This video I made with Paul O'Neal, far and away the best Wing Chun teacher I ever had. His Wing Chun is about as authentic as it gets, since he studied for many years with the two sons of Yip Man, who (according to the people who teach Yip Man Wing Chun) at one point in history was the only man in the world who knew the entire system properly. There are other versions of Wing Chun that have claims on being more "authentic" (such as the Yuen Kay Shan, and Fung family lines), but these are not taught in Britain. Interesting enough, there are those who say that only the Yip Man line of Wing Chun uses the large butterfly knives, and that others use much smaller ones.
I was shown some of the Wing Chun videos already on the market, and they were dreadful. We wanted to do something a bit better. Because that's the sort of guy I am, I shot the whole thing as a sort of drama. The lessons are all taught in the form of flash-backs, while the hero, Wor Paul, practises on the wooden dummy, in preparation for a show-down with the villains in the Get Carter car park. This cinematically ugly building stands in Gateshead, and is often referred to in these parts as the Get Carter car park, as it served as the location for a scene in that film, with Michael Caine. We couldn't resist putting a line in from that film, but as it turned out, that single line of dialogue took many takes to shoot. It isn't easy to point, kick, walk, and speak, all in one shot.
