Wanna hear about what I (Hong Kong born) think about those Kung Fu actors?
Bruce Lee is the first to make it to the world.
Sammo breaks the sterotype of Kung Fu. Fat ppl can kick ass too.
Jacky Chan make himself from a hero to a stupid clown.
Jet Li tried his best to keep it real for awhile.
Donney Yan is another real Kung Fu actor but never make it big.
Stephen Chow is just a Bruce Lee fan who got too much money to waste so he make himself a Kung Fu actor by producing Kung Fu Hustle.
Yuen Wo Ping tried to keep Kung Fu going but end up helping the wire fu more than the real Kung Fu.
But to most Chinese, Jin Yong (Kam Yung 金庸) is the one who affects Chinese Kung Fu the most. He is the one who keeps people interest in Kung Fu. He is the most popular contemporary author who wrote Martiall Art novels (武俠小說) with "real" historic background and the true Chinese personalities. His books are the most popular among Chinese. Most of the Chinese Wu Xia drama made these days are from his novels. And all those Chinese fighting manga and stuff are heavily influenced by his novels too. I can safely say without his novels, you will never see CTHD, and others Kung Fu movie, as if you never see Japanese can make a genre called Judo movie. If you have time to read a translated work of his or if you can read the original, you'll see how the hell Kung Fu become Wire Fu. Those great image work of wire fu are all inspired from his novels. Just only now we have the technology to implement it, to make the Kung Fu movie more interesting.
How many ppl tell the style of fighting in an action movie? There are many style of fighting but in a long run they will look so similar to each other in the audience mind. So I think wire fu is a good invention, but to totally dump the kung fu and solely using wire fu is kind of going too far. I wish I will see some real Kung Fu movies come up again.