From Lee to Li: An A–Z guide of martial arts heroes. Ben Stevens
choice: do the job and eat, or walk away and starve.
For a while he was doing reasonably well (he made a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon), until the Hong Kong film industry started to do badly, and then even Chan had trouble finding work.
Running out of money, Chan was obliged to move to Australia to be with his parents. By all accounts he hated his time there, doing nothing more than menial construction jobs, although something came out of it that boded well for the future. One of Chan’s co-workers, who was having trouble pronouncing his full name, took to calling him just ‘Jackie’ instead
Then, pretty much out of the blue, Chan was contacted by one Willie Chan, who was working within the newly revitalised Hong Kong film industry.
‘I’ve been watching some of your stunts, and every one’s fantastic,’ said Willie. ‘How would you like to come back to Hong Kong and star in a film called New Fist of Fury?’
‘I’m on the plane already,’ replied the 21-year-old Jackie, tired and filthy after yet another day spent working as a casual labourer.
New Fist of Fury was followed by a number of other films starring Chan, but it was only when he began to put his own ideas into the plots that he became a genuine star; producing such gems as Drunken Master in 1978.
Popular as he may have been in Asia—and Hong Kong in particular (where his nickname continues to be ‘Big Brother’)—success in the West would elude Chan for a long time. Only with 1996’s Rumble in the Bronx did Chan become a notable box-office success, capitalising on this with later films such as Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon.
It’s well known that Chan has broken umpteen bones, including his neck, while performing his own stunts; and he even came close to death on one occasion when he fractured his skull while filming 1987’s Armour of God. As a result of this he suffers from chronic pain, and these days relies—though not always—upon stunt doubles, as it would otherwise be next to impossible to find an insurance company prepared to underwrite his productions.
He has in recent years sought to diversify from roles which feature his martial arts’ prowess (as well as his standard, ‘slightly-goofy-but-basically-a-nice-guy’ character), resulting in films including The Myth—in which he played both a general in ancient China as well as a modern-day archaeologist—and Rob-B-Hood, in which Chan played a ‘comical’ criminal who kidnaps a baby.
Since the mid-1980s, Chan has forged a separate career as a pop star, singing in a variety of languages (including English and Japanese) and releasing over 20 albums. He also works tirelessly for a number of charities, including those that deal with environmental issues and animal rights, and has paid for several schools to be built in the poorer areas of China.
CHANG, SAN-FENG
The semi-mythical ‘founder’ (this is still hotly contested by many) of what is known in the West as tai chi chuan, or the ‘supreme ultimate fist’.
Establishing any concrete facts about Mr Chang San-Feng is nigh-on impossible. For example, the date
of his birth is variously estimated to have been between 600 AD and the sixteenth century. Rumours also abound that he achieved immortality (though where he is now is anyone’s guess), was over seven foot tall, could cover more than 300 miles in a single day (on foot), and that for whatever reason he wore on his head a large cymbal instead of a hat, which only the ‘privileged’ (whoever they might have been) were permitted to sound.
However, Chang San-Feng may have been a Shaolin monk, active sometime towards the end of the twelfth century, who for over a decade engaged in strenuous kung-fu training. But whilst out walking one day, he was captivated by a fight between a snake and a bird.
The bird was larger and seemed more powerful—there was little doubt that it would be able to kill and devour the snake—and yet, by suddenly feigning weakness, the snake caused the bird to become overconfident. Carelessly it soared down upon its seemingly stricken prey, only to be grabbed in the snake’s jaws and killed.
Chang San-Feng was dumbfounded. Here, provided by nature itself, was the answer to all the questions and doubts he’d privately had concerning his martial arts’ training.
Shrewdly, he copied the snake’s example of cunning and speed over superior strength, combining this with his own ideas concerning ‘chi’ or a person’s own inner power (for example, what sometimes—incredibly— allows a mother to lift a burning car to free her trapped child) and adding a more ‘spiritual’ dimension to the martial arts than had existed previously.
CHENG, MAN-CH’ING
Born in 1902, Cheng Man-ch’ing achieved the modest title ‘The Master of Five Excellences’ due to his expertise in poetry, medicine, painting, calligraphy, and last, but most definitely not least, tai ji quan (more popularly known in the West as tai chi chuan ). Cheng was fond of referring to himself as ‘the old child who never tires of learning’, and in his later years could be heard bemoaning the fact that old age had caught him unawares.
He was nine years old when he was struck on the head by a rock or a brick, which for a short while placed him in a coma and erased his memory. To aid his recuperation, he was apprenticed to a well-known painter, who soon discovered that the young boy was no slouch with a brush himself. In time, Cheng was able to provide for his family by selling his own paintings.
In his late twenties he began a serious study of tai ji quan as a way of counteracting tuberculosis, which he’d contracted a short while earlier. (Given that he lived until he was seventy-three, we can assume that his novel approach to a cure was successful.) The style of tai chi which he evolved is still widely practised today.
CHEUNG, KU YU
Old, black-and-white photographs abound of Grandmaster Ku Yu Cheung bending a steel bar around his arm, having a large boulder placed on his stomach, being smashed over the head with a lump of quarry stone, breaking twelve bricks with the palm of his hand, and so on.
Certainly, early on in his life, nothing indicated that Cheung would one day be capable of performing such feats. This was in spite of the fact that his father was a famous martial artist, who acted as an ‘escort’ to wealthy merchants who would otherwise be plagued by robbers and other assorted ne’er-do-wells as they travelled throughout China on business. So successful was Cheung’s father that he established a business employing some 200 martial arts’ experts, all acting as escorts or bodyguards for those who could afford their services. Through this, Cheung’s father could afford to send his quiet, bookish son to an exclusive private school.
Only on his deathbed did his father apparently plead with Ku Yu to train in the martial arts, and so off went the teenager to a kung-fu master named Yim Kai Wun.
In the ensuing eleven years, Cheung learned—amongst many other things—leg techniques, breath control and Gum Jung Chi Gung or ‘iron shirt’—the art of making the body withstand any blow.
The news that his mother had passed away caused Cheung to finally leave his sifu, or ‘teacher’, and return home. As he did so, Yim Kai Wun gave his departing student one last piece of advice:
‘Through your kung-fu training you have succeeded in climbing one mountain, but just remember—there is always another.’
Later, sometime around the mid-1920s, Cheung was appointed bodyguard to the Secretary of Finance, and then became Chief Instructor in the Martial Arts to the military. One of his ‘party tricks’ was to have a car filled with three students driven over his shirtless body.
A story concerning Cheung details how he accepted a bet that he wouldn’t be able to withstand a kick from a horse. Proving that he in fact could, he then insisted that he be allowed to hit the horse back—something