Japan versus China in 'Heroes of the East'

China and Japan have a torrid relationship dating back centuries. Underneath the varied exchange of goods and knowledge and culture there lurked a constant low level conflict. Japanese warlords bucked the Chinese emperor in wars both cold and hot, stretching from the Koreas down to Southeast Asia and the coastline between. Pirates fought navies, samurai led invasions and even the Shaolin monks got into it.

China always considered Japan a impetuous little brother, spawned from the Qin Emperor's desperate quest to find the secret of immortality. According to this line of thinking, Japan's language, customs, art and even martial heritage all find their true origin in Mainland China. Japan naturally resents and rejects the idea. Rivalry grew out of familiarity with each other and debates over who owned what first.

More recently though, the relationship took a decided turn for the worse. As China was looking to modernized Tokyo as a model for staving off the Western powers, Japan's militarized state took advantage of Asia-wide weakness and unleashed WWII in the East. China and Japan fought for a decade; millions perished.

Beijing recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of their victory over Japan with a massive display of military might that had pundits across the globe jabbering about China and war and the remarkable resemblance to a resurgent Germany during the first half of the 20th century. To add fuel to the fire, Unesco agreed to include China's version of the Nanjing Massacre in its "Memory of the World" repository, enraging conservative Japanese politicians and once again tearing the tattered bandage off of Word War Two's unhealed wounds.

This as both countries aggressively circle a smattering of rocks in the North Pacific, the Senkaku Islands, and trade between the two countries in students and businessmen and fashion and music and television shows grows ever more vibrant and lucrative. Old enemies who can't help but copy and admire and buy from each other.

Now would be a good time to watch one of the few films to come out of Hong Kong in which the relationship between Japan and China is not portrayed as black and white, good versus evil: Heroes of the East (中华丈夫 "The Chinese Husband"), a Shaw Brothers feature that came out in 1978, starring Gordon Liu, Yuka Mizuno, Kurata Yasuaki and directed by Liu Chia Liang.

The Chinese Husband

Heroes of the East starts out with an arranged marriage between a Chinese man, Ho Tao, and a Japanese woman, Yumiko Koda. Their fathers are business partners and friends and the marriage was sealed when the two were children. When they first meet, Ho Tao is pleasantly surprised by Koda's beauty and how she initially plays the sweet, submissive wife. There are signs of coming conflict though: during the wedding Koda wears a traditional white Japanese wedding dress, instead of Chinese red, and she doesn't kowtow to her father in law, choosing instead to bow in the Japanese fashion. The Chinese ladies at the wedding are scandalized: in China, one wears white to a funeral, and not kowtowing to the father at a wedding is unthinkable.

Later, Ho Tao is accused of beating Koda when his clown of a servant overhears Koda training martial arts and mistakes her cries for those of a victim. Koda's martial arts skills are prodigious. She knows karate and judo, and eventually demonstrates ninjutsu and kendo as well. During one demonstration, she bares ample cleavage and raises her leg high to threaten a kick at Ho Tao's temple. He admonishes her, and says she should be more ladylike with her kung fu. He shows her "Chinese lady kung fu," which looks like a comical version of Wing Chun, including a bastardization of the narrower stance and some pretty ineffectual kicks. Koda naturally scoffs at this wimpy style, and goes on dominating the scene with her martial ways.

Although the familiar Chinese condescension is ripe, Koda is portrayed as a powerful headstrong woman worthy of admiration. She's wild, yes, but also powerful and beautiful and confident. A stubborn, disobedient wife but one who would be able to stand with her man against any unholy enemy.

The story shows traditional Chinese notions as flexible—a theme that carries on throughout the movie and one that sets the two nations and cultures apart: Japan is proud, powerful but unyielding, whereas China is humble, flexible and soft like the Tao. These contrasts are shown primarily through the husband and wife duels in which Japanese martial arts are shown to be rigid and strong, like the Japanese spear and kendo sword style, while the Chinese spear and sword is fluid and flexible

There are other dichotomies presented in the film. The most significant is also the one most often poorly translated. When Koda uses her ninja skills to attack Ho Tao, and show how close he came to death, they discuss the merits of victory and tactics.

Ho Tao declares Chinese wushu is devoted to the concept of 光明正大 which means all actions must be performed in the proverbial light of day, with honesty and respect, according to a moral code that allows for no trickery. Koda responds with 克乱致胜, which means to eradicate the disparate, chaotic, disorderly elements in order to gain victory.

The two continue to argue over which martial style and philosophy is the best, and come to blows throughout the first half of the film. Ho Tao is paternalistic and tries to soothe his hot headed, "somewhat barbaric" Japanese wife, but his mansplaining tone and ability to counter her skills with his own Chinese styles set her off even more, until she eventually leaves and heads back home to Japan.

The Japanese Masters

Ho Tao despairs, but will only make a move to get her back after his wily, clownish servant devises a letter insulting Japanese martial arts sure to enrage Koda and drive her to return to him. But Koda's old sensei and love interest, Takeno, reads the letter first. He can't abide the insult and takes seven of his toughest men to China along with his dojo's grandmaster to defeat Ho Tao and redeem Japanese honor.

Takeno is a very compelling, charismatic character. He is handsome, much more so than the doofy Ho Tao, and he has a regal, powerful bearing. When he arrives at Ho Tao's home, he explains that insults like that letter are a bad idea, and now Ho Tao has to deal with the consequences. But instead of just beating him down, Takeno offers Ho Tao the chance to fight each expert one at a time, each within roughly 24 hours of the other.

Takeno has brought with him experts in kendo, karate, nunchaku, Japanese spear and sai, and judo. Ho Tao meets each expert with a Chinese style: double-edged sword, drunken fist, three section staff and spear, and butterfly swords.

The battles are excellent, if dramatic, exhibitions of Chinese versus Japanese martial arts. Ho Tao wins all of the battles, two via trickery, and begins to learn about and admire Japanese culture and martial prowess. Director Liu Jia Liang goes to great lengths to show the respect is mutual, even with Ho Tao's trickery and grating, almost oblivious paternalistic manner.

Kung fu versus Ninja

The final fight between Takeno and Ho Tao is one of the best martial arts action sequences the Shaw Brothers and their teams put together. The two men employ darts and needles and Shuriken stars in a running battle across the Chinese countryside. They fight with spears and roped weapons, they try to pull fast ones on each other and engage in a protracted sword duel. Crab takes on Fujian White Crane. Kurata Yasuaki puts on the performance of his life as the ninja master from Japan, employing every trick and tactic in the book to defeat his Chinese rival.

There is no true victor in the end and no one dies, a very unique set up in 1970s kung fu cinema in which death and gore—especially when dealing with the hated Japanese—was par for course. There is a deep mutual admiration expressed at the end of the film and peace wins out over hatred, jealousy and fear. The film does end in the traditional Chinese way, with the Chinese husband educating his Japanese rivals as to the true nature and purpose of martial arts. They just can't help it. The Chinese deep sense of their own superior culture is just too ingrained and too palatable to the audience the Shaw Brothers were pandering to.

The thing is, that ethnocentric view of the world persists to this day. China's relative weakness in the world over the past century has only accentuated their sense of victimhood and desire for revenge. With each milestone met—second largest economy, everyone's biggest trading partner, most stuff produced, most stuff consumed—China becomes more and more willing to cast off humility and assert itself and claim its rightful place at the top. In Asia, the only country standing in the way of Chinese dominance is Japan, the hated enemy and ancient rival.

Heroes of the East is by no means a deep commentary on Asian geopolitics and history, but in a century of virulent anti-Japanese media and rhetoric, it stands out as the one of the most reasonable, most hopeful films out there.