Doom Sees You

After the death of Jet Li’s manager, fight choreographer Corey Yuen Kwai never worked with producer Ng See-Yuen ever again. This is really saying something since Ng gave Corey his first shot at not only being a director on home turf (i.e. Hong Kong), but he even gave him an international standing by letting him become the first Hong Kong film director to make a U.S. film. Corey Yuen was Jet Li’s main collaborator in Hong Kong, but they only began working with each other after the death of Jet’s manager. When Jet became an actor of English language cinema in 1997, Corey worked with him on almost every English language film that he appeared in but not once was Ng See-Yuen allowed to reap the benefits. You reap what you sow.

Ng was responsible for Jackie Chan becoming a star with Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978) but Jackie never worked with him again after the death of Jet Li’s manager - not even when Jackie was tackling English language roles in the late nineties. On the Chinese web, Jackie has been quoted as saying that everyone in Hong Kong knows who ordered the hit on Jet Li’s manager but they don’t have the guts to say it in public. Ng See-Yuen produced the first four sequels to Jet Li’s Once Upon a Time in China (1991) but didn’t produce the final sequel: Once Upon a Time in China and America, which not only marked Jet Li’s return to the role of Wong Fei-Hung but wasn’t produced by the Golden Harvest film company like the previous entries of the series.

As for why Ng See-Yuen didn’t produce the first movie, Jackie Chan was too busy with Operation Condor (1991) to play folk hero Wong Fei-Hung. In the spring of 1992, Ng’s Seasonal company had collaborated with Tsui Hark’s company, Film Workshop, to remake Dragon Inn. Jet Li was going to do his own version with Michelle Yeoh, Max Mok, Chin Kar-Lok and Yuen Wah (who worked with Jet on The Master). The producer was going to be Jet’s manager: a gangster named Jim Choi. After Jim was murdered in April 1992, Jet and Yuen Woo-Ping never worked with Ng again. Through Seasonal in the late seventies, Ng had instigated the directorial careers of Yuen Woo-Ping and Tsui Hark. According to the June 1979 issue of Cinemart, Tsui’s The Butterfly Murders cost HK$3 million to make.

Ng See-Yuen founded Seasonal in the same year that Bruce Lee died: 1973. On a similar note, Wong Jing formed a production company (Upland Films Corporate Limited) on July 20, 1993: the twentieth anniversary of Bruce’s death. Some may call this a coincidence, but this was after Jing got beaten up by gangsters because of a creative dispute during the making of a Jet Li movie called Kung Fu Cult Master. Jet’s first manager, David Lo (a.k.a. Law Dai-Wai), was the son of a high-ranking official in the Sun Yee On Triad. This official was Lo Wei, who Bruce Lee had threatened on July 5, 1973. David Lo is listed as having planned two films directed by Tsui Hark - The Master and Once Upon a Time in China. The former was shelved until it got released in May 1992. The first sequel to the latter was released on the same day that Jet Li’s second manager was murdered: April 16, 1992.

After the murder, Jet didn’t want to stay at Golden Harvest. This led to an irony: Jackie Chan took over his role in Kirk Wong’s Crime Story. What adds to the intrigue is that David Lo’s mother was one of Golden Harvest’s shareholders, so there was definitely a conflict of interest. In fact, Lo Wei split up with her in the mid-seventies because she was having an affair with Golden Harvest’s founder: Raymond Chow. In 1989, Lo Wei’s own film company (Grand March) made a movie starring Jet Li and Stephen Chow: Dragon Fight. Golden Harvest initially didn’t pay what Jet’s contract had demanded. Why? Because, in May 1989, he had signed a two year contract which stipulated that he was to make four films in two years. The contract expired in 1991, but Once Upon a Time in China took such a long time to get made that it was released in August 1991.

Jet proposed to sign a new contract that would allow for two more movies, hence why two sequels were made back-to-back. Part III was already in the works when Jim Choi died. This is proven by the fact that Part IV (starring Vincent Zhou) and Crime Story (starring Jackie Chan) were released in June 1993. From June 1992 to June 1993, Jet Li was too busy working on four movies for other companies: the Fong Sai Yuk duology for his own company (Eastern Productions) and the two Wong Jing movies for Win’s Movie Production: Last Hero in China and Kung Fu Cult Master. The founders of Win’s were Jimmy Heung and Charles Heung. The latter was the former’s big brother. Their father was the founder of the Sun Yee On Triad. Jimmy was more of a vicious gangster than Charles. The Heung brothers had worked with Ng See-Yuen on a 1978 film for their first film company: Super Win Film.

Titled Mysterious Footworks of Kung Fu, it was produced by Betty Ting Pei. She was Charles Heung’s wife but was Bruce Lee’s mistress before that. In 1993, Jimmy Heung’s girlfriend was actress Sharla Cheung Man. During the making of Kung Fu Cult Master, she was competing for screen time with Wong Jing’s muse, Chingmy Yau. In 1992, Jing wanted Chingmy to be the main actress of Last Hero in China but Jimmy opted for Sharla. That movie was released in Hong Kong on April Fools Day, 1993. This was the same day when the world woke up to the news of Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee, being fatally shot on the set of The Crow. On April 7, Charles Heung had formed his own production company: Win’s Entertainment. On December 11 in 1992, he also formed China Star Entertainment. It’s been said that he formed these companies because he disapproved of Jimmy’s violent methods.

Let’s go back to Jackie Chan for a moment. The final time that he worked with Ng See-Yuen was for a film that was made in 1991 but released in January 1992. The Twin Dragons, directed by Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, was a charity movie that was intended to fund the creation of the Hong Kong Film Directors Guild. 1991 was also when Ng produced another charity movie co-directed by Tsui Hark. The Banquet was funded to help the victims of a flood that wrecked Eastern China in the summer of 1991. The Banquet was rushed out to cinemas for a November release. Although Ng See-Yuen was sexist about making female-driven action movies, he wasn’t against producing adaptations of female-driven fantasy novels because the logic is different. Besides the remake of Dragon Inn (the original film came out in 1967), Ng produced Tsui Hark’s Green Snake (1993).

Seasonal’s first film, Call Me Dragon, came out eight months after Bruce Lee died. It starred Bruce Leung Siu-Lung. By the way, Siu-Lung means little dragon. March 1974 also marked the publicity of an unreleased Leung film called Little Godfather from Hong Kong. More specifically, the Cinemart magazine advertised this movie that was directed and produced by Ng See-Yuen, albeit through an older company called Eternal. Little Godfather from Hong Kong was released on the third anniversary of when Lee signed his contract to Golden Harvest i.e. June 28. Speaking of little, Leung Siu-Lung’s first starring role was in an Ng See-Yuen film called Little Superman. It was also produced by the Eternal company. Alas, the film was shelved. The Chinese title is Born Dragon, Alive Tiger, Little Hero. In the October 1995 issue of Cinemart, a retrospective article about Bruce Lee had revealed that Ng See-Yuen legally changed Leung Choi-Sang’s name to Bruce Leung Siu-Lung after Lee died.

Released on October 10 in 1975, Little Superman was first advertised by Cinemart in the May, June and July issues of 1973. These were the last three months of Bruce Lee’s life. In June, the Hong Kong press reported that Lee wanted to copyright his name. There’s only room for one Siu-Lung! Why Little Superman was shelved is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it’s because of the finale’s bloody claw gimmick being similar to the finale of Enter the Dragon, which was released in Hong Kong on July 26, 1973. Little Superman also features three of the stuntmen who Lee originally wanted to take with him to America following the release of Enter the Dragon. These men are Peter Chan Lung, Ng Ming-Choi and Steve Lee Ka-Ting. Bizarrely, Steve was the only one who wasn’t in Enter the Dragon.

Hon Kwok-Choi, Yeung Sai-Gwan and John Cheung Ng-Long worked on both movies as did another actor - Meng Hoi. He was a young teenager at the time. He has the distinction of being one of the few people who acted with Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee. In 1973, Bruce Lee took it upon himself to be Meng’s mentor, but I don’t think that Meng would have gone with him to the United States. In 1988, Meng rejected the chance to join girlfriend Cynthia Rothrock on her return to the States. This is rather peculiar since not only could he have worked on her English language films for Golden Harvest (the China O’Brien duology), but he could have redeemed himself after Lady Reporter was shelved. Ironically, Meng had previously worked on Corey Yuen’s U.S. debut: No Retreat, No Surrender. Like Corey, Meng Hoi alternated between working for Seasonal and Golden Harvest.

The relationship between Seasonal and Golden Harvest had a lot to do with the way that things played out. What established the relations between the two film companies was the making of the sequel to Bruce Lee’s Game of Death. The sequel was an excuse for Golden Harvest to poach Yuen Woo-Ping after he turned Jackie Chan into Hong Kong’s biggest Kung Fu movie star. Golden Harvest’s desire to poach Yuen and Jackie explains the factoid of Jackie supposedly being the first choice for the role of Bobby Lo in Game of Death 2 (a.k.a. Tower of Death). Golden Harvest owed Ng See-Yuen, hence why that debt was repaid when the two companies combined to make a movie called All for the Winner (1990). This became the highest-grossing Hong Kong movie, and it transformed Stephen Chow into a superstar.

It’s not a coincidence that Jerry Trimble and Billy Blanks got the chance to work on Seasonal’s King of the Kickboxers (1990) and Golden Harvest’s The Master (1989). Vincent Lyn and Bruce Fontaine, two other martial artists in King of the Kickboxers (1990), appeared in Golden Harvest’s Operation Condor (1991). When Jackie’s Operation Condor look set to be his biggest-earning film, it’s a wonder that Ng See-Yuen didn’t try to invest so as to recoup. This is quite puzzling when you see how much money had been spent on making the movie. It’s at this point that I should explain why Jet Li left Golden Harvest even though Ng’s take on Dragon Inn wasn’t going to be produced by them. Golden Harvest were going to be the distributor.

As for Ng See-Yuen, the death of Jet Li’s manager affected his career in the long run. After producing Evening Liaison (1996) and The Soong Sisters (1997), he did not get to attach his name as a producer to anything until a dozen years later. Later on, he got away with “reuniting” with Yuen Woo-Ping on Wong Kar-Wai’s The Grandmaster simply because Ng was one of many investors whether it be people credited as producers, planners or presenters. Ng was simply a silent partner, so Yuen didn’t know the truth until it was too late. That 2013 film was Ng’s last credit. In spite of this, Jet Li didn’t have the courage to talk about him at all in his memoir - Beyond Life and Death: Jet Li Looking for Jet Li.