The Core of Corey
The core relationships of Corey Yuen Kwai’s directorial career were with producer Ng See-Yuen and star Jet Li. Mr. Ng formed the Seasonal company in 1973, but he still worked for Eternal…even going as far as having both companies work in conjunction with each other e.g. the tandem productions of Crystal Fist (1979) and Dance of the Drunk Mantis (1979). It was because of Ng that Corey became a director, and it was because of Ng that Corey had an international presence after directing two English language movies for Ng: No Retreat, No Surrender (1985) and Raging Thunder (1987). It was also because of Ng discovering Cynthia Rothrock that Yes, Madam! (1985) was the distinguished action movie that it was - predating Sigourney Weaver as a white action movie heroine in Aliens (1986). Michelle Yeoh, the star of Yes, Madam!, was originally going to play Eddie Murphy’s sidekick in The Golden Child (1986). Had this happened, more people would have known about her historical significance. Unfortunately, she had to turn it down because the D&B company didn’t want to lose the financial momentum or even lose her to Hollywood forever. What they should have done is invest so that they could be financially compensated if she did leave them.
One of the actors in Yes, Madam! is a male director named Tsui Hark. He began his directorial career for Ng See-Yuen’s Seasonal company. Corey was the main fight choreographer for Tsui’s We’re Going to Eat You (1980), the main stunt coordinator for Tsui’s Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (a 1983 Golden Harvest film), and the sole second unit director for Tsui’s Aces Go Places III - Our Man from Bond Street (a 1984 Cinema City film). Those were the second, fifth and sixth films of Tsui’s career. In 1983, Corey almost became a director for Cinema City. There is a black and white photo of a press conference featuring Corey in the middle of Cinema City leaders Karl Maka and Dean Shek Tin. In the spring of 1983, it was announced that Tsui was going to produce Corey’s adaptation of a Chinese comic book called Dragon and Tiger Gate. The artist, Tony Wong Yuk-Long, was going to have his Jademan company involved in the producing as well. Filming was going to begin in May 1983. I suspect that the project fizzled because there was the issue of sharing profits.
Four years earlier, Corey was the chief choreographer for a low budget adaptation (The Dragon and Tiger Kids) that was co-written and co-directed by Tony Wong for his company: Yuk Long Movies. In March 2000, it was announced that Wong Jing was going to produce an adaptation directed by Corey, and starring Nicholas Tse as Tiger Wong. Louis Koo was going to play Dragon Wong, but that incarnation didn’t get off the ground despite 2000 being the year of the dragon. An adaptation starring Nicholas eventually came out in 2006 but directed by Wilson Yip and co-starring Donnie Yen as Dragon. Back to Corey, his final film for Cinema City was a comic book movie titled The Raid (1991) where he had a supporting role. The film was co-written, co-directed and produced by Tsui Hark. This was made around the same time as Tsui’s Once Upon a Time in China where Corey could have choreographed Jet Li for the first time but didn’t. Instead, Tsui hired Lau Kar-Wing, got disappointed with him and hired Yuen Cheung-Yan instead (save for Yuen Woo-Ping coming in for the finale because his brother was busy on another film).
What added to the blow was that Once Upon a Time in China was almost made in the eighties but with a different cast and company. After the success of John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow for Cinema City in 1986, Tsui wanted to make a movie where Ti Lung played Wong Fei-Hung while Chow Yun-Fat played Leung Foon. However, Corey Yuen was only going to be the fight choreographer. The film didn’t get made because Ti Lung thought that it was ridiculous for himself to play the legendary folk hero since he was no longer fit enough to do martial arts. He was 40 years old, his last Kung Fu movie was made in 1984, and he had starred in too many of them. Had Jackie Chan expressed interest in playing Wong Fei-Hung, Ng See-Yuen would have got involved as a producer instead of only producing the sequels once it was established that Jet Li could be a big box office draw in his own right. Since Once Upon a Time in China was produced by Golden Harvest, the opportunity was there. In fact, Corey Yuen had already met Jet Li at the premiere of Sammo Hung’s Eastern Condors (1987).
The reason why we never saw Jet Li play Wong Fei-Hung in the eighties was because there was a stigma with him being an actor who only starred in Mainland Chinese films. It was only in 1989 that he was established as a Hong Kong actor with Billy Tang’s Dragon Fight, co-starring Stephen Chow. This was the same year that Tsui had approached Jet to play a modern version of Wong Fei-Hung in Golden Harvest’s The Master - the twist was that the film was a crossover remake of Bruce Lee’s The Way of the Dragon (1973) and Joseph Kuo’s The Old Master (1980). Another kick-in-the-teeth irony for Corey Yuen is that he could have been hired to be the fight choreographer since he had already worked in America for Seasonal’s No Retreat, No Surrender. By 1989, Jean-Claude Van Damme had come a long way since that film. Not only had he already established himself as a star but he wanted to work with Tsui Hark. Before the Seasonal film, JCVD wanted to be a Hong Kong actor. He can even speak Cantonese.
Bruce Lee historian George Tan once described Golden Harvest’s Raymond Chow as the master of divide and conquer for how he placed a wedge between Bruce Lee and Lo Wei, so I think a similar opinion could be aimed at Seasonal’s Ng See-Yuen. By getting Corey Yuen to work as the action director for Stephen Chow’s All for the Winner (1990), Corey couldn’t be available to work for Tsui Hark on The Master. In another example of lost opportunities, we have the issue of what would happened had Conan Lee not broken his contract after starring in Seasonal’s Ninja in the Dragon’s Den (1982). This was directed by Corey, who was probably bemused when he later saw him on the set of Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). Had he stayed loyal to Ng See-Yuen, we could have seen Conan in Seasonal’s U.S. movies. Since he speaks better English than Jackie Chan, he could have been bigger. He put himself out on a disadvantage when he was blacklisted in the Hong Kong film industry for five years.
Then there’s the issue of Taiwanese actress Shu Qi. Corey Yuen directed her in So Close (2002) and The Transporter (2002) but she never really caught on in the global market. Her English is bad, and she wasn’t any better at performing martial arts than other young women in her age group. Michelle Yeoh wasn’t a martial artist like Cynthia Rothrock or an acrobat like Angela Mao but she had the ballet background. Françoise Yip would have been a better choice for Shu Qi’s role in both movies because she had already worked with Corey on Jet Li’s first English language star vehicle (Romeo Must Die) and an episode of an American TV series called Freedom. Not only could Françoise speak better English but she was better looking, and she had more experience as an actress.
Working on most of Jet Li’s American productions allowed people to advertise Corey Yuen’s earlier collaborations with him, but fate could easily have been different. Before he was given the invitation to play the villain in Lethal Weapon 4, Jet wanted to retire until he had a chance encounter with a Buddhist. Had Jet gone through with retiring, there are two options for the villain role - Conan Lee (who had a minor role in the film) and Donnie Yen. Producer Joel Silver was hip about Hong Kong action movies. Besides producing Lethal Weapon 4, he produced The Matrix (1999) and he had wanted Jet Li for the role of the villain in Demolition Man (1993) where Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone watched Hong Kong movies to gain inspiration. At one point in the film, Wesley is dressed similar to how Jet was dressed in Born to Defend (1987). Joel Silver even produced a 2000 TV series, Freedom, where Corey Yuen directed the pilot. When Jet Li turned down the chance to play Seraph in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, Joel offered the role to Ngai Sing (who previously appeared in Hong Kong movies such as those starring Jet).
Had Jet Li made an early retirement, that doesn’t leave much room for Corey in who he gets to choreograph. Donnie Yen has always prided himself upon being own supervisor unless when given the opportunity to work with Yuen Woo-Ping. He may sometimes be forced to work with someone else but that’s because of politics since everyone wants to make a name for themselves or others. Even when Jet Li called it quits, Donnie never went out of his way to hire Corey as a fight choreographer. They have worked with each other before but never in projects where Donnie is the star i.e. Black Rose II (a 1997 female-driven comedy) and The Twins Effect II (a similar 2004 movie but with Jackie Chan in a supporting role). Donnie only appeared in Black Rose II because the company, CineMagic, had signed him on to do a Stephen Chow movie about Bruce Lee’s teacher: Yip Man. It was going to begin filming in November 1996 but Stephen pulled out. Interestingly, Hong Kong stuntman Yuen Bun once claimed that Stephen is a better martial artist than Donnie. In 1997, there was an opportunity to have Donnie play Michael Wong’s roles in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Knock Off (1998) and Shannon Lee’s Enter the Eagles (1998).
When Jet Li left Hong Kong for America in December 1997, his official replacement was Chiu Man-Cheuk (now known as Vincent Zhao Wen-Zhao) but he never made the trip West. Ironically, it was Corey Yuen who told Tsui Hark that Chiu should be Jet’s replacement for the Once Upon a Time in China sequels after Jet decided to no longer work for Golden Harvest following the 1992 death of his manager: Jim Choi. Even more ironic is that Corey didn’t pay Chiu that much when he gave him his first film role - the villain in Jet Li’s Fong Sai-Yuk (1993). Chiu’s salary was a meagre HK$7,500. He must have been renumerated by Tsui Hark because Chiu became the guy who was cast when Jet was unavailable i.e. Green Snake (a 1993 fantasy made during Jet’s Wong Jing era), The Chinese Feast (made in 1994) and The Blade (1995). This leads to an interesting punchline: Corey, himself, directed Chiu when Jet was too busy to star. In 1996, Chiu co-starred in CineMagic’s Mahjong Dragon. The star was Josephine Siao, who played Jet’s mother in the two Fong Sai-Yuk movies.
At the same time as Mahjong Dragon, Jet was starring in Daniel Lee’s Black Mask (1996). The latter was produced by Tsui Hark, who was simultaneously directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in Double Team where the fight choreographer was Sammo Hung. The irony about Black Mask is that the comic book style of filming fights was more suited to Corey Yuen than Yuen Woo-Ping. While Corey used to have long takes in his fights before his Jet Li movies, Woo-Ping crafts takes which are so long that you would be forgiven for thinking that the shot which you have witnessed is a master shot. Black Mask was Woo-Ping’s final Hong Kong film before he began to train the stars of The Matrix in October 1997. It’s presumably because of him being hired for The Matrix that Sammo was hired for Once Upon a Time in China and America (filmed in the last two months of 1996). Corey wasn’t in a position to choreograph the Kung Fu Western because he was directing Yuen Biao in Hero (released in June 1997). This was made for the Shaw Brothers company because CineMagic ceased production.
When Corey Yuen directed Bruce Lee’s daughter in Golden Harvest’s Enter the Eagles (1998), it begged the question as to why he wasn’t called upon to direct Bruce’s son in Legacy of Rage (1986). The company behind the latter was the same company behind Corey’s Yes, Madam! (1985). He could have at least been the fight choreographer but, instead, that duty went to his right-hand man: Meng Hoi. Because Brandon Lee was not interested in martial arts training, that would have been more than enough for Ng See-Yuen to not consider casting him in an American Seasonal production. By the time that it was early January 1998, Shannon Lee’s Enter the Eagles was completed. One of Golden Harvest’s founders, Leonard Ho, died on February 17. Corey returned to Hong Kong for the funeral on the 22nd. A week before Leonard’s passing, they had made an appointment to meet in Hong Kong at the end of the month. Very little has been said about the relationship between Leonard and Bruce Lee.
The death of Leonard Ho allowed Wong Jing to organize a coup involving several film companies forming an alliance to buy the land under Golden Harvest. Without Ho by his side, Corey Yuen’s future at Golden Harvest was over. As for Seasonal, not even Roy Horan wanted to stay, and he had left in the late eighties. Roy’s problem was that Ng See-Yuen didn’t see the importance behind raising the budgets of his English language films in order to compete with bigger films; he just wanted to stay in his lane as a straight-to-video businessman. Tsui Hark’s company, Film Workshop, wasn’t an option for Corey since they didn’t do anything from 1996 to 1999 due to Tsui’s attempts at being a Hollywood film-maker. Corey could have been hired to be the action director for Tsui’s Knock Off, but that idea didn’t take flight when Jet Li dropped out of the film to do Hitman instead. Corey couldn’t work on that film either because of Enter the Eagles.
With Roy Horan being a professionally trained actor and martial artist, it’s curious that he didn’t do much after he got involved with distribution. Curiously, his last acting credit in a film was Shanghai 1920 (1991). This was an English language H.K. film produced by Jet Li’s manager, Jim Choi. The star of the film is John Lone, who mostly acted in English language productions despite his H.K. background. He actually went to the same Chinese opera school as guys who were lucky enough to work with Bruce Lee: Peter Chan Lung, Meng Hoi, Lam Ching-Ying, Mars and Chung Fat. Back to Corey Yuen, Roy Horan could have got into business with him but he became a teacher in the academic system by the time that it was 1999. When Jim Choi was murdered in 1992, Roy could have retired earlier.
I find it strange that despite being more physically active, Corey and Roy died before Ng See-Yuen will. Corey died in 2022 whereas Roy died in 2021. Quite frankly, Ng had more enemies as proven by how badly beaten that he was in 1982. I can imagine one such enemy now includes Tony Leung Siu-Hung. In one of his interviews for Manfred Wong’s YouTube channel (“Man’s Talk”), Ng See-Yuen shared a memory about Corey doing some guest directing on King of the Kickboxers (1990): “He is a grateful person. Once I was filming a Western movie in Thailand, and the action director I used was not good but the scene was the most important thing, so I asked him to help me. Without saying a word, he flew from another place to Bangkok and then took a boat to the set. After completing the shooting, he hurriedly returned to his work without any interruption.”
After King of the Kickboxers, Corey Yuen replaced Tony Leung Siu-Hung as the choreographer for Seasonal’s next English language movie - American Shaolin. This began filming in April 1991. Following the murder of Jet Li’s manager in April 1992, Corey refused to work for Ng See-Yuen. As such, Tony Leung returned for Seasonal’s final attempts at making U.S. martial arts movies: Superfights (1995) and Bloodmoon (1997). Unlike John Woo’s producer, Terence Chang, Ng never got the chance to produce a mainstream American film. Unlike Corey, Tony was never hired to choreograph a mainstream American film. Once it became common for H.K. choreographers to be hired on mainstream American films, it no longer seemed feasible for Seasonal to make U.S. martial arts movies.