Below we rank Big Big Brother’s 10 best films, from good to great.

10. Encounter of the Spooky Kind (directed by Sammo Hung, 1980)

A big Christmas hit when it was released in 1980, Encounter of the Spooky Kind launched a slew of kung fu horror comedies, and set the tone for the popular Mr Vampire series that Hung was to produce later in the mid-1980s.

Hong Kong martial arts cinema: everything you need to know

The story features Hung as a boastful carriage driver defending himself from zombie-like animated corpses who’ve been sent to kill him by his wife’s lover.

One of the highlights of the film is its final scene of “spiritual kung fu”, in which two rival fat si – Taoist priests from the magically inclined Maoshan sect – duel by taking over the bodies of Hung and his adversaries.

The success of the movie, which Hung directed, co-wrote and co-choreographed, gave his career a big boost. But it is marred by a misogynistic final scene in which Hung’s character beats up his unfaithful wife.

9. Hapkido (dir. Huang Feng, 1972)

When Hung signed with Golden Harvest in 1970, after working as a stuntman and choreographer for Shaw Bros, the studio promised it would give him greater prominence both behind and in front of the camera. Hapkido, which he both choreographed and acted in, was one of the results.

A tubby Hung moves fast, and plays his role straight, without a hint of humour. Hung had already learned a little hapkido as a child at the China Drama Academy, but Golden Harvest sent him and Mao to Korea to train, with impressive results.

8. Eastern Condors (dir. Sammo Hung, 1987)

A martial arts movie set around the Vietnam war is certainly unusual, and Eastern Condors plays the idea to the hilt. Drawing on classic Western war movies like The Dirty Dozen and The Deer Hunter – from which it takes a deadly game of Russian roulette – Hung’s film revolves around 10 Chinese prisoners who are promised their freedom if they parachute into Vietnam and destroy some American weapons before the Viet Cong finds them.

7. Magnificent Butcher (dir. Yuen Woo-ping, 1979)

Although the crude slapstick humour makes it seem dated, Yuen Woo-ping’s kung fu comedy features some imaginative martial arts sequences which depict the popular Southern-style Hung Ga fighting system. More than that, it also features Kwan Tak-hing reprising his role as Wong Fei-hung, the character he essayed in over 70 movies in the long-running Wong Fei-Hung film series.

Hung portrays real-life martial arts master Lam Ting as Wong’s cheeky student. The beggar role was intended for Yuen Woo-ping’s father, Yuen Siu-tien, who played the popular Beggar So role in Drunken Master , but he died at the start of the shoot, and was replaced by Fan Mei-sheng.

6. Painted Faces (dir. Alex Law, 1988)

This delicate and heartwarming drama, directed and written by art-house filmmaker Alex Law Kai-yui, depicts Hung’s tough upbringing in the Peking Opera school, the China Drama Academy, where Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao also trained and lived.

Hung plays Master Yu Jim-yuan, while younger actors play Hung – who was the big brother of the troupe – and Jackie “Big Nose” Chan. Although Hung has often said he hated his time at the school, where the young pupils were frequently beaten, he plays Master Yu sympathetically as a man trapped by his own rigid world view.

5. Ip Man 2 (dir. Wilson Yip Wai-shun, 2010)

Hung had choreographed the hit Ip Man , and returned for the sequel to appear in front of the cameras as well – because, as he has joked, producer Raymond Wong Pak-ming agreed to pay him to act this time.

Hung Chun-nam goes on to inspire Ip Man to protect the honour of the Chinese martial arts. In his own scenes, Hung choreographs fights that pitch Hung Ga kung fu against both the Wing Chun style (used by Yen’s Ip Man) and Western boxing (used by Darren Shahlavi).

Hung was taken ill with a heart condition during the shoot and had to have an operation before returning to finish the film. The martial arts choreography is fun to watch and has an old-school flavour, although it was tough enough for Hung to receive a minor face wound during the bout with Shahlavi.

4. Knockabout (dir. Sammo Hung, 1979)

Martial arts directors sometimes say that the action is used to express the feelings of the characters, but that is not true of the kung fu comedy Knockabout, which is simply about the fighting. Directed and choreographed by Hung, who also features in a supporting role, the story and jokes are crude but the martial arts scenes are beautifully staged. What’s more, there are a lot of them.

Developed as a vehicle to turn Yuen Biao into a star, Knockabout has Yuen play a con man training with an invincible master (Lau Kar-wing) who turns out to be a psychopath. The first hour is leavened with slapstick, but the last 30 minutes are pure combat. The early martial arts scenes may be acrobatic and jovial, but the showdown between Lau, Yuen and Hung, who plays a beggar, is relentlessly hard-hitting.

3. Pedicab Driver (dir. Sammo Hung, 1989)

Pedicab Driver, released in 1989, marked the end of Hung’s most successful decade. Once again, the story and the jokes are crude, but the martial scenes are impressive.

Directed and choreographed by Hung, the movie sees him play a pedicab driver in Macau who takes on a vicious brothel owner. The martial arts scenes are thinly scattered, with three stand-out sequences – a battle in a casino with Lau Kar-leung, a mass fight between two rival gangs of pedicab drivers, and a final showdown in a house of ill repute.

The mixture of stunts and martial arts are a reminder of Jackie Chan’s Project A , which Hung helped choreograph, but the fights are much more violent than Chan’s work. Hung looks very bulky, and his acrobatic backflips and spins really do look impossible for a man of his size.

2. Warriors Two (dir. Sammo Hung, 1978)

This 1978 film, which Hung directed and had a supporting role in, mixes tragedy and humour to good effect. The film’s focus is again on Wing Chun kung fu, and it’s perhaps still the purest examination of the style in a martial arts movie.

When Chan Wah-shan (Casanova Wong) overhears a plot by a gangster to murder the town mayor, he goes into hiding with his friend Fei Chun (Hung). After the gangsters kill Chan Wah-shan’s mother to draw him out, Fei Chun introduces him to Wing Chun master Leung Jan (Leung Kar-yan) so that he can perfect his kung fu and take revenge.

The film is carefully photographed to ensure the Wing Chun moves can be seen clearly, and a long training sequence explains the techniques and ideas behind the style. Hung’s “blind kung fu” fight in a dark forest is one of his best-ever scenes.

1. The Prodigal Son (dir. Sammo Hung, 1981)

A firm favourite with fans of martial arts movies, The Prodigal Son features some carefully crafted old-school martial arts sequences, although there is no shortage of blood and guts.

A complex plot features Yuen Biao as Leung Jan, a character based on a notable real-life 19th-century Wing Chun practitioner – a privileged youth who wins all his fights because his rich father has ordered everyone to lose to him. When Leung finds out he has been duped, he pesters Wing Chun expert Leung Yee-tai (Lam Ching-ying) – the real-life “kung fu king of Foshan” – to teach him properly.

Hung, who directed, choreographed, and co-scripted the film, has an extended cameo as grumpy martial arts master Wong Wa-bo, also a real personage.

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. Read our comprehensive explainer here.

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