How Sammo Hung expanded the martial arts movie genre with big-budget productions The Millionaires’ Express and Eastern Condors
- The Millionaires’ Express was a Chinese Western conceived as a Lunar New Year film, which had a huge cast, and was shot in Canada, Thailand, and Macau
- Eastern Condors is a proper Vietnam war movie, influenced by Rambo First Blood: Part 2, and The Deer Hunter; it even had a Russian roulette scene
The Millionaires’ Express (1986) and Eastern Condors (1987) saw actor and director Sammo Hung Kam-bo expand the martial arts movie genre by raising production values radically and telling new kinds of stories.
The Millionaires’ Express, conceived as a Lunar New Year film, is a kind of Chinese Western, while Eastern Condors is a fully fledged Vietnam war movie. Both films feature exotic locations, classy sets, stylish cinematography by Arthur Wong Ngok-tai, and a plethora of Hong Kong stars.
The Post talked to Frank Djeng, who supplied the audio commentary for Eureka Entertainment’s Blu-ray releases of both movies in the UK, about Hung’s fresh approach to the martial arts genre.
Was Sammo Hung trying to do something new with The Millionaires’ Express and Eastern Condors?
Yes, Sammo was trying to surprise the audience with something completely different. He wanted to do something fresh, something that you don’t normally associate with a typical Hong Kong martial arts film.
The Millionaires’ Express is really a Western, a kind of Eastern-Western, it even has a train heist and a bordello, which are standard elements of the Western. It’s as if Sammo wanted to prove himself – it was produced by his production company [Bo Ho Films], and he really wanted to show the Hong Kong industry what he could do as a producer. It has a big cast, and was shot in Canada, Thailand, and Macau.
Was it a very expensive film to make?