Stephen Chow Told Japan: Stop Copying Kung Fu, Build Your Own Thing

Stephen Chow apparently walked into a room and told a Japanese film producer exactly what he thought: stop chasing kung fu. That's the word from Kii Muneyuki, the founder of K2 Pictures, who spilled the story at Taiwan Creative Content Fest over the weekend.

Chow's pitch was straightforward—Japan's got its own martial arts tradition deep in the culture. Karate, judo, jujitsu, kendo. That's not borrowed. That's theirs. So why lean on Hong Kong's playbook instead of building action cinema around what actually belongs to Japan?

It's the kind of real-head perspective you'd expect from someone who spent decades perfecting comedic kung fu on screen. Chow wasn't coming at it from ego—he was basically saying: use what you got, make it authentic, stop playing in someone else's sandbox.

With action filmmaking going global and everyone looking for the next big thing, that's not bad advice. Audiences are hungry for something that feels real and rooted, not watered-down copies of the classics. If Japan leans into its own martial tradition and the visual language that comes with it, that's a whole different story than trying to out-kung-fu the masters.

Read the full story at Variety → https://variety.com/2026/film/markets-festivals/stephen-chow-japan-stop-aping-kung-fu-k2-pictures-1236941939/