Director Teddy Chen reaffirms his love of martial arts in his latest offering

Of the more than 20 students in a judo class in a Hong Kong public housing estate in the mid-1970s, few were more stunned than the young Teddy Chen Tak-sum to witness their teacher's public humiliation. It shocked the 12-year-old that a formidable judo master would back down to a few hooligans over a trivial dispute about girls, while being slapped in the face with machetes.

"We all thought he's a master and had no reason to let that happen. We urged him to fight back but he just knelt down and apologised," recalls the veteran filmmaker, who, before that moment, had believed his own athletic gift to be a way out of his miserable childhood.

Raised in a broken family, Chen was used to taking refuge in the heroic fantasies he found in Shaw Brothers films and judo-themed Japanese TV dramas. Nominally a Form 5 graduate, he readily acknowledges that his "real education level is only about Form 2 or 3", and that he only was promoted because of his excellence in physical education.

Sitting inside Luk Chee Fu Martial Arts Federation in Chai Wan, Chen can't resist the opportunity to check out the weapons.

Given the tortuous decade-long production time for his previous film, Bodyguards and Assassins (2009), it must be a relief that we can chat about his follow-up effort after only five years.