Project Sifu
What happens when martial arts meets filmmaking? Project Sifu helps young people build confidence, learn new skills and make their own action film. See the project in action.
Can martial arts and filmmaking help young people build confidence, learn new skills and connect with different cultures?
Project Sifu brings martial arts training and action filmmaking together to explore just that. Led by Dr Wayne Wong, Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield, the project gives young people the chance to learn martial arts while discovering how fight scenes are created for film.
Working with the Fighting Spirit Film Festival and martial arts and film professionals, participants spent 12 weeks learning skills including punching, kicking, safe falling, fight choreography and filmmaking. They explored different martial arts, including judo and Chinese kung fu, before putting what they had learned into practice by making their own action film.
But Project Sifu is about more than learning how to fight on camera. Through martial arts, filmmaking and East Asian culture, the project looks at how creative activities can support confidence, teamwork, physical and mental wellbeing and a sense of belonging.
In this video, Wayne explains how Project Sifu started and why he believes martial arts cinema can give young people a positive way to express themselves. He also discusses the project’s response to concerns around youth violence and knife crime, and how martial arts can teach discipline and control rather than aggression.
Project Sifu shows what can happen when martial arts, action cinema and education come together, giving young people space to be creative, try something new and tell stories of their own.
Credits
Directed by
- Dr Wayne Wong (Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield)
Assistant Directors
- Soo Cole (Director and Co-Founder at Fighting Spirit Film Festival)
- Matt Routledge (Film Director)
Cinematographers
- Sam Cheung (Actor, Cinematographer, Editor)
- Matt Routledge (Film Director)
- Wayne Wong (Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield)
Produced and choreographed by
- Jon Alagoa (Actor)
- Matt Routledge (Film Director)
- Sam Cheung (Actor, Cinematographer, Editor)
- Sam Mak (Actor)
- Soo Cole (Director and Co-Founder at Fighting Spirit Film Festival)
- Tomas Paredes (Actor)
- Wayne Wong (Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield)
Editing, lighting and sound by
- Sam Cheung (Actor, Cinematographer, Editor)
- Matt Routledge (Film Director)
- Tiffany Tsoi
- Wayne Wong (Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield)
Production Assistant
- Tiffany Tsoi
Coach
- Kirk Bytheway (Martial Arts Coach)
Guest mentors
- Dr Jamie Coates (Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield)
- Joe Lam
- Jon Alagoa (Actor)
- Matt Routledge (Film Director)
- Nathan Geering (Producer and Director)
- Sam Mak (Actor)
- Tomas Paredes (Actor)
Students:
- Akanksha Gowri
- Esme McNicholas
- Fangzhuo Zhao
- Grace Gidley
- Orla Dowey
- Silvia Schettini
- Su Myat Sint
- Vishaal Neelamegam Baskaran
- Yilin Chen
- Rhoda Rao
Guest participants:
- Matt Law
- Sam Cheung
- Soo Cole (Director and Co-Founder at Fighting Spirit Film Festival)
- Wayne Wong (Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield)
Sponsored by
Filmed at
- The Unrivalled MMA Gym, Sheffield
Special thanks to Brett Baker and Kirk Bytheway at The Unrivalled MMA Gym, Matt Law from Geez A Gi, Shifu Shi Yanzi at Shaolin Temple UK and Maan Na Tsoi.
Parts of the choreography for the film were inspired by the Wilson Yip film Flash Point (2007), and the computer game Sifu (2022).
The short film’s story was inspired by Sam Mak’s Crouching Carpet, Heading Home (2024).
