Yuen Biao
by Martin Cleary
The Three Brothers Unite
In 1983 the seemingly inevitable happened – the three brothers,
Jackie, Sammo and Yuen Biao - appeared together onscreen in the film
Winners & Sinners. Although this was not specifically a project
designed for the trio (Yuen Biao was busier on the set as an action
choreographer than as an actor) it became clear that as a threesome
they really shone together onscreen – and the financial success of
the film proved that audiences were desperate to see more.
For years Jackie Chan had dreamt of making a film about sailors and
pirates and after the success of Winners & Sinners he decided to
enlist Biao and Sammo to star alongside him in the film Project A
(originally titled Pirate Patrol). Project A gave all three action
stars a chance to show their unique talents, highlighting Biao’s
gymnastic ability against Jackie’s slapstick martial-arts fighting
and Sammo’s own huge physical presence. The film was a massive
success and again made Yuen Biao even more of
a recognizable face not only across Asia but also over in the West
too. Confusingly, as Yuen Biao’s face was becoming more recognizable
to Western viewers, it seemed
that his name itself was not. In the Western film market some of the
earliest releases
of the films in which he appeared he was credited under the name
Bill Yuen. Then, when many of the first Jackie Chan films were
released in the West, Golden Harvest decided to credit him under yet
another name - as Jimmy Yuen. Eventually his name credits were
changed back to Yuen Biao - but not before all of these alternative
names had caused some confusion among Western fans and critics.
In 1983 Tsui Hark cast Biao in the lead role for the film Zu
Warriors: Warriors From The Magic Mountain. The film was a special
effects extravaganza and received worldwide acclaim. It received a
wide audience as it played for many years at different festivals
globally. The next year was an eventful one for Biao, he reunited
with Jackie and Sammo again for the film Wheels On Meals, and he
united with a wife as he married DiDi Phang Sau-Ha. Wheels On Meals
was a blockbuster box-office success and featured an amazing fight
between Biao and Keith Vitali, and his marriage seems to have been
an equal success – Biao and DiDi have two children together. After
Wheels On Meals the three brothers soon reunited again in supporting
roles in two ‘Lucky Stars’ films.
As Yuen Biao sailed on a career high, 1986 proved to be a very busy
and fruitful year. Firstly he met up with former classmate Corey
Yuen and a then up and coming martial artist called Cynthia Rothrock
to work on the film Righting Wrongs. The film was a dazzling display
of Yuen Biao’s skills and acting talent and is a classic of 1980’s
HK cinema. The involvement of Rothrock ensured that the film was
distributed well in the west under the title Above The Law, and yet
again Biao gathered an even stronger fan base. After the success of
Righting Wrongs, Biao co-starred with Sammo and a group
of Hong Kong stars (including Lam Ching Ying, Yuen Woo Ping, Billy
Lau, ex-classmate Yuen Wah and Righting Wrongs director Corey Yuen)
for the film Eastern Condors. The film, which is a sort of Hong Kong
Dirty Dozen, displays some amazing fight action and stunt work and
has become a classic. Yuen Biao shows off some of his amazing
acrobatic moves - as well as a bad Eighties haircut. Next up, Biao
joined forces with Lam Ching Ying once again for Mr Vampire 2 which
was produced by Sammo and was the sequel to the smash-hit original
Mr Vampire film released the previous year. Although not as strong
as the original film, the presence of Biao back alongside Lam Ching
Ying (his Prodigal Son co-star) in the second instalment of the
series marks it out as one to watch.
The very next year, 1987, Biao teamed up once again with his two
brothers to star in the film Dragons Forever. Although the film was
a massive critical success and today remains one of HK cinema fans
favourites, it marked the last time to date that all three actors
starred together on-screen in a project. Working on the film somehow
highlighted tensions between the trio. There were disagreements over
the direction the film should take and even though Sammo was
officially the films director (and as the eldest he should
traditionally have been the decision maker) it was Jackie who was
the
biggest star and he had been used to a lot of control over his own
projects. In the middle of this power struggle Yuen Biao felt
side-lined and after filming was completed he made the decision that
he would concentrate on his solo career. One of his first films in
this next phase of his career was the bizarre Peacock King, a
Japanese financed project which saw him play a Taoist monk who has
to stop the gates of hell from opening on Earth. Although the film
makes little sense, it proved to be good fun and was a huge success
in Japan. After the Peacock King, Biao took the role of Ming
Hsiang in the film On The Run - and gave a serious and dramatic
performance
which was rewarded with critical acclaim.
In 1989 Biao teamed up again with his old classmate, Yuen Wah, for
the film Iceman Cometh, a sort of Hong Kong reworking of Highlander.
This action comedy was another big success for Biao, helped in no
small part by strong performances from his co-stars Maggie Cheng and
Wah. Although his projects were financial successes, Biao found
himself struggling to find especially good roles. As popular as he
was with audiences, he couldn’t find particularly strong projects,
and so opted for parts in a few lower budgeted films including Saga
Of The Phoenix which was a sequel to the Peacock King.
Once Upon A Time…
In 1991, Biao was finally offered a role which was strong enough for
him to get his teeth into, in Tsui Hark’s Once Upon A Time In China.
The film, starring Jet Li as Wong Fei Hung, was a massive box-office
success and also allowed Yuen Biao to stretch his acting skills
alongside his action abilities. Sadly, some of Biao’s screen-time
was cut from the released film to shorten the running time. Tsui
Hark and Yuen Biao subsequently fell out over the project, and Biao
did not return for the sequel. After starring in the under-rated
Shogun and Little Kitchen in 1992, Biao decided that it was time to
take more control of his own projects. He set up his own production
company called Yuen Biao Films and he made his directorial debut
with A Kid From Tibet. The film proved to be a difficult project -
although Biao was allowed unprecedented access to shoot in Tibet, it
was a long shoot and the rigours of both starring and directing took
their toll on the actor. The film wasn’t a big success on its
release, although it is since gaining a reputation as a cult
classic. The stress of the project was too much for Biao, and he has
not yet returned to the directorial chair to repeat the experience.
In 1993 Yuen Biao produced and starred in the film Kickboxer. The
film, which was directed by legendary Hong Kong director Wu Ma, was
another take on the Wong Fei Hung legend .After feeling slighted by
his experiences on Once Upon A Time In China, Biao had managed to
return to the Fei Hung story. Although the film did not have the
same production values of the Tsui Hark series, Kickboxer features
enough good action scenes to make it worth a look – and was the last
time (so far) that Yuen Biao would face off against Yuen Wah
onscreen. The next year Biao was lined up for a project which would
have him once again starring alongside Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.
The project, Don’t Give A Damn, didn’t fully come together and
Jackie couldn’t sign on for his part due to prior commitments. The
film went ahead anyway with Yuen Biao back
alongside his big brother Sammo. The rest of the nineties were not a
great time for Biao on the big screen. New comers such as Jet Li,
Donnie Yen and Steven Chow began to take the main big-screen roles,
and Yuen Biao found himself in a lot of projects which
didn’t really utilise his acting or physical skills to their best
abilities.
After appearances in 1994’s Circus Kids and Dragon From Shaolin in
1996, Biao
found himself once again under the directorial control of classmate
Corey Yuen for the film Hero. Biao’s performance as the Triad leader
Tam See reminded audiences that he could still pack a punch on
screen. A similarly strong performance in The Hunted Hunter showed
the same thing. Unfortunately neither film was as convincing at the
box-office.
In 1998 Biao took a break from the big screen to appear in several
television series including Righteous Guards and The Legend Of A
Chinese Hero made for Taiwan and China. His only film-work this year
was as action director on the film Leopard Hunting. The next year he
made a big-screen return in what was hoped to be a big come-back in
A Man Called Hero, the semi-sequel to the smash-hit CGI-heavy film
The Storm-Riders. Although A Man Called Hero was similarly popular
with worldwide audiences, Biao’s character gets buried in between
the confused narrative and amazing special effects.
Over in the U.S., Biao’s old schoolmate and friend Jackie Chan had
finally made the breakthrough in Hollywood that he had always
dreamed of. The films Rumble In The Bronx and Rush Hour had been
world-wide box-office smashes, and Jackie’s next film Shanghai Noon
needed to be something special. Going over to work with Jackie’s
stunt-team (which Biao had always been a sort of honorary member of)
he worked as fight choreographer and stuntman on the film. The film
was a big success on its release – and the fight scenes did not
disappoint Jackie's fans – even those who were upset that Jackie had
left Hong Kong to work in America. Although he enjoyed working on a
film-set again, Biao found himself less interested in the film
business and was
during this period described by Jackie as being more interested in
being on the golf course than on a film set.
Eventually Biao was convinced by Sammo to get back in front of the
camera, and he appeared in the film The Avenging Fist, an unofficial
(someone forgot to buy the rights!) Hong Kong film version of the
popular video game Tekken. What could have again proved to be a
promising role in was swamped by an over reliance on special
effects. Like his experience on A Man Called Hero, Yuen Biao found
himself secondary to computer wizardry. The next few years saw only
minimal appearances from Biao, in 2002 he appeared in No Problem 2,
and in Hero Youngster in 2004. In that same year
he made a notable cameo in the Jackie Chan-produced Enter The
Phoenix, and he followed this in 2005 with another return to the
small-screen, starring in the Hong Kong television series Real
Kung-Fu which ran for forty episodes and was a popular success.
In early 2006 an announcement was made that Yuen Biao would once
again be starring in a film alongside Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.
While Hong Kong fans salivated at the prospect of seeing the three
Hong Kong screen legends back together, the excitement proved to be
short lived. Sammo Hung couldn’t commit to for the film due to
contractual scheduling. The project - eventually called Rob-B-Hood -
still went ahead with Jackie starring and Yuen Biao taking a small
role, and has been a big recent success. Recently Yuen Biao has
returned to the small screen once more, this time
for the Hong Kong series Wing Chun. The series, which also co-stars
Nicholas Tse and Sammo Hung see’s Biao returning to the character he
played for his classic film Prodigal Son. Hopefully it will receive
a wider screening than most HK shows.
As one of Hong Kong’s beloved ‘Three Brothers’ and as a star in his
own right, Yuen Biao has been involved in making some of the most
groundbreaking, influential and just-downright-amazing films to come
out of Hong Kong - or anywhere in the world for that matter - in the
last thirty years. He may or may not appear on the big screen again
anytime soon, time will tell, but Yuen Biao is one of Asian and
action cinema’s living legends.
Recommended Films
Knockabout (1979)
Prodigal Son (1982)
Project A (1983)
Wheels On Meals (1984)
Eastern Condors (1986)
Righting Wrongs (1986)
Dragons Forever (1988)
The Iceman Cometh (1989)
Once Upon A Time In China (1991) |
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