THE OLD MASTER [122]

Pag.122

THE OLD MASTER

I did see Master Yu again. By that time, our roles had changed: he was aged and feeble; I was a man in the prime of my youth and career. He had moved to the United States with his family. He lived in Los Angeles, and taught martial arts and classical opera at the community center. In Hong Kong, he left behind a daughter, Yu So-chau, who became one of the great actresses of the early Cantonese cinema—famous enough that it was once said that there was no one over the age of twenty-five who didn’t know her name, and few who hadn’t seen her image on the silver screen.

In 1988, on the occasion of his birthday, he came back to Hong Kong, and all of his students threw him a party. At the party, he was in high spirits, still as active and sharp as he’d been when he’d terrorized us as children.

After he returned to America, however, we didn’t hear from him for years. His Alzheimer’s disease came on suddenly and he degenerated rapidly.

And on September 8, 1997, old age and the ravages of time finally took him from our world.

But about that party in 1988: gathered together as we all were, it was amazing to see how many of us were in the film world—and how many of us were thriving at the top. These days, if you look carefully, you will find a “Yuen” nearly everywhere in Hong Kong cinema.

And so it could be said that Master Yu wasn’t just my godfather, but one of the godfathers of the Cantonese movie industry.

Not a bad legacy, wouldn’t you say?