Recently, Sammo Hung received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards. South China Morning Post reporters I managed to talk to him at the hotel.
There was a time when the biggest overweight action movie star, Sammo Hung, had a slender enough physique to play Sun Wukong, the legendary character also known as the Monkey King. But this was still at the age of 12.
At the time, Hong was studying under Beijing opera master Yu Jim-yuen, and along the way he often shuttled between film sets, where he worked as a child actor or extra, and the Lai Chi Kok (or Lai Yuen, as it is more commonly called) amusement park. where he, along with his fellow students, took part in acrobatic performances.
Hungg always had to stretch and warm up for an hour before applying makeup and going on stage. But there was a time when he was late for the filming of the film “Crisis” (1964), and he had to go straight to makeup and then perform.
"Amitabha!“, Sammo shouted before climbing onto three tables stacked on top of each other and then tumbling back to the ground. He injured his leg and was in great pain, but Yu ignored his complaints and forced him to finish the performance with a limp.
“For the next two months, I couldn't train at all. I just sat and ate. I went through a growing period of adolescence and as a result my weight increased dramatically.”
Sammo Hung
Of course, it is rare for a martial arts actor as revered as Hong to be of this size, especially in his prime.
“I didn't want to keep my body shape that way, I just let it develop as it pleased. Since then, I have maintained my body shape because my intestines are well developed and absorb nutrients very well.”
Sammo Hung
Incidentally, the luxury hotel is within walking distance of the Mirador Mansion, the building in which Hong underwent grueling training with Yu around the time of his injury.
These days, Hong looks a little slimmer than the fuller figure that viewers have long been accustomed to. This is primarily due to the diet organized by his wife, a former Miss Hong Kong and actress Joyce Godenzi, who is 58 years old. She sits across from us with great composure, supplying Hoon with snippets of information - usually movie titles - whenever his memory fails him.
In Hoon's case, these memory lapses are probably less a result of "dementia" (which he somehow felt the need to joke about on occasion) and more the fact that he's worked in a staggering number of films.
Hungg's more than 200 projects as an actor, director, producer, fight choreographer and action choreographer have earned him the Hong Kong Film Award for Excellence, the industry's most prestigious award.
I don't know why, but from the time I started directing up until this point, I always felt like I had a poor grasp of it. Even in the old days, I had no idea about the salaries my actors received. I simply told my producers that I needed this or that actor, and they took care of everything.
My ability to produce so many films in this industry is due to the many kind and capable people who have helped me. Even now I still feel like a little kid in kindergarten.
Sammo Hung
Sammo Hung was born on January 7, 1952 in Hong Kong, into a family of film industry workers. When he was little, his mother called him Sanmao - “a common nickname used by Shanghainese people to call their children“,” Hong explains.
His biographical notes often emphasize that his paternal grandparents were Hong Junho, prolific director of the 1930s and '40s, and Chen Zhigong, one of the first female action stars in Chinese cinema and an "forever young" actress who continued to appear in films until the early 2000s (including Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love) - although Hong did not get to see their work, when he was a child.
Instead, some of Hoon's earliest memories of filmmaking come from his maternal grandfather, a props artist who took him on film sets to help with small tasks and who, much more importantly, later sent nine-year-old Sammo to Yu Jim-Yuen's Hong Kong-Chinese School of Opera, where he studied Peking opera for the next seven years.
The change in situation had a favorable effect on the boy: this was the third time he had failed to successfully complete the second grade at school, and he often got into trouble. However, Yuya's strict and disciplined approach to teaching, as well as his willingness to resort to an almost sadistic level of physical punishment, made life a living hell for this rebellious child.
As Hong and his fellow sufferers later recalled, getting hit in the buttocks by a sifu with a rattan stick was an extremely common experience.
Also, Sammo noted that quite often Yu punished all the students when only one of them did something bad.
In one episode, after Hong ran away from school for three days and his classmate Yuen Wa was caught secretly helping him, the latter received 70 strokes of the cane, but became one of Hoon's best friends in life.
"I still have a scar on the top of my head from those days.“,” Hong says, before explaining how one of Yu’s exercises required his young charges to hold a handstand for over an hour.
“At age 13 or 14, stand with both feet on a wall and both hands on a wooden bench for an hour and a half. This is not a joke, you know? At one point I was completely exhausted. I fell and hit my head on the bench. Blood was running down my face and I remember thinking, “Why am I sweating so much? Is the weather too hot?” But it was all blood.”
Sammo Hung
Hong debuted under the name Chu Yuen-long in the 1961 film “Lessons of love” . Meanwhile, he and his study colleagues, including Jackie Chan, Yuen Wa, Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen Kwai and some others, became famous for their performances in a troupe called “Seven Lucky Men,” which they came up with at their first performance in a nightclub.
Their stories from that time were most vividly told in the 1988 biographical drama “Painted faces” , director Alexa Lo, who invited Hong to play the lead role of Yuya, his sifu. And for this role he received the second of two available awards for Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards. (The previous one was for the 1982 film “pickpockets“, which he also filmed.)
Hong used to resent Yu's approach, but now he has only respect for his late teacher, as seen in his short film “Exercise“, which was included in the 2020 anthology “Septet: The History of Hong Kong” . In it, the director invited his own son to play the role of Yu. Timmy Hunga, and offered what can only be described as a rose-colored look at his time growing up.
We have many stories - too many - from our training days. You only saw their positive side [in the film].
Sammo Hung
Sammo Hung began working as a film stuntman at the age of 14, completed his training with Yu, and became a full-time performer at the age of 16.
Shaw Brothers performanceGolden sword” (1969) marked his first credit as a fight choreographer since Yin-Chieh Han Yu's son-in-law, and Hong's mentor in his early film work, turned down the project.
I will continue to do my job and continue to implement the ideas that come to my mind.
Sammo Hung
By Edmund Li (South China Morning Post)
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Tags: biography, Joyce Godenzi, Sammo Hung, Timmy Hungg, Yuen Wa
Tags: biography, Joyce Godenzi, Sammo Hung, Timmy Hungg, Yuen Wa
Yes.
The previous ones are the ones from Tiger Style Media?
Complete crap, not a movie. The previous two are much better.
Damn, that looks pretty good. I'll have to take note. Thanks.