Kung Fu Sheng
Alexander Fu Sheng was one of three stars who could have been seen as a triple threat to the success of Jackie Chan in 1982 and, by extension, the success of Jackie’s company - Golden Harvest. Conan Lee was Seasonal’s attempt at finding the next Jackie, and Billy Chong was Eternal’s attempt whereas Alex was unique because he was the Shaw Brothers precursor to what became known as Jackie’s persona: the clown prince of Kung Fu. Domestically, the trio didn’t hold a candle to Jackie. Worldwide is a different story. Conan could speak fluent English because he was an American. Billy was the next Bruce Lee due to his charisma, intensity and physique. Alex could speak English better than Jackie and was hoping to work overseas.
By the end of 1983, each rival was no longer a threat. Conan Lee was blacklisted after breaking his contract with Seasonal due to a Taiwanese businessman offering him a lot of money (for a deal that went nowhere). Billy Chong’s A Fistful of Talons was shelved until it was released during a time when making a period Kung Fu movie was seen as old hat. However, he had already left Hong Kong for Indonesia to make a film that was actually copyrighted before A Fistful of Talons had come out. On the Indonesian web, it’s claimed that he was being threatened by the Chinese mafia. As for Alex Fu Sheng, he was killed in a car accident. Ironically, Jackie Chan mentioned in his second memoir about himself cheating death when driving drunk.
Raking in over 7 million dollars, Hong Kong Playboys was pulled out of cinemas on the day that Alex had died. This was the final completed movie that he starred in. It was a sign of his future. Like Bruce Lee, he was hoping to move away from martial arts movies, and he wanted to direct. Thanks to Terrence Brady’s book about Alex, it’s become apparent that Run Run Shaw would never have given what Bruce and Jackie wanted had they chosen Shaw Brothers over Golden Harvest. Despite having a reputation for being a billionaire philanthropist, Run Run was never particularly generous with his movie stars despite having the opportunity to give them status by making them the highest-paid actors in Hong Kong.
When Bruce Lee was alive, he wanted Run Run to pay him two million H.K. dollars to do a movie for Shaw Brothers. In light of his monumental box office success locally, and his future success with an American movie, Run Run was strangely hesitant. No deal had actually been signed. When Jackie Chan became a star with Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow in the spring of 1978, he accepted Run Run’s offer to have afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel. In his first memoir, Jackie mentioned that he had been offered five million dollars to join Shaw. Produced by Seasonal, one of the myths about Jackie’s first big hit was that Run Run rejected their offer to have Alex Fu Sheng as the star since he belonged to Shaw Brothers.
However, director Yuen Woo-Ping denied this because it would have been foolish to contact a contract player. In the December 1980 issue of a Shaw magazine called Southern Screen, Yuen was misquoted in order to make Alex look like an actor who was too expensive to work outside of Shaw Brothers. Regardless of whether Yuen is being genuine or not, there is a sadness to this in that Seasonal would go on to produce English language movies for the Western market. Before he broke his contract, Seasonal originally wanted Conan Lee to star in a contemporary film that was to be shot in Europe. Knowing how racist that Hollywood is, Alex would have needed Seasonal as a fallback plan.
Had Alex not died, it’s likely that Wong Jing would have written and directed a non-Chinese film since he can actually speak English. In fact, there’s an interview that Cynthia Rothrock did for a magazine called Hong Kong Film Connection where she claimed that Magic Crystal was an enjoyable experience because she had finally found a Chinese director who could speak perfect English. The star of Magic Crystal is Andy Lau, which is fascinating because Wong Jing described Alex Fu Sheng as a mixture of Andy Lau and Stephen Chow. Both men starred in Jing’s Tricky Brains, which was conceived as a vehicle for Alex before he had died. The original title was The Tricksters.
Wong Jing claimed that if it wasn’t for Alex’s death in July 1983 then Shaw Brothers would not have closed shop in the mid-eighties. However, Alex was going to leave the company after his contract expired in October 1983. Alex had regarded director Chang Cheh as his father, which is why he was rather saddened by his departure from the company after the box office failure of The Weird Man in May 1983 (when it grossed less than half a million dollars). Had it not been for Alex’s death, he would have played Andy Lau’s role in Chang Cheh’s The Shanghai Thirteen. Since he was one of Shaw’s biggest stars, Run Run Shaw would have lost face had Alex jumped ship to work with a former employee.
Back to the rivalry between Jackie Chan and Alex Fu Sheng, the press were quick to note that both stars were born in 1954. Many people like to think that Jackie would never have been as popular had Alex lived, but both men were on different trajectories. Despite appearing in many Kung Fu movies, Alex’s ability to kick had been hampered after a wire had snapped during the making of Chor Yuen’s Heroes Shed No Tears in 1979. Also, he was not as skilled as Jackie when it came to acrobatics, and he was nowhere near as daring as a stuntman. Unlike Jackie, Alex was not a choreographer. As a director, however, Alex would have branched out more like Clint Eastwood moving away from Westerns.
