EXPLORE THE UNTOLD STORY

The Mo Lum of San Francisco Chinatown

What does a world look like when you finally stop being afraid of it?

San Francisco's Chinatown was one of the earliest centers for the development of traditional Gung Fu in America. From Lau Bun — the first person to openly teach Gung Fu in this country, from a basement on Brenham Place in the 1930s — to the schools, lion dance teams, and family associations that sustained martial culture across generations, Chinatown built a living system of discipline, mentorship, and belonging that most people walked past without ever knowing existed.

The Mo Lum of San Francisco Chinatown is a documentary film about that world — and about what it means to return to it.

Directed by Leo Gong, the film traces the interconnected network of schools, teachers, lineages, and relationships that shaped Chinatown's martial culture throughout the twentieth century and continues today through lived practice and intergenerational transmission. Through conversations with practitioners, teachers, and community elders — alongside archival photographs, VHS recordings, and personal ephemera shared by the community — the film documents what Gung Fu actually became within this neighborhood: not primarily a fighting art, but a living system of cultural preservation and belonging.

Currently in post-production.