Drama Version of Kung Fu

On October 25th and 26th, the drama version of Kung Fu was performed on the Dulwich International High School Suzhou campus for two consecutive days. The two performances were packed with cheers! In the play, there is magic, martial arts, love and jokes. Bringing an innovative version of the classic film Kung Fu to the stage was a challenging but rewarding task!

Brief introduction of Kung Fu

Kung Fu is a gangster action-comedy. It takes place in the era of social unrest and rampant gangs, among which the "Axe Gang" is the most frightening. Baozugong and Baozupo are the managers of the pig cage City, and they are also the peerless masters who hide their identities. There are also some experts in the village of pig cage city. They all enjoy a peaceful life in this small poor town. Xing is a glib, uncertain little gangster who wants to join the axe gang. He makes pig cage city village offend the axe gang. The Axe Gang regards Xing as a chess piece to annihilate the pig cage city village. In this process, Xing also discovers the good and evil in the human world.

The whole play is interspersed with traditional Chinese martial arts: sword fighting, boxing, cudgel, and a little magic, as well as sweet romantic love.

At 18:30 p.m., the curtain slowly opened. With the large screen displaying historical Hong Kong architecture, the memory of the "pig cage city village" slowly came into view.

The villagers of "pig cage city village"

The drama provided innovative approaches to characters in the play. For example, charterer was dressed in pyjamas and had a full of hair curls. Axe Gang in the dark red light during the axe dance, left the audience with a lingering sense of fear. From the ruffian Street gangster, the daily charter public, the enchanting bucktooth Zhen and the mysterious killer Tiancandican, a series of vivid performance made each character fresh and distinctive. All of the characters from the original Kung Fu were brought to life incisively.

During the classic scenes of the Baozupo catching up with Xing, the large backdrop screen display was used in conjunction with physical stage props to great effect. The drama production has also made a lot of innovations beyond what was seen in the original film. The most amazing thing is that the evil god of huoyun was turned into a cool girl with a red umbrella in her leather clothes and trousers!

The whole drama is full of ups and downs, with laughter, tears, depth and respect. Running for Just over an hour, there was applause and cheering throughout.

Under the impact of the epidemic situation, the drama Kung Fu had experienced many twists and turns. Behind this wonderful play was the dedication of teachers and students from Dulwich International High School Suzhou for more than a year. The creation, performance, stage, costume and props design of the drama "Kung Fu" were all completed by the students of the school’s Chinese drama club.

"We started to rehearse this play in August last year. We originally planned to perform it last year, but it has been delayed until now because of the epidemic," said leno L, the senior member of our school’s Chinese drama club. Leno played the role of the charterer. After several twists and turns, many students were unable to participate in Kung Fu because they had graduated. Some students quit because of academic or personal reasons. After several replacements and the injection of “new blood”, the crew was not stable until just two months before the performance. Therefore, the real rehearsal time was only two months!

Due to the continuous change of actors, the crew spent a lot of effort designing characters. For example, huoyun evil god, the crew had a variety of ideas: Like the original old version with the bald head? Or an uncle? Or a cute girl? It was only near the end of the production that the image of the evil goddess was determined.

Every time you change an actor, you have to redesign the character. Two weeks before the performance, martial arts instructor Lin Xinhao was still receiving information in the early hours of the morning, because the role changes require redesigns of the martial arts action. "I met another martial arts instructor that night. I designed it until 2 a.m. and gave an emergency plan." Lin Xinhao said.

In order to insure that highest production standard for Kung Fu, Aimee Yang, teacher of Dulwich International High School Suzhou Chinese drama club, gave up the chance to see her family in New Zealand and could not be with her family for seven months. "Because I really can't give up these children, their enthusiasm and seriousness infected me, and we must do this well," Aimee Yang said.

In addition to the twists and turns brought about by the epidemic, it is also very difficult to bring such a classic film with magic, Kung Fu, and funny elements onto the stage. "The movie has wires, special effects, sub shots and so on, but not on the stage. We thought about a lot of things, including the safety, feasibility, stage effects and so on, and each actor had a lot to consider, " Leno L said. Many interesting ideas came out. For example, the fat boy who went to "pig cage city village" to make a scene wore a coat full of tattoos. There is also the "Rulaishenzhang" that comes down from the sky, which is expressed by many people holding the stars from the sky.

Students had to learn Kung Fu from scratch. How to use swords, axes, sticks and so on. In the process, some minor injuries were inevitable.

Elvis S, the lead actor, is a new member of the club. At first, he didn't grasp his role well. At the teacher's suggestion, he began to write a character analysis, analysing the appearance and heart of Xing, the image of the character presented, and reasons why that image was presented to the audience.

Under the constant coaching of teachers and peers, Elvis has gone from giving an unnatural performance to performing with a natural expression on the stage. In particular, the emotional drama with the grown dumb girl left a deep impression: "When two people are not familiar with each other, it's not easy to make a spark on the stage. Thank you very much for the efforts of the two actors," said Wu Yuxin, who is in charge of stage control.

Everyone has changed and grown!

With the hard work behind them, students found that they have grown a lot, changed a lot and some of them found a future direction of development.

Aimee also observed: "at the beginning, some children were very delicate, but now, they are very mature."

Elaine C, who plays Baozupo, overcame her fear of heights and performed brilliantly on a temporary "loft" nearly two meters up! Elvis S, who usually looks like a little ruffian, finished the performance with an injured toe (due to personal reasons). Elvis said he couldn't give up because he knew that everyone had put too much effort into the play.

Leno L, who played Baozugong, understands more about life now. Leno L is currently the oldest member of the community. When the rest of the crew left one by one, all the backstage work fell on Leno. "There was a period of confusion," leno said. Fortunately, some teachers and classmates have given him a lot of help. "I understand that the crew is a whole, and everyone will help me. It also made me realize that in the future, any difficulty will not be so difficult when we all work together for a goal, "

The Drama club opens doors for students to find their direction in life. Many students decided to engage in drama-related work in the future after production. Gu Jixin, the screenwriter of Kung Fu, used to be a person who was good at writing but was self-abased and introverted. Because of the drama society, she began to try to write scripts and gained a full sense of accomplishment. In the communication with her classmates and teachers, she has become more and more cheerful, generous and confident. Last year, she was successfully admitted to a film production major at a well-known university in the United States and has begun to major in screenwriting. During the preparation of Kung Fu, she still helped the crew to revise the script.

Coincidentally, these stories of the club members coincide with the original intention of the teacher to choose the film Kung Fu: "Kung Fu" tells a story of a small person. After a lot of experience, he found his original heart and made great achievements "Everyone has a process of finding themselves," Aimee said. In my opinion, no matter who it is, it is a great thing to find the original heart and dream and work hard for it. "

The drama club is full of enthusiasm, dreams and stories has become an unforgettable memory of a group of Dulwich students on their way to University, which also makes the association have a strong cohesion. During the performance of Kung Fu this year, many members of the club who have graduated from the school specially went back to watch it. They all said that they missed the rehearsal times at Dulwich International High School Suzhou Chinese drama club and enjoyed performing in the spotlight!