The martial arts community lost a treasured elder and trailblazing icon when Cheng Pei-pei passed away. She was 78 years old.
Known as “The Queen of Swords,” Cheng is considered by many film and martial arts experts to be the first female action star. Her groundbreaking acting career spanned decades, countries, and genres and included everything from early Shaw Brothers classics like Come Drink With Me (1966) to Ang Lee’s crossover masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), to the live action Mulan (2020).
This week’s blog is dedicated to celebrating her life and work.
How did Cheng Pei-pei become involved in martial arts?
Cheng Pei-pei’s background is actually in a different type of physical discipline: dance. As a child in Shanghai, she was in charge of escorting her younger sister to and from her dance lessons. While the younger girl showed no real interest in the activity, her teachers noticed that the elder Cheng was studying and practicing their techniques from the sidelines. Believing that she had an aptitude for the art, they encouraged her to start taking lessons herself. She picked up ballet so well that she went on to teach it as well.
When she was a teenager, Cheng Pei-pei moved to Hong Kong and took an actor’s training course with the Shaw Brothers studio. Thanks to her dance background, she soon became an asset to the studio’s opera films, both as a performer and a choreographer. But when the Shaw Brothers started making the move to martial arts movies and looking for an actress to play the role of Golden Swallow in the now classic wuxia film Come Drink With Me, Run Run Shaw saw another potential application for her talents.
“When they started looking, they wanted to use someone from Chinese opera for the role of Golden Swallow,” she told the South Asia Morning Post in 2020. “But Run Run Shaw saw me on stage doing a Chinese [folk] dance and thought, from the movements that I made, I could be a very good martial arts actress.”
He was right. With her dancer’s gracefulness and agility and her willingness to try anything that was thrown at her, Cheng quickly became a master of the genre. She went on to make almost 20 wuxia pictures with the Shaw Brothers and regularly returned to the genre throughout her storied career. In fact her final role was in the martial arts-themed Mulan.
What martial arts did Cheng Pei-pei train in?
Cheng once told Kung Fu Magazine that she had never considered herself a martial artist. “I’m really a dancer. I tell my children that it’s a bonus to be a dancer because you are graceful, can kick high, bend low. But kung fu is different; you must learn to use your power, and the body types are different. In Crouching Tiger, people ask me how come Chow Yun-fat doesn’t know how to fight? I tell them it’s not important, because he’s an actor and the movie is a movie and not a documentary. Fights are universal, but in drama you must know your culture and accept that; otherwise you won’t understand why something happens the way it does. Love in Chinese and Western films are communicated differently, but fights are the same, and we can understand what they’re fighting about.”
As she told Time Out in 2015, though, she was always up for a fight. “I’ve always been an active person, so when I got a chance to act out fight scenes, I was happy to oblige. I’m actually a bit of a tom boy.”
That included any stunt work, wire work, or other training that her roles required. Cheng first took formal lessons in martial arts techniques during her early days at the Shaw Brothers studio, where she was taught how to use knives, swords, and poles, and she continued to improve on those skills throughout her life.
What martial arts weapons did Cheng Pei-pei use?
Cheng was so adept with a sword that she earned the name The Queen of Swords. They were also her favourite tool in her martial arts performances. “Swords are definitely my weapon of choice. You can be more agile with it,” she said in Time Out.
Although she focused on the bo staff in her later years — and was quite good with it — she never enjoyed it quite as much. “As I got older I would fight more with a staff, since it looked more appropriate for my age, but I found it be awfully cumbersome.”
What are Chen Pei-pei’s best movies?
Cheng Pei-pei’s filmography is jam-packed with impressive and exciting films. It would be almost impossible to narrow down her work into a definitive top five. These following films are a good introduction to who she was and what she could do, though:
Come Drink With Me: This 1966 Ming Dynasty epic stars Cheng Pei-pei as Golden Swallow, a skilled sword fighter who stands up to a notorious bandit after her brother is kidnapped. It’s widely considered one of the greatest wuxia films of all time.
Wing Chun: This 1994 Hong Kong film features one foundational martial arts legend playing another. Cheng plays Ng Mui, the founder of Kung Fu. It also happens to star a coupe of other young legends in the making named Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Ang Lee’s 2000 Academy Award winner was both a triumphant return to wuxia films for Cheng and an exciting new challenge. Jade Fox was the first big villain she’d ever played in the genre. Once again, she quickly adapted to her new skillset and excelled at it.
Meditation Park: This 2017 Canadian drama might not be a martial arts film, but it’s a really charming insight into the depth and breadth of her talents. It also features a then-70-year-old Cheng power walking, dancing, and riding a bike, which is a testament to the fact that she was ready for any physical activities, even in her later years.
