Masters
Every kung fu style passes from master to student. This page tells who created and handed on the styles Chan Kowk Wai taught and other major styles, and how students of the Peking opera schools became the stars of Hong Kong action film.
Chan Kowk Wai (陳國偉, 1936–2022) was born in Taishan, Guangdong, and moved to Brazil in 1960. He taught five styles: Northern Shaolin, Yang-style taiji, baguazhang, xingyiquan and choy li fut.
The Chen line
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Chen Wangting 陳王廷
He commanded the Wen County garrison at the end of the Ming dynasty. After the Ming fell in 1644, he went back to Chenjiagou. The Chen family’s account is that he combined his military experience with meridian theory and daoyin breathing exercises.
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Chen Changxing 陳長興
He condensed the older routines into the two Old Frame forms (老架, Laojia). He taught Yang Luchan, the first student from outside the family on record.
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Chen Fake 陳發科
In 1928 he left Chenjiagou for Beijing at the request of his nephew Chen Zhaopi. In Beijing he proved the style in private challenges and in platform fights (lei tai).
Masters of the north
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Yang Luchan 楊露禪
A style Chan Kowk Wai taught
He came from a poor farming family in Yongnian, Hebei province. He worked at the Taihetang pharmacy, owned by Chen Dehu of Chenjiagou, who sent him to study with Chen Changxing. After more than ten years he returned to Hebei, earned the nickname 楊無敵, “Yang the Invincible”, and later taught the Qing court and its guards in Beijing.
Tradition tells: as an outsider, Yang watched the Chen lessons in secret at night, through a broken wall.
His grandson Yang Chengfu (楊澄甫, 1883–1936) standardised the large-frame form, removed most of the explosive strikes, jumps and stamps, and spread the style beyond Beijing.
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Dong Haichuan 董海川
A style Chan Kowk Wai taught
He arrived in Beijing around 1864 and worked in the household of Prince Su, where he trained the servants. Nearly every bagua school starts its lineage with him. His students included Yin Fu (尹福) and Cheng Tinghua (程廷華).
Tradition tells: bagua’s circle walking comes from a Daoist practice of walking in a circle while chanting.
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Li Luoneng e Guo Yunshen 李洛能 郭雲深
A style Chan Kowk Wai taught
Li Luoneng, from Shen County in Hebei, learned Xinyi from the Dai family and turned it into Xingyiquan. His students split into two branches, Shanxi and Hebei. Guo Yunshen, of the Hebei branch, is the best known.
The first documented practitioner of the art is older: Ji Longfeng (姬龍峰, 1588–1662) of Yongji, Shanxi. The Ji clan chronicle says the art was based on spear combat.
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Wu Zhong e Li Shuwen 吳鍾 李書文
Wu Zhong, called the “god of the spear”, was an instructor at the imperial court and later returned to Mengcun, in Cangzhou, Hebei, the place usually named as the birthplace of baji. Who taught him is disputed.
Tradition tells: Wu Zhong learned from two Daoist monks in 1727.
Li Shuwen, “God Spear Li”, adapted the Jin Gang Ba Shi set (金剛八式, Eight Postures of the Vajra Guardian) for army training. His students included Huo Diange (霍殿閣) and Liu Yunqiao (劉雲樵), who took baji to Taiwan.
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Gu Ruzhang 顧汝章
A style Chan Kowk Wai taught
Known in Cantonese as Ku Yu-cheung, the “Southward-bound Tiger”. He taught Songshan Shi Lu Shaolin Quan (嵩山十路少林拳): ten empty-hand routines, weapons and qigong. He was famous for Iron Palm. His father, Gu Lizhi, practised Tantui and Zhaquan. The Jingwu Athletic Association carried the northern styles to southern China.
Northern Shaolin is the base of training at Pak Shao Lin.
Masters of the south
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Wong Fei-hung e Lam Sai-wing 黃飛鴻 林世榮
Wong Fei-hung was a physician and master born in Foshan, and became the hero of many films. His student Lam Sai-wing wrote books on the three main Hung Ga forms. The Tiger Crane Double Form (虎鶴雙形拳) was choreographed by Wong Fei-hung, in his lineage.
Tradition tells: the style comes from Hung Hei-gun (洪熙官), a disciple of the southern Shaolin.
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Chan Heung 陳享
A style Chan Kowk Wai taught
He founded the system in 1836 in King Mui village, Xinhui, Guangdong. A Japanese paper gives 1863. The name joins his three teachers: the monk Choy Fook (蔡福), Li Yau-san (李友山) and his uncle Chan Yuen-woo (陳遠護), of the Fut (“Buddha”) style. Choy Fook agreed to teach him only if he studied Buddhism.
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Leung Jan e Ip Man 梁贊 葉問
Leung Jan was a physician in Foshan. The line passes through Chan Wah-shun (陳華順) to Ip Man, who moved to Hong Kong around 1949.
Tradition tells: the nun Ng Mui taught the art to Yim Wing-chun, a young woman who sold tofu, and she used it to defeat a bully who tried to force her into marriage. No one can prove who created Wing Chun.
From opera to film
Master Yu Jim-yuen (于占元) ran the China Drama Academy (中國戲劇學院), a Peking opera school in Hong Kong. Jackie Chan entered it in 1960, at about six, when his father moved to Australia to work.
Training lasted about ten years, under strict discipline: acrobatics, singing, acting and martial arts. Students took the name “Yuen” (元) from their master’s name. Jackie Chan’s stage name at the school was Yuen Lo (元樓).
The four skills of opera
- 唱 singing
- 念 reciting
- 做 acting
- 打 fighting
Opera has four basic skills: 唱 singing, 念 reciting, 做 acting and 打 fighting.
The Three Brothers
- Jackie Chan 成龍 born 1954
- Sammo Hung 洪金寶 born 1952
- Yuen Biao 元彪
The best students performed as the Seven Little Fortunes (七小福). Members included Sammo Hung (Yuen Lung), Yuen Biao and Jackie Chan, later known as the “Three Brothers”. The 1988 film Painted Faces (七小福), with Sammo Hung as Master Yu, tells this story.
Opera school graduates became Hong Kong’s action choreographers and stars, among them Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Corey Yuen. They took stage acrobatics into the Hong Kong action film.
Five names of kung fu film
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Bruce Lee 李小龍
1940–1973
Actor and martial artist. He created Jeet Kune Do.
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Jackie Chan 成龍
born 1954
Actor, martial artist and stuntman. Known for acrobatic and comic fight scenes.
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Jet Li 李連杰
born 1963
Five times national wushu champion of China before he worked in film.
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Sammo Hung 洪金寶
born 1952
Actor, director and martial arts choreographer in Hong Kong film.
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Donnie Yen 甄子丹
born 1963
Actor and martial artist, known for the Ip Man films.
Many masters
Master Aang Willians learned from Gilmar Dantas, in the lineage of Chan Kowk Wai, and has trained with many other masters, in Brazil and in China.
In 2025 he was selected for a stunt training programme in China. He paid for the trip with an online crowdfunding campaign and was in China, in Beijing, from 9 to 27 July.
台上一分鐘，台下十年功