‘Birth of The Dragon’, the latest film about Lee Jun-fan, professionally known as Bruce Lee, is a fine reminder of my teenage obsession with movies of the late actor who died aged 32 on July 20, 1973 in Hong Kong, then a British colony.
Born on Nov 27, 1940 in China Town, San Francisco, Lee, film actor, director, martial artist, martial arts instructor and philosopher – he held a Masters Degree in Philosophy from the University of Washington – starred in and produced films that elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts films to a new level of popularity and acclaim, sparking a surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s. In another word, he opened the eyes of the West to Chinese martial arts.
When I heard from the radio that my favourite actor and hero had died on one afternoon at our old Kedap longhouse, I was in the midst of decorating our humble room as part of the preparations for our coming Gawai Antu in August of 1973. It was during the second term school holidays – then I was in Form Six Lower at Methodist Secondary School Sibu. One of the images put up for decoration was that of Bruce Lee painted by me – few other households in Kedap had also commissioned me to do similar paintings to be put at their own walls. Devastated, I stopped decorating immediately and started mourning for my idol and hero.
Later in life, long after Lee’s untimely demise, I was to have an almost complete collection of his films in VHS and later VCDs and DVDs plus a handful of magazines and other items about Lee, including films featuring his late son Brandon. His daughter Shannon is also featured in a movie in VCD that was borrowed and never returned to me by a friend who later became state assemblyman and assistant minister. That was in the early 90s.
Prior to Bruce Lee’s movies such as ‘Big Boss’, ‘Fist of Fury’, ‘Way of The Dragon’, ‘Enter the Dragon’ and ‘The Game of Death’ (he died before this film was fully completed), I already had some kind of obsession with Chinese movies, thanks to a magazine called ‘The Southern Screen’ written in English about Hong Kong and Taiwanese movies. I started reading the monthly magazines in 1968 and owned almost every issue by the time I left SMK Saratok for MS Sibu at the end of 1972.
Those were the glory days of Shaw Brothers, the Hong Kong-based company owning the world’s largest collection of Chinese-made films. As such during long school holidays since 1968, my main aim was to have enough money for bus and express boat fares to Sibu from Saratok – and extra fund for film shows too.
In Sibu then, movie theatres such as Lido, Rex, Palace, Cathay, King Hua, Zenith and others were our favourite weekends’ ‘movie hunting grounds’. A matinee double-feature or two-in-one film was a much sought-after opportunity to sit up to four hours in the movie theatres, some with very strong urine smell, especially if one was seated on the first four to six rows of then 50-sen third class seats, just a few metres from the entrance to the wash room/toilet.
Names of Chinese actors of the 60s and 70s such as Jimmy Wang Yu, David Chiang, Ti Lung, Yueh Hua, Chin Han, Chen Kwan Tai, Alexander Fu Sheng, Chen Sing, Charlie Tsin, Lo Lieh, Yang Hua, Tang Kwang Lung, Ku Feng, Chow Yun-fat and many more on everybody’s lips as they were the main favourites. Later the likes of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Andy Lau and Jet Li as well as Donnie Chien joined the list of favourites.
Greatly favoured among their female counterparts were Li Ching, Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, Lily Ho, Betty Ting Pei, Nora Miao, Zhang Ziyi, Gou Ling, Cheng Pei-Pei and others.
Among interesting Chinese movies apart from the aforementioned Bruce Lee’s movies were ‘The One-Armed Swordman’ (Jimmy Wang Yu), ‘New One-Armed Swordsman’ (David Chiang), ‘Twelve Gold Medallion’ (Yueh Hua), ‘Chinese Boxer’ (Jimmy Wang Yu), ‘Have Swords Will Travel’ (David Chiang, Ti Lung), ‘Deadly Duo’ (David Chiang, Ti Lung), ‘The Wandering Swordsman’ (David Chiang), ‘Shaolin Temple’ (Alexander Fu Sheng), ‘The God of Gamblers’ series (Chow Yun-fat) and many more.
Reminiscing, a hero such as Jimmy Wang Yu, David Chiang or Yueh Hua on a galloping horse coming to the rescue was always greeted with thunderous applause by the audience of movie goers as an indication that no one slept during such interesting swords fighting movies. This was as opposed to some loud snores heard during romantic movies starring Tang Kwang Lung, Chin Han and Chen Chen.
Nowadays I still watch Chinese movies on TVs and in DVDs as well as VCDs but my main choices are films and actors of the 60s and 70s. I prefer movies with original dialogues but subtitled in English or BM. Ones with dialogues in English don’t look orginal because one could see their lips are saying different things, sometimes accompanied by facial expressions that are unreal, not genuine or unconvincing.
The latest Chinese movie ‘My Beloved Bodyguard’ starring Sammo Hung, downloaded by a friend, is a great movie with a lot of interesting fight scenes. Also featuring Andy Lau, the movie implies a lot on family values, greed, honour and courage. It features Sammo Hung as a classy and prolific Chinese martial artist.
