Yuen Woo-Ping Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award at NYAFF 2019
July 9th, 2019 by chocko
Last week, the New York Asian Film Festival was in full swing featuring an award ceremony for the legendary Hong Kong action choreographer and director Yuen Woo-Ping. Yuen directed Jackie Chan in his first two movies, Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master. Yuen went on to make a ton of movies starring kung fu heavyweights such as Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen, Yuen Biao, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. Many years later, American audiences would know him for his work in the Matrix movies, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Kill Bill. Back in the day when Mr. C and I collected kung fu VHS tapes on our trips to NYC, if Yuen Woo-Ping’s name was mentioned somewhere on the box, we knew that the action scenes were going to be off the hook with jaw dropping choreography! Yuen was awarded The Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center. Yuen graciously accepted the award and said a few words which you can see in a video below.
The award ceremony was followed by a screening of Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy. The movie is an excellent spinoff to the Ip Man series which features Max Zhang back in the role of Master Z. After his defeat to Ip Man, Master Z looks to live a quiet life running a small grocery store and taking care of his son. Drug dealing gangsters put an end to the peaceful life for Master Z and sure enough, it’s back to kicking and punching in the Hong Kong streets. I wasn’t aware of the stellar cast in the movie but there is Tony Jaa who plays the mysterious Sadi the warrior, David Bautista as a restaurant owner and Michelle Yeoh as the leader of an organized crime gang. The action in the movie is some of the best in recent years especially a sequence above the streets and among the neon signs. I highly recommend the film to fans of the genre and you best believe I’ll be seeing it again soon and hopefully in a movie theater packed with kung fu movie fans. Yuen Woo-Ping came back after the movie for a Q&A moderated by Samuel Jamier of NYAFF.
If you are interested in seeing more of what the 18th Annual New York Asian Film Festival (June 28 – July 14) has to offer then check out http://filmlinc.org or http://nyaff.org for more information.
Tags: 2019, cinema, kung fu, lincoln center, movies, new york asian film festival, new york city, nyaff 2019, yuen woo-ping
Posted in chocko, movies, photos | Comments (0)
