STF: Kung fu style

• by Raphaela Neihausen, October 08, 2009

Last Tuesday, STF screened Alexander Sebastien Lee’s THE REAL SHAOLIN to an audience that was equal-parts documentary lovers and martial-arts enthusiasts.  A crowd-pleaser at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, THE REAL SHAOLIN follows two Chinese and two Western students of martial-arts over months of difficult lessons and life-changing experiences, revealing just how much hard work goes into those dazzling moves. The film not only transports us to a different country, but to a different state of mind, where everything is sacrificed for athletic mastery. For the Westerners Orion and Eric, adjusting to the foreign mindset is an added challenge. For Yuan and Zhu, the stakes are even higher, as they have no other prospects. Alexander Sebastien Lee (visiting all the way from Beijing, China) explained the challenging multi-year process of filming and editing this project, and also shared some martial arts philosophies that he picked up along the way.  The Q&A was capped off with the audience singing “Happy Birthday” to STF host Thom Powers.  It was a somewhat excruciating experience for Thom,  leading him to dictate a new STF rule: STF audiences can only sing this song to 10 year olds (like Doug Pray’s daughter during the screening of BIG RIG) or 98 year olds (like film subject Ruth Gruber during last week’s screening of AHEAD OF TIME).

(photo courtesy of Joshua Z Weinstein)

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