International Folk Heroes?

[Boxy T Mighty]

Hey!

I'm currently working on a project for my film class about folk heroes. I'm basically wanting to compare scenes of folk heroes inspiring the common people to rise up, etc. I already have Alexander Nevsky and Robin Hood, but I was wanting a third, non-Western hero to add to the mix. The problem, though, is that I'm pretty unfamiliar with most non-Western films.

So what would your favorite film moments of folk heroes?

[ElectricTurtle]

Wow nobody has replied in a week? I suppose the ones that come to mind from my sino-centric foreign film experience are Wong Fei Hung (who has been portrayed in dozens of films dating all the way back to the 1940s, but is probably best known in the West via Jet Li's portrayal in Once Upon a Time in China), his father Wong Kei Ying (played by Donnie Yen in the popular film Iron Monkey), his best known disciple Lam Sai Wing (made protagonist in the Magnificent Butcher and played by Sammo Hung), and separately Huo Yuanjia (also portrayed by Jet Li in Fearless). Huo Yuanjia was also catalytic in Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (AKA The Chinese Connection) as the suspiciously deceased master of the protagonist, fictional student Chen Zhen of the Chin Woo Athletic Association founded by Huo Yuanjia.

There really isn't a common thread between all of them at least in what I've seen of their film portrayals. Wong Fei Hung is portrayed as character fighting the erosion of the cultural heritage of the Chinese by Western influence, as well as an opponent of government corruption, and to a lesser and more general extent the apathy of common Chinese society as it contributes to China's decline. (I'm not as familiar with Kwan Tak Hing's portrayal of the character, which as I understand is more severe/austere, more focused on the Confucian patriarchal virtues.)

Wong Kei Ying also fights against government corruption, though that is likely more fiction than fact.

Lam Sai Wing is not treated fairly by his film portrayals. Usually denigrated a bumbling fatass who succeeds mostly by luck and accident, he was in fact an award-winning martial artist, one of the greatest masters of the Hung Gar style and teacher of thousands. For half a dozen years he was chief instructor of hand-to-hand combat in Fujian Province for the Nationalist government.

Huo Yuanjia is depicted as standing up for the cultural validity and fighting strength of China against Western detractors (and the Japanese, which on a tangentally related thematic note, it's interesting how in both Fearless and the unabashedly chop socky film Dual to the Death the Japanese warrior character is portrayed as ethical and honorable but the Japanese leadership is portrayed as underhanded and corrupt). The same theme is echoed in the depiction of his fictional student Chen Zhen.

The defense of Chinese culture, values, identity etc. is such a common theme for folk heroes because it has been relevant for centuries. It can be argued that the Mongols were defeated culturally before they were defeated militarily, and the Manchurians attacked Han culture when they overthrew the Ming Dynasty by mandating the Han Chinese must dress and cut their hair in the Manchurian style or be executed. (Only recently has a backlash been brewing about the portrayal of 'traditional Chinese dress' as the Manchurian changshan/cheongsam and qipao instead of the hanfu worn for millennia by the majority ethnic Han Chinese.) Then as the empire was collapsing the Western influence began invading the Chinese cultural sphere and patronizing the Chinese as backward, impotent, and worthy only of subjugation. The culture wars would continue as the communists took over and fought against traditional Chinese values and thought because it was held that those systems reinforced counter-revolutionary social hierarchies.

This cultural focus seems best expressed in the thematic unity of Bruce Lee's movies where the underlying conflict is usually 'the Chinese' vs. 'the foreigners'. In The Big Boss it's Thai people, in Fist of Fury it's the Japanese, and in Way of the Dragon it's the Italians. Always the Chinese are portrayed as being antagonized into defensive action by the oppressive foreign criminals.

Anyway, don't hesitate to ask if you want more out of me.