Chen Hu

essential information

Early experience

After Chen Hu won the Chinese Junior martial arts championship, he was picked up by an American martial arts school, so the Chengdu teenager began his new American life. By chance, Chen Hu was accepted as a disciple by Hong Kong action director yuan Heping, which opened the curtain of his Hollywood career.

Acting experience

With his excellent martial arts, he was the action director of the American blockbuster matrix as soon as he got out of the mountain, and then he was the action creator of "baby thunderbolt" and "Kill Bill". He became the coach of many famous Hollywood movie stars, and created the history of martial arts training for actors in Hollywood action movies. Chen Hu's "matrix" and "Kill Bill" have both won the nominations of the "world film stunt Award" held by Hollywood, making a sensation in the overseas Chinese world.

Because Chen Hu, a famous Hollywood star in the matrix, met kenu Reeves. They have been together for 16 years from apprenticeship to intimate brotherhood. In 16 years, kenu Reeves has learned a lot about China, a national culture with one eighth of his blood line, from Chen Hu, and got a good reputation“ The name of Lao Li. In order to witness their 16 years of brotherhood, and to confirm "Lao Li"'s understanding of Chinese culture in the past 16 years, the two brothers jointly planned a film "Taiji Xia", the first director's maiden work of "Lao Li"'s life, and also the first role play as a villain, which he only wrote for his brother.

On July 5, 2013, "taijixia" was released in major cinemas. Later, Chen Hu signed a contract with "Zui Xiaoyao" to act as the image spokesman of the online game.

In 2017, a series of films starring Chen Hu, such as "Kung Fu machine man's South fist hero" and "Kung Fu machine man's North leg flying like clouds", were released. In the same year, Chen Hu, Tony Jia and Ike UAIS co starred in the action film "triple threat" directed by Jesse Johnson.

Main works

Take part in TV series

Take part in the film

Instructional film

Episode 1, 2 and 3 of the matrix

Baby thunderbolt

Kill Bill

Kung Fu

Crouching tiger, Hidden Dragon

Denny and the dog

Jingwu family

Huo Yuanjia

The banquet

Award winning record

China National Junior Wushu champion;

National karate competition 60 kg class champion;

All around champion of San Francisco International Wushu Invitational.

personal anecdote

Yuan Baye's "position in the world"

Chen Hu, once a martial arts teacher in Yuan Heping's team, has been reported by many media because he worked as a Kung Fu teacher for a group of Hollywood stars such as kenu Reeves and Cameron Diaz. When a reporter from global magazine asked Chen Hu what impressed him most when he was a martial arts teacher in Hollywood, he thought about it and laughed: "it was the producer of matrix who invited us to a meal."

At that time, the filming of the film was quite intense, but one day the producer announced, "I want to give you a surprise. Today we have Chinese food!" In the evening, the producer went to the local Chinatown to invite the master to cook a rich Chinese dish for the Chinese martial arts teachers in the cast.

"But that's not much. After a while, as soon as the door opened, a group of people in Tang costume came in with Pipa and Guqin in their arms. Then they sat down and began to play Chinese music for us You think about that scene, eating Chinese food with live background music, it's so fun! "

In Chen Hu's opinion, the reason why the producers meticulously arranged such a soundtrack dinner was that Hollywood at that time still had a very mysterious sense of Chinese Kung Fu, and the position of Chinese martial arts teachers in the production group was also very high, especially yuan Heping. No matter what he said, everyone would think that it was yuan Baye who said it, and it would not be wrong!

However, this is not because of how strong yuan Heping is. On the contrary, as an oriental, Yuan Heping is quite modest. When I first filmed matrix in Australia, local action teams joined the production team. Sometimes the two sides would come up with different plans when designing the actions in the next day's play. Yuan Heping always gave in and said, "let's shoot according to your opinions. We'll have a day off tomorrow.".

As a result, in the afternoon of the next day, the phone from the crew came after him: "Mr. Yuan, come here quickly. We've been shooting all day, but we can't get the desired effect!" After the "emergency rescue in the river and lake" happened several times, Yuan Heping's prestige in the crew was naturally established.

Americans are very good at learning

In the early years after the success of the matrix, Hong Kong kung fu films and Kung Fu people received unprecedented attention in Hollywood. Many Hollywood directors used some classic Hong Kong kung fu films as teaching materials when they were making action plays.

Chen Hu also clearly remembers that when yuan Jiaban was directing martial arts in "Thunderbolt baby", the director showed you iron horse distillation, starring Donnie Yen and Yu Rongguang. Sometimes when I see a wonderful scene, the director will shout: "yes, yes, that's the action, I want the effect!"

So, can Hollywood stars without martial arts skills really make Hong Kong kung fu movies? Chen Hu explained that, in fact, it is still not possible. Before shooting, Keanu Reeves, Liu Yuling, Cameron Diaz and others will experience short-term "devil training" under his guidance, but there is still a big gap compared with Donnie Yen.

"But it doesn't matter. Take" Thunderbolt baby "for example, as long as the three of them are half as good as Donnie Yen, the effect will be better than Donnie Yen. They are girls, not the same." Chen Hu said with a smile.

Will these superstars have a big temper with Shifu? Chen Hu answered with certainty: No, at least the big stars he contacted are very professional, and Chinese martial arts masters are not low in the cast. Americans admire people who have real skills and are willing to take risks, and pay them much higher than ordinary staff. Yuan Heping's yuan family troupe, Cheng Xiaodong's Cheng family troupe, and Yuan Kui's troupe all appeared in Hollywood blockbusters in those years.

Unfortunately, in the past two years, it has been very difficult to see Chinese people in Hollywood, except for some martial arts teachers, such as Qiu Ming, who is a stand in for Chinese American female stars.

One of the reasons, of course, is the decline of Hollywood Kung Fu craze. Secondly, Hollywood's "protectionism" has risen. In order to protect the job opportunities of local filmmakers, it has begun to exclude outsiders. In addition, in Chen Hu's view, there is another important reason: through cooperation in the past few years, American action directors have learned a lot from Mrs. Gong of China, which is enough to meet the needs of ordinary action film shooting.

"When I was a martial arts instructor in Hollywood at that time, I often reminded my colleagues to keep it, not to teach the American people everything about the house in order to earn a little more money. Americans are very good at learning. When they learn, we will have no food to eat Now, it is. " Chen Hu laughed.

It can be seen that Chen Hu doesn't really care about his job in Hollywood. In his opinion, Chinese Kung Fu is too extensive and profound, and what American filmmakers can only learn is superficial. But he cares that although Chinese martial arts schools are blooming all over the world and kung fu movies are coming out one after another, the real situation of Chinese Kung Fu is not optimistic.

American martial arts school and Bruce Lee's dream

Like many Kung Fu stars, Chen Hu, who was born in Sichuan, entered a sports school to study martial arts at a very young age and won many national martial arts Championships. However, unlike other martial arts stars, he began to feel that what he studied was not the Chinese Kung Fu he had dreamed of before.

At this time, he came into contact with a "secret collection of Wulin" -- Qigong knowledge revelation, which made him find the master he had been looking for for for a long time: Lu Jinchuan, the martial arts leader of Tianmen sect. With Master Lu, Chen Hu began to learn real Chinese Kung Fu. This also laid the foundation for him to participate in various combat competitions in the United States.

In the late 1990s, Chen Hu was selected for a Sino US exchange event and came to the United States. In the following years, he won the national karate competition, the national hualangdao competition, the San Francisco International Invitational Competition, the California Taekwondo competition and so on.

"In fact, when I came to the United States, I wanted to do communication and perform martial arts, but only after I arrived did I know that I can't live by acting." Chen Hu said frankly that one of the reasons for participating in so many competitions is "forced by life".

At that time, Chen Hu was only in his 20s. It was the time when he was the best at fighting. He took part in all the fighting competitions he could take part in, so that "sometimes when he went, people would say," Why are you here again? Some smaller competitions, I went to the organizers will say, you don't compare, give us a performance

However, it was these competitions that made Chen Hu famous in the American Kung Fu circle, and made him a master of many American Kung Fu fans. As a result, he got the opportunity to join the yuan family class. Among these competitions, Chen Hu was most impressed by the national karate competition, which was the first fight he took part in, and because he was not familiar with the rules, he lost the first game, and after hard training, he won the championship for the second time.

When it comes to Bruce Lee, Chen Hu's tone is full of respect. In his opinion, Bruce Lee is a real martial arts expert and the first person to promote Chinese Kung Fu to the whole world.

"Although there are Chinese martial arts schools all over the world, they are either routine or martial arts gymnastics, or fighting, with boxing in hand and Taekwondo at foot, plus Chinese wrestling, which is far away from the real traditional martial arts. It's really a mistake

Chinese PinYin : Chen Hu