Snakes with Wings
It speaks volumes that the Beijing airport uses the Caduceus symbol for its customs department. This is clearly because they recognise that dragons can be described as snakes with wings. The Beijing government took it one step further with the key, which fits the theme of this article because key rhymes with Lee, and the three ridges of the key not only symbolise the E in the name but they represent the fact that Bruce Lee was known as three legs Lee due to his ability to kick consecutively with the same leg. As such, it’s symbolic that Bruce Lee historian Nick Clarke lives in the Isle of Man when you look at the nation’s flag. A dragon could be described as a large snake with wings and claws, but there were many aspiring dragons in Hong Kong who had more in common with snakes than dragons. Bruce would have lived a longer life had he paid attention to this wise bit of philosophy from Mark Twain: “Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”
One of the stuntmen in Bruce’s Fist of Fury (1972) died in 2022, but it was only in this year - the year of the dragon - that it was revealed that Corey Yuen Kwai had died. More precisely, it was first revealed in August. Film-maker Manfred Wong started his YouTube channel in April 2022, but it was only in July 2024 that Manfred’s business partner - Wong Jing - formed his own YouTube channel. It’s called Wong Jing Laughs at the Jianghu. The last word translates to rivers and lakes - it’s a metaphor that can either describe the criminal underworld, the entertainment industry or the world of Wuxia literature. Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon, starred in a 1986 Hong Kong film (Legacy of Rage) whose Chinese title is Dragon in the Jianghu. Wong Jing launched his YouTube channel on July 23 - three days after the 51st anniversary of Bruce’s death. Wong Jing’s 2011 memoir was published in August, the eighth month of the year, so each copy cost HK$88. The Chinese regard eight as a lucky number, hence why Corey Yuen’s death was revealed in month No. 8. The below stuntman looks like Corey, but it’s not him.
In the introduction to his book, Wong Jing talked about how a fellow male writer had suggested to him that he get a typewriter. Wong Jing still prefers using a pen no matter how fast-paced that his career had gotten. The writer who made the suggestion was Leung Lap-Yan, who Jing had collaborated with for a Kung Fu movie that was produced and co-written by Ng See-Yuen in 1981. This was Legend of a Fighter, which was directed by Yuen Woo-Ping. It is a prequel to Fist of Fury about the real-life master who Bruce Lee’s character was avenging. Legend of a Fighter was released in early 1982 but too soon to be released on the tenth anniversary of Fist of Fury. Likewise with Albert Goldman’s Penthouse articles on Bruce being published in January and February 1983 despite Bruce dying in July 1973. One of the people who Albert had interviewed was the above stuntman: Peter Chan Lung. The interview tapes can only be heard at Columbia University where Peter’s tape is labelled Peter Chang. His birth name was Chan Wui-Lung.
The above photo was taken during the making of Bruce’s The Big Boss in 1971. Peter was born in 1942, so he was only a couple of years younger than Bruce. On June 4 in 1973, Peter turned 31. On June 13, the Hong Kong press claimed that Bruce wanted to copyright the dragon part of his Chinese name: Lee Siu-Lung. I don’t know what Peter had thought of this, especially in light of the fact that his younger brother Billy (Chan Wui-Ngai) probably looked up to Bruce more than him. One of Peter’s friends was a stuntman and stunt coordinator who was known back then as Yuen Lung but is now known as Sammo Hung. Yuen Lung was a literal stage name given by his Chinese Opera instructor, Yu Jim-Yuen. Jackie Chan’s stage name was Yuen Lo. By the time that it was 1975, Sammo went by his birth name (Hung Kam-Bo) in Golden Harvest’s The Man from Hong Kong whereas Jackie was known as Chan Yuen-Lung (as reported in the October 1975 issue of Golden Movie News).
Peter Chan Lung may have harboured feelings of ill will towards Bruce. Peter doesn’t do anything worthy of note in Enter the Dragon (1973) unlike the other stuntmen in Bruce’s inner circle, and he wasn’t one of the stuntmen who are used to demonstrate the skills of the pagoda guardians in The Game of Death (1972). Three weeks after Bruce died, Peter got to play the main fighting foe of an American movie that was actually financed by the Chinese mafia. The Dynamite Brothers, released in 1974, stars a Hong Kong star/gangster (Alan Tang) and features some of the stuntmen who Bruce had intended to take with him to Hollywood. Ironically, one of the stuntmen who wasn’t invited was someone who moved to America in the eighties. This was Corey Yuen, who married a woman who was living in Seattle - where Bruce spent his happiest years (according to Bruce’s widow).
If you look at the above and below photos, you can see why Peter Chan Lung never bared his torso on screen because his tattoos were indicative of Triad membership. In that regard, he reminds me of a 14K Triad boss: Michael Chan Wai-Man. Both men were in a Triad-themed film called Black Society (1978). They even acted together in a Bruceploitation movie called Bruce Lee The Invincible (1978). Peter died in 2021. In Bey Logan’s first audio commentary for Fist of Fury, he claimed that Peter knew a lot about Bruce but he kept a lot of it to himself because he didn’t want to be seen to be riding his coattails. In his televised 1975 interview with Geraldo Rivera, Robert Lee (Bruce’s younger brother) said: “I have seen the autopsy report, and officially he really did die of odema of the brain. But knowing Hong Kong, myself, with so many different people - all kinds of weird people - and especially Bruce's friends. You know, some of them. I really...it's just like a mystery to me, too, in a way.”
One of those weird friends used Bruce to make a name for himself by getting him to be the fight choreographer for his own star vehicle. This would be Unicorn Chan’s Fist of Unicorn (made in August 1972). Unicorn’s best friend was the aforementioned Michael Chan Wai-Man. For Robert Lee to know about more than one dubious friend is questionable. Bear in mind that Robert was living in America during Bruce’s final Hong Kong years, so you have to wonder what he’s basing his opinion on (unless Bruce called or wrote to him). Bruce was directed by another Robert for Enter the Dragon. In his biography about Bruce, Robert Clouse quoted actor Thomas Chan as saying: “He did not want to be used and he did not have a real friend. The last two years he was in Hong Kong, he was lonely - very lonely.”
Bearing in mind that Bruce wasn’t living in Hong Kong as a bachelor. He had a wife and two children. If Bruce had anyone in Hong Kong worthy of being called a rival, it would be Michael Chan Wai-Man. Both men represent different types of dragons. If Bruce could have been described as a snake with wings and claws then Michael could be described as a fire-breathing eagle, especially when you compare the eagle tattoos on his chest with the dragon tattoo on his back. In 1979, Michael founded a film company called Eagle. The film that launched the company was called The Handcuff, which was written by him. A few months before that was released, there was a film called The Kings of Fists and Dollars where Michael played a character whose name (Hung Ying) means male eagle. Of course, you could take it one step further and make a correlation with a 1978 Jackie Chan movie called Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (which Corey Yuen worked on).
Peter Chan Lung appeared in this as a mean-spirited Kung Fu teacher, but he didn’t appear in the follow-up production (Drunken Master) despite other people in the cast having done so (although not every single cast member returned). The next time that Jackie and Peter had acted with each other on screen was in Sammo Hung’s Heart of Dragon (1985). Peter and Michael appeared in a Kung Fu movie called Snake Deadly Act (1979). Back to Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, one of the actors had previously auditioned to play Bruce Lee in Robert Clouse’s unmade biopic. The actor was Tino Wong, and he could speak perfect English according to Bey Logan’s Bruce Lee and I (2018). Jackie was loaned to Ng See-Yuen’s Seasonal company in the month after Golden Harvest had finished Bruce’s incomplete The Game of Death with the help of Clouse. What adds to the surrealism is that Lo Wei loaned Jackie in the week before one of Bruce’s co-stars, Chieh Yuen, had died.
When Jackie Chan entered the film industry, he worked under the tutelage of a fight choreographer named Han Ying-Chieh. According to an 1981 interview with Han that was resurrected for a 2006 book called A Tribute to Action Choreographers, the 1960s was when a fight choreographer was called a snake head. When you consider how many stuntmen resorted to a life of crime, the Hong Kong film industry was a snake pit. One snake was producer/director Lo Wei, who was a high-ranking boss of the Sun Yee On Triad. In early November 1977, Lo loaned Jackie to star in Yuen Woo-Ping’s Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow but just that one film (contrary to what Jeff Yang wrote in what was supposed to be Jackie’s 1998 autobiography). In an interview with Ng See-Yuen for Manfred Wong’s YouTube channel, Ng didn’t say anything about Fu Sheng being the original choice to star. However, Ng did want another actor from the Shaw Brothers film studio to play the role of the old teacher. This was Ku Feng.
The senior production manager of Shaw Brothers, Mona Fong, didn’t want Ku Feng to be borrowed. As for Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Yuen Woo-Ping didn’t want his father to do it. In fact, Yuen Woo-Ping didn’t even want to direct the film. It took Ng three to four hours to convince him to direct what became his directorial debut. Ng wanted Jackie to star because of his slightly comic performance as a mute in Shaolin Wooden Men (1976). Ng could visualize both the silent comedy and the humility. It cost $50,000 in Taiwanese currency to get Jackie but only half went to Lo Wei, the other half went to Jackie. When the time came for Jackie to do a second film for the Seasonal company, Lo didn’t want to loan out Jackie again. It didn’t help that Yuen Woo-Ping thought they could easily cast someone else to lead Drunken Master (another 1978 movie that Corey Yuen had worked on). In Hong Kong, Ng begged Lo Wei at least three or four times but to no avail. Lo went back to Taiwan. Ng followed suit but to find Jackie, who agreed to star after losing face because of Lo’s flops.
As a matter of fact, Jackie wanted to join Seasonal but Ng thought that it would have been in bad form to take advantage of Lo like that. In reality, Ng didn’t have the strength in numbers that a company like Golden Harvest had. Hence why Golden Harvest’s Raymond Chow could get away with poaching people. Upon arriving in Taiwan, Ng wanted Jackie to take him to Lo Wei’s house. Around eight o’clock in the morning, Jackie took Ng to the door of Lo’s house and rang the doorbell before running off. Jackie was scared of Lo. As soon as the door opened, Ng was greeted with the sight of Lo and his wife wearing nightgowns. Ng requested Lo to meet him later that day at a hotel cafe in Taipei. What worked in Ng’s favour was that he found a Taiwanese distributor who could vouch for him that Lo Wei’s unreleased Jackie Chan films would get more exposure in Taiwan. Ng introduced the Taiwanese man to Lo where it was agreed that he would invest more money in Lo’s films if he would lend Jackie out one more time. Lo was paid NT$200,000.
Ng See-Yuen talked about the distribution for Drunken Master after its major Hong Kong success: “At that time, many Japanese companies had branches in Hong Kong. I don’t want to sell it at a high price. I'm worried that I might lose money, because the publicity expenses are huge. I said this - buy at the lowest price then divide the account. We call it minimum guarantee. I don’t remember how much I divided. Japan and I are already in talks. Raymond Chow from Golden Harvest came to see me one day. I remember I went there around two or three in the afternoon. Raymond said “Your film was very successful. You also know that our films are distributed all over the world.” Then he called out a group of Golden Harvest’s Caucasian workers. He called each person over one by one, and described what their jobs entailed. He told them “This is Director Ng. Drunken Master is his work.” He told me “From now on, you can focus on production. I concentrate on distribution.” He offered me a cheque of HK$500,000. 500,000 was a lot for me at that time.”
Ng See-Yuen detailed the outcome by using a martial arts metaphor: “But I have a belief. I like these two movies. I must do it myself. So later I dubbed it in Spanish and other versions distributed worldwide. I don’t know how many times. So I played Tai Chi with him. As long as I play chess, I will lose. But I won't play chess with you. “Raymond Chow, I know you are so powerful. But I just came out and I want to learn some experience. I'll see you again in the future if I have a chance...” But he called Japan and said “These two films are from Golden Harvest, you don't need to talk to Ng See-Yuen.” Japan’s Minister of International Affairs, Fukunaga, told me “You sold it to Golden Harvest and you want to talk to me?” I said “Who are you going to believe? I am the owner of the film.” Fukunaga understood and smiled.”
When British distributor Medusa decided to form a DVD label called Hong Kong Legends in the late nineties, the very first film that they released was Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. This is fitting given that the legend of Medusa in ancient folklore was that her hair consisted of snakes. The Hong Kong martial arts movies that Bruce Lee starred in couldn’t be released by Hong Kong Legends yet because the archaic British Board of Film Classification had yet to approve of nunchakus being okayed. Since the BBFC were gradually softening on horror films, HKL decided to play the waiting game. Speaking of waiting game, Robert Clouse took his time to write a biography on Bruce Lee. He was originally going to make a biopic that was intended to be released in the year of the dragon: 1976. His Bruce Lee biography was published in the next dragon year: 1988.
In Robert’s book, he wrote in two separate chapters that the Hong Kong mafia had controlled the local industry’s stuntmen. Being a stuntman was so cheap that accommodation would have to be provided by someone else if you could barely afford food, drinks and clothes. Some stuntmen could afford wasting money on cigarettes, gambling and prostitutes. It puts the where in wherewithal. Ironically, Hong Kong stuntman Lee Ka-Ting boasted that he bought a house in America when he found out that Bruce wanted to take a group of stuntmen with him to Hollywood. In the first issue (October 1973) of a U.S. magazine called Fighting Stars, Jim Kelly disclosed an interesting observation that he had made while acting in Bruce’s final film: Enter the Dragon. Jim noticed that the low wages of being a Hong Kong stuntman were at odds with the high costs of living. He said: “A $125 rental here in the U.S. is $450 there. I don't see how they can survive.”