The premiere of a 3D kungfu flick helps turn the spotlight on a little known genre whose skills are honed at the foot of Mt Qingcheng in Sichuan. Zhu Linyong reports

When Hong Kong-based film director Yuen Woo-ping held the global premiere of his 3D kungfu movie True Legend (Su Qi'er) recently in Beijing, one person who drew instant attention was a slender bearded man in a purple Taoist robe.

Reserved, yet commanding, Liu Suibin stepped onto the stage as if debuting in a kungfu movie.

When he demonstrated the Water Fist kungfu routine of the centuries-old Qingcheng sect of martial arts, to the accompaniment of soulful guqin music, a reverent hush fell over the crowd assembled at Beijing Television studio.

"Qingcheng kungfu is a centuries-old art, but is less well-known than the Shaolin or Wudang styles," says Liu, better known as the zhangmen (paramount chief) of the Qingcheng kungfu branch, named after the picturesque mountain in Sichuan province.

The 45-year-old kungfu guru was honored as "key bearer and transmitter" of Qingcheng kungfu skills and culture by the Ministry of Culture in 2008. But he admits "it is still a daunting task to preserve and promote this intangible heritage".

Thanks to some popular wuxia (kungfu) novels and their big-screen adaptations, Qingcheng kungfu has been seen as a lethal kungfu genre, practiced by vicious figures.

"Qingcheng kungfu is definitely not magic or as powerful as is depicted in these novels," Liu says.

He learned martial arts from his grandfather Liu Yucheng in his teenage years in Dujiangyan, a small city near Chengdu, capital of Sichuan.

But it was kungfu movies starring Jet Li and Bruce Lee that sharpened his keen interest in kungfu.

"In the mid-1980s, millions of young Chinese were drawn to kungfu," Liu recalls.

This triggered a boom in kungfu magazines. In 1986, Wulin, or Kungfu World magazine, is said to have sold 3 million copies per issue. Research and training centers mushroomed across the nation. Researchers visited ageing kungfu masters, churning out books and papers on Chinese kungfu.

It was while studying medicine in Chongqing that Liu learned boxing, wrestling, karate do and Chinese-style free sparring, winning several provincial and national-level kungfu competitions.

He also traveled to remote mountains to participate in informal kungfu contests known as biwu, which were very popular among kungfu addicts.

There were no cash prizes or certificates for these fights. Nor were there media reports or even photos.

"I got hurt during these fights, but loved the thrill of it. I imagined myself as a kungfu movie hero," says Liu, adding that he took part in some 700 fights. He won most of them, defeating practitioners of various martial arts from home and abroad.

With such victories, Liu thought that traditional Chinese wushu - a modern term for kungfu - was useless and easy to deal with.