Readers will need a deep interest in the martial arts to enjoy Wing Chun Warrior by Ken Ing (2008, Blacksmith Books, 256 pages). In an awkwardly long subtitle, the book promises The True Tales of Wing Chun Kung Fu Master Duncan Leung, Bruce Lee's Fighting Companion.
At age 13, Duncan Leung, in a traditional worship ritual of “three kneels, nine kowtows”, became a disciple to a Wing Chun master, Yip Man. From 1955 to 1959, Yip taught him to fight. Leung trained six hours a day, seven days a week, using what he learned in Hong Kong's streets and combat clubs.
The Wing Chun fight style “was named after a beautiful young woman, Yim Wing-chun. Supremely dazzling, she sold beancurd for a living.... Wu Mei, a Shaolin nun took Yim Wing-chun under her protection, teaching her Shaolin Kung Fu in order to fend off the advances of an unwelcome suitor. Subsequently, Yim had a vision in the garden in which she observed a white crane and a snake fighting. Yim's epiphany inspired Wu Mei to found a new and revolutionary martial art, which she named after its originator: Wing Chun Kung Fu.”
Wing Chun Warrior's greatest strength is boosting the public's knowledge of martial arts and the combatants. Luckily, Leung “was born in an era when fighting in the streets and Kung Fu studios of Hong Kong was dealt with more leniently by the law.”
Readers gain insight. “There are millions of Kung Fu practitioners in China, yet there has not been a single convincing fighter from China in the past several decades. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in October 1949, Chinese citizens have been prohibited from studying Kung Fu for combat because the government wanted to dispel competition and infighting among rival schools. As a result, Kung Fu has been relegated to exercise and the stage.”
What about the merits of martial arts? “Helping others is a virtue expected of every Kung Fu practitioner. Otherwise, why learn Kung Fu at all? The martial artist should be prepared to help the oppressed, the bullied, and the downtrodden.”
Readers trail Leung to Australia and the United States. After opening a Wing Chun studio in New York in 1974, he beat off challenges from other schools' fighters. Soon he taught U.S. Navy SEALs, FBI agents and SWAT members.
Written in short, bite-sized chapters, Wing Chun Warrior amounts to little more than a series of anecdotes. The need to feature the late move star Bruce Lee on the cover when the book's mainly about someone else hints at serious shortcomings.
Although the book has entertaining passages, its problems soon mount. It falls short as a biography by making no pretence to follow Leung's entire life. It fails as an expose because, as the author confesses, Leung withholds many details. It stumbles as an action tale due to lulls between the furious combat.
After each described fight scene there's an oddly distracting review in comics-style drawings. For example, one pits “Duncan Leung with chopsticks” against a “Thai with a pool cue”.
Wing Chun Warrior brims with a little of everything. Too much diversity seeds dissatisfaction on many levels.
Ing, a retired doctor, met Leung in 1999. A few years passed before the author learned of Leung's colorful history and convinced him to tell parts of his life story.
Most readers will want to know more than Ing and his subject reveal. If a story’s worth telling, then it's worth telling completely. Wing Chun Warrior scores no knockout.
Approval rating: 47 per cent.
For more information: www.blacksmithbooks.com
(January 1, 2009)
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