Documentary

Young Masters: Bajiquan

Discover the beautiful brutality of China’s most explosive martial arts style

Young Masters is an original series commissioned by NOWNESS China focusing on traditional Chinese cultures, and how they continue to be defined by a new generation of the country's youth. Its first episode, Young Masters: Bajiquan, spotlights Wu Hao (吴昊), a young man in his twenties from Hebei province who is a stalwart practitioner of Bajiquan—a traditional Chinese fighting style known for its graceful stillness and sudden moments of targeted and ferocious violence. Director Haonan Shen traveled to the Mengcun Bajiquan International Training Center to profile Wu Hao whose paternal ancestor Wu Zhong (1712–1802) was the first recorded Bajiquan teacher. In this evocative portrait of a young man’s passion for sharing his family’s rich heritage, we get up close and personal with the violent elbow strikes, staff jabs, fierce rising and firm falling stances that characterize the martial art.