Now, like most people on Spotify, I’ve recently done my Spotify Wrapped for the year. Although this is the first year I’ve been using the account for Emona Literary Services™ rather than a personal account, the results are largely consistent with previous years.
Though, as I recall, this was the first year my top song wasn’t by The Sword.
In fact, it was as follows:
The actual English translation of the title varies. I’ve heard ‘ve seen the title as variously “To be a Hero”, “A Man Should Better Himself” (or “Be Self-Reliant,” which is what Google Translate goes with) – and my personal favourite: “Mr. Strong Man.” However, “A Man of Determination” seems to be the most common, and is probably the most comprehensible translation of the title for English speakers.
George Lam’s version is most closely associated with the Kung Fu movie Once Upon a Time in China II – which was repeated during the end credits by the classically-trained Jackie Chan. The Once Upon a Time in China series is notable for playing a major role in launching the career of Jet Li – one of several martial artists positioned by the Hong Kong studios to become a successor to Bruce Lee…
… and for being one of about 120 movies made about the legendary 19th-century martial artist Wong Fei-hung. Incidentally, of those, a record-setting 77 featured Wong Fei-hung played by Kwan Tak-hing.
In brief, Wong Fei-hung was famous as both a doctor and a martial arts master, to the point of being counted among the Ten Tigers of Canton, the greatest martial artists of Southern China. Though, as is the case with most folk heroes, it’s hard to determine what stories about him are real and which are purely fanciful.
Trying to stick with the historically-verifiable information is why, I suspect, his English-language Wikipedia entry is fairly sparse.
The song itself is derived from a traditional Chinese folk song dating back to the Ming Dynasty called On the General’s Orders, which was apparently associated with Wong Fei-hung long before the movie. In fact, earlier Wong Fei-hung movie DrunkenMaster (starring Jackie Chan) already used the song as a theme.
Again, the classically-trained Jackie Chan also performed the theme song there. He was also the singing and speaking voice of Captain Shang in the Chinese versions of Mulan – there was even a music video of his version of I’ll Make a Man Out of You.
And, as I understand from the YouTube comments I’ve read, A Man of Determination is also the go-to song in for karaoke nights in Hong Kong when your drunk uncle wants to make a fool of himself and also embarrass the whole rest of the family.
Clearly, I’m in good company with this as my top song of the year.
But I think I get why it’s such a popular karaoke song.
I don’t speak Cantonese, but if I did, I fee like A Man of Determination would be easy to sing along to – enthusiastically, if not well. Which strikes me as pretty common for good karaoke songs.
It’s also basically the perfect song for a martial arts movie:
“The righteous spirit of a hero
Is like the noonday sun
Burns brighter than the sun.”Translation from allthelyrics.com.
I can’t speak to their accuracy, but they’re at least
broadly consistent with the other translations I’ve seen.
Listen to A Man of Determination for your next karaoke night here:
And the official Emona Literary Services™ playlist is here:
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