to the extent that it's still SF and not fantasy, the emphasis will be on the weapon, and the weapon could be reprogrammed to respond to someone else. When the focus moves towards the qualities of the person, as in, say, the Dune books, then the genre starts to shift away from hard SF and towards space opera, which is already half way to fantasy.
The whole Campbellian hero's journey thing is about some kid who is the Chosen One, goes through a load of ordeals which prove his moral superiority to the Unchosen Ones and then (often with the help of some magical object which only the Chosen One can wield) kicks ass righteously, thus removing any doubts about his Chosen status. This is very like a typical martial arts scenario, though there is usually less emphasis on the hero's original chosenness and more on the ordeals (martial arts films have a strong work ethic). Aaron Anderson, who has the wonderful dual occupation of academic and fight choreographer, writes in a paper on Kill Bill:
a script that shows a character voluntarily subjecting herself to physical pain also tells us something about the inner "strength" or "desire" of that character. Martial arts films often therefore use training sequences as a shorthand description of the strength of a character’s inner desire ("heart" or "willpower").Beatrix Kiddo is an invincible fighter not least because of the kind of person she is: she persists in the training ("The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei") and learns the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique that lets her kill Bill in the end. If she'd just picked up a gun and shot him, it wouldn't have been the same. The way she wins shows that she deserves to win.
All this is very reminiscent of Star Wars, and not only because Star Wars draws on the same martial arts film tradition. The whole Jedi/Shaolin/Samurai thing serves to mark the hero out as a person whose physical feats come from his spiritual worth, which in turn melds with the "noble blood" (Midi-chlorians) theme of Western legend—unfortunately, in my opinion. Luke's destruction of the Death Star is achieved by his use of the Force, and it is only Luke who can do it. This is one reason why, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Star Wars is on the blurred edge of the fantasy/SF divide. Another example is the light saber, which combines "the iconography of the samurai sword" (as Anderson puts it) with the long tradition of magic swords in the legends of both Europe and the Far East. Certain weapons are such that only certain people are meant to use them: only the true king can draw Excalibur from the stone; to wield the Green Destiny, "first you must learn to hold it in silence."
This is not the approach of most hard science fiction. In SF, a powerful weapon is a powerful weapon; it doesn't usually require a powerful person to wield it. Now you can write a SF story about a weapon which will only respond to a certain kind of person, but to the extent that it's still SF and not fantasy, the emphasis will be on the weapon, and the weapon could be reprogrammed to respond to someone else. When the focus moves towards the qualities of the person, as in, say, the Dune books, then the genre starts to shift away from hard SF and towards space opera, which is already half way to fantasy.
