For me, documentary films are always iffy. Some filmmakers create a strong, compelling central narrative, that ties together the various clips and characters that make up a film. But other films just feel like a two-hour flood of facts. I wasn’t sure if I would like “The Professor: Tai Chi’s Journey West”-even from the title, it sounded like a niche film, something that would only be of interest to martial arts fans.

I needn’t have worried. The film does a good job of explaining Tai Chi to a lay audience. It makes good use of archival footage, showing Cheng Man-Ching and his students in their studio. I especially enjoyed watching the “forms”. As someone who had not seen Tai Chi before, this was not what I was expecting. I believed Tai Chi to be a martial art, but the forms seemed like something different, elegant. The closest thing I can compare them to is yoga, but that’s not really an accurate comparison. Yoga is stretching and posing, this seemed more fluid. The film also showed footage of “Push Hands”, in which the Professor would unbalance his students, sometimes bounce them up against the walls of the studio, without seeming to use any force.

While “push hands” and forms are two specific aspects of Tai Chi, for Cheng Man-Ching, it seems like Tai Chi was nothing so much as a way of life. Cheng Man-Ching was also a painter, who had his students practice drawing straight lines for weeks. Cheng Man-Ching saw Tai Chi as a way of keeping healthy, an approach to life. Learning about his philosophy and about what he taught his students expanded my views of what Tai Chi is. It doesn’t seem like “just” a martial art any more.

However, this didn’t feel like a film about Tai Chi. It’s a film about a group of people, and the effect one man-the Professor-had on their lives. Most of the film is comprised on interviews with his former students. A lot of them describe being “hippies” or “weirdos” when they came to the Professor’s studio. It was interesting to see how, many years later, the Professor’s students still seemed to know each other, and how many of them still taught Tai Chi. Watching the film, it was obvious that Cheng Man-Ching had a dramatic impact on their lives.

I would recommend this film to a friend, and I would say to someone considering it that you don’t have to know anything about Tai Chi to enjoy it. In part, this is a film about martial arts history and philosophy. But, it is also a study of a community, its relationships, and the very interesting, very impressive man who brought it together.