Martial arts star Sammo Hung on fighting Bruce Lee and why Jackie Chan was a ‘dummy’
- Here’s what Hong Kong movie legend Sammo Hung has said about fighting Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon and teasing Jackie Chan as a youngster
- He also talks about training in the tough China Drama Academy in Hong Kong
One of the grandmasters of Hong Kong cinema, Sammo Hung Kam-bo needs no introduction. He first appeared on screen as a child in 1961, the same year he joined the China Drama Academy, a Peking Opera School in Hong Kong which was also attended by Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao.
He made his name working as a stuntman for wuxia films in the 1960s, and rose to martial arts choreographer for Shaw Bros’ The Golden Sword in 1969. He famously fought his friend Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, and became a successful and popular actor, director, and producer.
He launched the kung fu vampire craze in 1980 with Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind and popularising the action comedy genre with films like Winners and Sinners (1983). He has been a prominent player on the local movie scene for nearly six decades.
Nicknamed “Big Big Brother Hung”, he was recently honoured with a Filmmaker in Focus retrospective at last year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival. Here’s what he has said about his early life and working with Bruce Lee.
On life in the China Drama Academy
“The training was very hard. In the beginning, I got one day off, and I could go home to my family. But after one year we started performing, and then we had no days off. A very tough life. You get beaten up when you train.
Hong Kong martial arts cinema: everything you need to know
“The master asks you to do an hour for each exercise, and even if you are crying, you cannot do less. If one student is bad, everybody gets beaten.
“And everybody respects the master. This kind of training is part of the culture.”
Talking to Black Belt magazine, 2019
On how he felt about Yuen Biao and Jackie Chan arriving at the China Drama Academy
“My first impression of them was, ‘Look, two more dummies!’ I had asked my parents to put me in the academy, but a week later I regretted it. The teacher beat us very badly. Suddenly I see these two dummies walk in – they must have been dummies to come to such a place of suffering!
“There was no rivalry – I was the strongest of the three, simply because I was older. My temper was always very bad back then. If teacher wasn’t there, I would represent teacher and teach them. And I could hit them, so they would never start a fight with me!”
Interview on a Japanese television show
On meeting Bruce Lee for the first time
“There’s a story about me and Bruce Lee. At that time, he had not started shooting in Hong Kong. He had just come back to Hong Kong from America to visit. I was shooting other movies, and he came to the studio to say hello to everyone.
“At that moment, he was already a hero of mine. I said to him, ‘Hey, are you really as fast as they say, can you really kick fast?’ I don’t know why, but he felt like I was challenging him. He said, ‘Yes. I’m really fast, do you want some, do you want to try it?’ I didn’t know what to say, so I just said OK. I tried to kick him. I had hardly moved, and he had already hit my face.
“Bruce said: ‘How was it?’ and all I could say was, ‘It was really good … it was really fast!’”
Interview with Cinema AZN, an American TV programme, in 2007
Jackie Chan on working for Bruce Lee: ‘Everyone thought he was a god’
On how Bruce Lee introduced him to nunchakus
“When I was shooting in Hong Kong, Bruce would always come to my set and tell me about his fighting and his weapons. I had never touched that weapon of his, the nunchakus. I remember I was working in Bangkok as an action director, and the director gave me the nunchakus to use. I thought: ‘Oh my goodness, I have never touched that weapon.’
“But I knew how Bruce used it, so I I took it into the backyard and taught myself. Back on the set, I taught the main cast member to fight with it. Three days later the main cast member asked me: ‘Sammo, how many years did you spend learning the nunchakus? I have been doing karate for many years and I have never figured out how to use them.’
“I said sorry, it took me just half an hour. He didn’t believe me.”
On fighting Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon
“We never really rehearsed it, we just talked about it. Then you would throw a punch, do a block, and then he would say, ‘ready, lights, action’, and we would do it. Almost everything was done in one take. We were very good friends. Actually, he was a very funny guy.”
Interview with Cinema AZN
On finishing the fight sequences for Game of Death after Bruce Lee’s death
“Raymond Chow [from Golden Harvest] asked me to finish Game of Death. Of course, I wanted to do it. I really wanted to finish the movie so that people could see the last Bruce Lee film. He is still my hero, and he was already deep in my heart back then.
“I did the work very fast, in 15 or 20 days. I had to finish it for the midnight show at Christmas. I worked all night, sleeping in the car. My eyes went like ping-pong balls! I was very happy that Bruce Lee’s last movie was able to come out.”
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved genre.
