The Little Man Who Could
Eric Tsang was the filmmaker in focus for a 2008 book published by the Hong Kong International Film Festival. There is too much to unpack for one article, and the book might get reprinted one day. In light of such an event, I will be conservative about what quotes that I will choose to use as excerpts. Let’s focus on the transition that changed everything: “The biggest change was going from stuntman to scriptwriter and meeting Karl Maka. He was shooting The Good, the Bad and the Loser. Lau Kar-Wing was working with him then and introduced us. As we chatted, Maka said I had good ideas, that I could make it as a writer. Then he asked me what I would do if action films went out of fashion. Yet, he said, as long as there are films, scriptwriters will always be in demand. I thought, he’s right. So I left football, thinking I’d have a long-term career in scriptwriting.”
To prep you for the next quote, I should inform you that the H.K. equivalent to a Mexican maid working in the U.S. is a Filipino maid. Bearing in mind that Nancy Kwan had starred in three mid-seventies films which were filmed in the Philippines (including Project: Kill starring Leslie Nielsen): “The first script job I worked on was for Maka, to be written for Nancy Kwan. It was a Filipino film, in English. I took the tram to Maka’s place every day, then we’d go to Jimmy’s Kitchen because they gave you free coffee refills, so we would sit there and work all night and pay for one coffee. But I was just an assistant scriptwriter. Maka hadn’t been paid, and was living in the maid’s room of someone’s apartment. So how would I be paid? Luckily around that time, Lau Kar-Leung shot 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Sammo Hung shot Enter the Fat Dragon, and I helped them as scriptwriter.”
Next, you can see why Eric Tsang worked as an uncredited co-director for Sammo Hung’s My Lucky Stars (a 1985 comedy with guest appearances by Jackie Chan): “Hung trusted me so much on Warriors Two that he let me edit it. I was with the editor every day, and learned the trade. Cutting here, cutting there, deleting this, cutting it a certain way is more interesting. I became very interested in directing. I was helping out with the script for Jackie Chan’s The Fearless Hyena when Lo Wei told me to ask Chan to work on two films, with them splitting financing and profits 50–50. Not long afterwards, Raymond Chow, who was at Golden Harvest, summoned me to his office, asking me to help bring Jackie Chan back from Taiwan. So with cheque in hand, I went to bring Chan home. The original plan after Jackie signed to Golden Harvest was for him to shoot a Lo Wei film with me directing. At Lo’s office, we waited and waited but Chan didn’t come. So I said forget it, let’s shoot something else first, and that was The Challenger.”
Eric Tsang teases about a shelved Michael Hui film that never saw the light of day even in this century: “After Aces Go Places, we didn’t want to make a sequel, so we wrote a film set in ancient China, hired Michael Hui and filmed a comic version of The Seven Samurai with him in the lead role. Later, when Sammo Hung made Carry On Pickpocket and Winners and Sinners, we realized the road we had begun couldn’t just be left wide open for others to continue down, and therefore we shot the sequel. At Cinema City, my monthly salary was actually an advance. We only made money if we made films. When we made Aces Go Places, I made money. The sequel lost money, so that year I made nothing. When I left Cinema City, I still owed them money.”
Peter Chan was also interviewed for this book where he recalled that he first met Eric Tsang during the making of Jackie Chan’s Armour of God, which began filming in August 1985. Eric was the original director before Jackie’s near fatal injury on September 7. Peter summarized Eric’s brief involvement: “I was a producer and he the director. In retrospect, I’d say we were both failures. I saw in him a director with a vision but defeated by politics, and in myself an inexperienced producer overrun by the scale of the production. But he probably saw something in me, and later asked me to be a line producer, and then to try directing. He wanted to make films with an international appeal. If he had been successful with Armour of God, he would have become what I am now - a director dedicated to filmmaking, and he would never have been able to help so many people.”
About the following quote, bear in mind that Peter Chan turned 25 years old in November 1988. Also, “Alan” refers to Alan Tam Wing-Lun (the co-star of Armour of God) instead of the other Alan who Eric was a friend of - Alan Tang Kwong-Wing. Furthermore, Eric used to work with Nansun Shi for Cinema City before she left the company to form another one (Film Workshop) with boyfriend director Tsui Hark. With all of that out of the way, Peter Chan went on to say: “I went along with him when he formed Alan and Eric Films Limited, but he didn’t want me as a director, but an administrator. Perhaps he heard me speaking English for Armour of God in Yugoslavia. He said You can be Nansun Shi. I asked How? I am a man. I was 25 and he made me General Manager.”
As to why this company came about, Eric Tsang implied that it was during the making of Armour of God in 1985. Referring to Peter Chan, Eric said: “Chua Lam was a producer on the film and Chan was his assistant. When he returned, I said I was going to start my own company, and he came along.”
To understand the next quote, I should establish that Blacky Ko Sau-Leung was Jackie Chan’s motorcycle double in Police Story (1985) and had even done motorcycle stunts in Jackie’s Wheels on Meals (1984). I really wish there were more anecdotes about the making of the 1987 box office smash hit, but Eric Tsang did say the following: “Jackie Chan had hurt himself and was ordered to rest for six months, so Ko came in to shoot the car stunts. He was great friends with the French guys. They’d go out every night drinking and he learnt everything there was to learn about car stunt techniques. Whem he came in to shoot the first scene, the locals told him to be careful because we were shooting cultural relics. The next day, we had a whole page in the local newspapers dedicated to Ko, our Chinese Superman.”
Eric also deserves credit for Armour of God becoming more profitable than John Woo’s record-breaking A Better Tomorrow (1986): “I told Jackie Chan that he only attracted an audience of bad boys - tattooed guys who swear and smoke like chimneys. There were no office ladies or anyone else in the crowd. Really, everyone thought of him as a lowly Kung Fu guy. I used to be asked for my autograph not because I was anybody, but because I was Alan Tam’s friend. So I told him to work with Tam and in that way, win some of his audience. After that, Chan changed whom he worked with a lot.”
Despite of Eric Tsang leaving Armour of God supposedly because he didn’t want to wait six months for Jackie to recuperate, he bore no ill will towards him. In fact, Alan and Eric wanted to work with Jackie again for their company - Alan and Eric Films. Eric said: “Alan and Eric was opened by Alan Tam, Teddy Robin Kwan and myself. At the time, I felt quite heroic, opening the ceremony with Tony Wong Yuk-Long’s money. I was going to get ten films, sign Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. Who would have thought Wong would be sent to prison?”
Final thought from yours truly: Considering that Jackie Chan failed to keep hold of Eric Tsang as the director of Armour of God, perhaps he should have hired him to direct what became known as Wong Jing’s City Hunter. This makes sense since director Clarence Fok wanted Jackie Chan lookalike Sam Hui to star in an adaptation of City Hunter instead of Crying Freeman. Jackie was Hell-bent on usurping Sam’s status when Aces Go Places had surpassed Dragon Lord (1982) in the attempt at breaking the local box office record set by Security Unlimited (a 1981 comedy starring the Hui brothers). Be that as it may, Jackie’s City Hunter (1993) was significantly more profitable than the 1990 Crying Freeman adaptation known as The Dragon from Russia. In the long run, Eric Tsang is still a beloved celebrity in Hong Kong whereas Jackie Chan has alienated the locals with his politics and disregard of his lesbian daughter.
