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THE DRAGON’S FIST
My role in Fist
of Fury was almost invisible. I was one of many stuntmen on the film, and I
barely got on camera. But if you look very carefully, you’ll see me in one
early scene in which I’m sparring with another student. The film’s story is
about how a Japanese martial arts school puts Bruce’s kung fu school to a challenge—one
that ends up killing Bruce’s master. Treated with contempt by the Japanese
school (they tell him that the Chinese are the “sick men of Asia”), Bruce takes
his revenge, first on the rival school’s students, then on its master, the evil
Mr. Suzuki.
Even if my role wasn’t one that might be obvious to
people in the audience, I still had the chance to make my mark. We were filming
the big final fight, and Bruce was patiently walking through the scene for us stuntmen.
“I give a punch here, and Suzuki moves here,” he said,
in his firm but reedy voice. “And then pow!
another punch, and then pya! a big
kick—” He gestured through the air, tracing an arc that sent the villainous
Suzuki through a paper shoji door, then ran around to the other side of the door.
“And bang!” he finished, pointing at
a spot some twenty feet away.
We looked at each other. Obviously, no one could shoot
a person twenty feet through the air with a single kick—a blow of that force
would crush someone’s anyway—so the stunt would be done with the help of wires.
This meant that the lucky stuntman would strap a harness around his body, which
would be attached to a steel wire that would yank him suddenly backward, just
as the kick was landing. The problem was, the wire couldn’t be used to hold the
stuntman up in the air; the stunt had to look like a real fall, not like
flying!
So the stuntman would have to push back with his legs,
precisely upon impact, and then allow himself to go limp as the wire jerked him
through the air. He would then have to hit the ground and absorb all the
momentum from the twenty-foot drop.
No one had ever taken a fall of that height before.
And the concrete where the stuntman would have to land didn’t look very soft.
“Okay, who will do the stunt?” Lee said, his hands on
his hips.
The set was silent, as the stuntmen around me calculated
the
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likelihood that they would come through the stunt
alive and relatively undamaged. I’m not that patient, or maybe I’m just more
foolhardy than the rest of my stunt brothers. Pushing forward to the front of
the group, I nodded at Bruce, letting him know that I’d do the fall—if only to
get the cameras rolling. Standing around was getting boring.
As I was strapped into the harness, I considered my
options. This stunt wasn’t like the backward tumble I’d done earlier. The wire
would pull me back very suddenly, and I’d have no control at all over how fast or
in what direction I’d moving. By the time I was falling free, I wouldn’t have time
to shift my body—and besides, the idea wasn’t to land safely on my feet, but to
hit the ground hard.
Preferably without getting killed.
As we took our marks and the cameraman signaled that
we were ready to shoot, Bruce checked to make sure my harness wasn’t showing,
and took the opportunity to whisper in my ear: “Good luck, boy.”
Then he shouted for the camera to roll—this would
ordinarily be the director’s call, but Lo was listening to the radio, content
to be a bystander. And I braced myself, as the thud of Bruce’s foot against my lightly
padded chest triggered the stuntmen behind me to pull with all of their might.
The harness tightened against my torso, and all the air came out of my lungs as
I launched myself backward. There was the ripping of paper and the splintering
of wooden slats as I went through the door. And then—
Falling,
falling, falling.
Something, maybe radar, told me that I was about to
hit the ground. I let my muscles loosen and rolled slightly, making sure I
didn’t land on my spine, my neck, or any of my limbs.
It was like being hit by a car! The pain slammed through
my body, and I almost screamed. But screaming would mean that I’d have to do
the take again, and I had no intention of doing that. So I clenched my jaw and
ignored the red fog that was filling my head.
I guess I must have gone unconscious for just a little
while, because when I opened my eyes again, there was a rolled-up piece of
cloth under my head, and Bruce and Samo Lo Wei were standing around me, with
expressions of varying concern on their faces.
“Very good” said Bruce, letting loose one of his
grins. “That’s a print.” Samo just snorted, but I knew he was impressed.
And Lo, who’d actually moved from his usual position,
slumped back in his director’s chair, reached out his hand to help me sit up. “Not
bad, kid,” he said. “Not bad.”
It was nice to get encouragement from three people who
loomed so large in my life back then—my Biggest Brother, the millionaire director,
and the greatest Chinese star in the world.
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What I didn’t know then was that someone else was
watching, too—standing on the sidelines, not bothering to introduce himself. He
was an executive with the Cathay Organization—the other film-industry giant of the
Shaw Brothers era. With the rise of Golden Harvest and other independent
companies, Cathay had chosen to shut down its film production arm and
concentrate on distribution. As a result, Cathay executives often visited
Golden Harvest to see what goods might be available.
This particular executive was well known as a shrewd
operator and a kindhearted man. Born in Malaysia, he came to Hong Kong to find
his fortune—and found it in the movies, quickly becoming a member of the colony’s
“fast crowd,” the toast of cinema society.
He had an eye for films and rising talent, and I guess
something about me—the ugly, big-nosed boy with a reckless disregard for his
own safety—intrigued him. Later, he’d remember me at just the right time, and
we’d begin a friendship that would rock the foundations of the Hong Kong film
industry—and shape the rest of both of our lives.
His name was Willie Chan. And if I’m a superstar
today, you can give the thanks to him.
I feel like I should add a little bit more about Bruce
Lee, the man.
I can’t say I was close to him; not too many people
were, because he was such a big star, and after all, we were nobodies. But that
was the best thing about him. Even though we didn’t know him, he was very good
to us. The little people. He didn’t care about impressing the big bosses, but he
took care of us.
I remember a few years later, when I worked as a
stuntman on Enter the Dragon—the film
that brought him back to the United
States in glory. (Someone told me that Bruce specifically asked for me to work
on the stunt team, although I guess I’ll never know for sure whether that was
true.)
Anyway, there’s a scene at the end of the movie where
he’s infiltrating the underground compound of Mr. Han, the traitorous evil son
of the Shaolin Temple. The compound is a maze of dark hallways, filled with Han’s
henchmen, and Bruce must fight his way through every one to get to Han’s
hideout.
It’s a scene that anyone who’s seen the movie will
remember: Bruce, surrounded by over twenty attackers, pulls out his nunchakus,
the deadly, whirling stick-and-chain weapons that he made famous around the
world.
Each of the thugs tries to knock Bruce down. Each of
them falls, one by one. Once again, Bruce is victorious against incredible
odds.
I came in to take my punishment at the very end. In
rehearsal, I was told that he would hit me lightly, I’d fall down like I was
unconscious, and then he’d pose briefly for the cameras before running away.
Well, that’s how it was supposed to happen!
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Once the cameras were rolling, the adrenaline of the
moment must have taken over: I ran in to attack him, he spun around, and pow! POW! Bruce’s stick hit me right in the
face!
As he was posing, I was lying on the ground, trying
not to make any sounds and trying not to reach for my aching head. You wouldn’t
believe how much it hurt.
I can feel it even as I’m thinking about it now,
decades later.
But Bruce knew the mistake he’d made. As soon as the
cameras were off, he threw away his weapon, ran over to me, and said, “I’m
sorry, I’m sorry!” and picked me up. And the whole rest of the day, between
scenes, he would just look over at me and say, “I’m sorry,” because my face was
all swollen, like a chipmunk’s….
Of all the things Bruce did, and all the things he
represented, I admire him most for his kindness that day.
But what about Bruce’s movies, you might ask? What
about his legacy?
Well, when I look at his movies now, I say to myself,
they were masterpieces. They set the standard that everyone else wanted to
follow. They’re just evidence of what he could have done someday—if he hadn’t
died so young.
He had the talent and personality to make movies that
would have been classics for all of history.
His life ended before he had the chance.
I look at films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd,
Charlie Chaplin, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and I say wow. These are classics, and they are great even today. Bruce’s
movies are like seeds that never had the chance to sprout.
I’ve had a much longer career, and I’ve made movies
that I think I can be really proud of. I don’t know whether they will be seen
as classics after I’m gone; I guess history will answer that question.
Even today, however, people try to compare us, me and
Bruce, and make it seem as if we were competitors.
Nothing could be more ridiculous. There were things he
could do that I couldn’t do; there are things I can do that he couldn’t do.
But you know, I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee.
I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.
Mito
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