It was a rainy afternoon in Santa Cruz, California when Lee received the call. With his baby on one arm and holding a cup of Pu-Erh tea in the other, he answered his phone and was greeted by an unlikely caller: An Oscar Award Winning Hollywood producer.
Having worked on movie sets in the past, Lee is no stranger to the film industry. However, it soon became apparent that this wasn’t another invitation for him to serve in his ‘normal’ role as a wellness director.
After a bit of small talk, the producer broke the news to him: A major Hollywood studio was preparing to shoot their next superhero movie, Qi Man, and they wanted Lee for the leading role.
Despite his strong ‘Earth Element groundedness’, he nearly dropped his cup of Pu-Erh tea. After all, Lee is a Qi Gong teacher, not an actor. In fact, he doesn’t even have any acting experience, so why was an Academy Award-winning producer asking him to star in a multi-million dollar movie?
Lee soon discovered that the director is a dedicated Qi Gong practitioner who has followed him for many years. Additionally, several of her colleagues, including two other Oscar-nominated actors, have been members of Lee’s subscription classes since 2015. Having attended his online classes for so long, they had plenty of time to observe his amazing camera presence, giving them complete confidence in Lee’s ability to perform in their movie.
Qi Man: Movie Overview
Because many of the movie details are still being negotiated, Lee is under contract to not disclose any information he’s received about this film. However, we can provide you with a brief summary of the movie’s plot.
In Qi Man, Lee plays the role of a legendary Qi Gong master who is summoned from the mountains to fight off a mysterious force causing an alarming disturbance in the Tao. To return harmony and equilibrium to the universe, Qi Man must embark on a perilous quest to reunite each of the Five Elemental Energies.
Early scene concepts of Qi Man reveal Lee traveling to the depths of the ocean to seek cooperation from the Water Goddess, played by an up-and-coming actress who also happens to love Qi Gong. He also clued us in to a dramatic standoff between the Fire God and Earth Goddess, taking place in a mythical location resembling Mordor from J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
If Qi Man succeeds in uniting the Five Elements, they’ll have to team up in order to search for and excavate the Three Treasures… but not before they overcome the greatly feared Taotronica — the evil, Tao-destroying force that guards them.
How these thematic elements fit together is yet to be seen (no pun intended). All we know is that there will be action, adventure, and lots of Lee Holden.
While the story of Qi Man will be told through thrilling cinematic imagery and Hollywood-esque over-exaggeration, the movie intends to communicate the inner battles that every person faces.
The Origin and Making of Qi Man
Let’s back up a second. If you’re thinking it’s kind of weird to create a Hollywood superhero movie based on Qi Gong, you’re not alone.
When Lee was first contacted about Qi Man, he was skeptical. From his perspective, Qi Gong is about tuning into the subtle forces of energy within the body, not about unrealistic action scenes. However, after speaking with the filmmakers, he started to see how Qi Man could be a vehicle for expanding awareness of Qi Gong.
Lee’s confidence got another boost when he heard that the script for Qi Man was written by an esteemed Taoist scholar and Doctor of Chinese Medicine. After speaking with the film’s writer, he could tell that their intentions weren’t to simply crank out the next massive, revenue-producing Hollywood superhero movie.
The writer of Qi Man based the story on historical Taoist texts that depict the various dynamics between the elemental energies of nature. In fact, many of the scenes in the movie have been derived from ancient paintings found on cave walls and tortoise shells. To gather credible evidence for the movie, the filmmakers hired an entire team of archeologists to analyze the paintings for historical accuracy in order to gather credible evidence for the film.
One cave painting shows a monkey sitting next to a fire with a shrewd smile. In the movie, this painting comes to life when the Monkey God, Zhallen, starts hurling fireballs from the heavens. The archeologists assure us that this depiction is exactly what the original Taoist artists intended.
Another cave painting, known as “Swords of the Heart,” shows two swords overlapping a person’s chest. Based on a complex, esoteric, scientific analysis, the archeologists concluded that it was highly likely that the prehistoric artists were indicating that a remarkable event proliferating Taoist wisdom to humanity would take place in the year 2022. Of course, there’s no way they could have known that there would later be an entire movie devoted to Qi Gong, but that’s exactly what Qi Man is about.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for a final announcement about Qi Man, and to sign up for the Qi Man newsletter…
APRIL FOOLS!!!!!! While Qi Man is fun to imagine and write about, it’s not actually being made into a Hollywood movie. But, we hope that this blog post gave you a good laugh and helped elevate your Heart Qi on this “unofficial” Qi Gong holiday! 😉
From all of us at Holden QiGong, we wish you a happy and smile-filled April Fools Day!