WOODEN MEN AND CHEN [210 - 213]

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WOODEN MEN AND CHEN

Lo, disgusted with the returns from New Fist of Fury, decided to farm the directing job for the company’s next movie to a young filmmaker named Chen Chi-hwa, an earnest and friendly guy with whom I instantly bonded. Chen was just starting out as a director, which meant he was willing to work cheap, which made Lo happy. Chen was also willing to try a few new things—which made me happy. 

The film we were working on was called Shaolin Wooden Men. When a disciple of the Shaolin monks wished to leave the temple and see the world, he’d first have to pass a test to prove that he had the kung fu ability to survive in the dangerous world outside. The test consisted of a long room full of 108 wooden men with arms and legs attached to pulleys that the senior monks would manipulate. They were like puppets—except they were the size of a grown adult, and they moved with lightning speed. To be given the right to leave, the disciple would have to survive a trip through the room of wooden men. Some students died trying. The really good ones—the strongest, quickest, and best-trained—survived, but they would need to use every skill they’d learned from their masters.

In Wooden Men, I played a young temple worker who’d made a vow not to speak until I’d avenged my father’s death. (Well, it made the job of acting easier, anyway.) To survive the wooden men, and to kill my family’s enemies, I had to train in all of the different Shaolin disciplines, from Snake Fist to Crane Style. I also showed off my skills with various weapons, including the staff; I guess my practice with the broom had helped after all!

Without Lo looking over our shoulder, Chen and I experimented with different ideas I had for the action sequences. I jazzed up the animal-style kung fu to make it interesting for the screen—for instance, turning Snake Fist into an elaborate mime of a serpent’s attack, with my hands shaped like the open mouths of a striking cobra. It was a lot more entertaining than the stiff traditional styles that Lo Wei demanded in his movies, as far as I was concerned. Sometimes, when we were rehearsing action sequences, I’d clown around, transforming the fights into slapstick routines. Chen even suggested that we include some funny kung fu in the actual movie, but I decided that doing so would probably cause Lo to blow his top. “He’s the boss,” I said, resigned to my fate and my contract.

While making Wooden Men, Chen was still learning about filmmaking, 

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and figuring out what worked and what didn’t. Since we saw each other as peers and friends, he often asked me for my opinion. As a result, I myself learned a few things about directing. 

In some ways, Shaolin Wooden Men was my first “dream movie”—the first film I’d made that felt the way I always thought moviemaking should feel. We weren’t just making a product; we were making an experience, and trying to imagine what our audiences would feel while watching the results of our efforts. We made a lot of mistakes—but we learned from our errors and tried to correct them. Lo, on the other hand, had done so many films that he refused to change his style for anyone. His pictures followed a fixed and unchanging formula, one that had been successful for him in the past; his attitude was more or less that if it wasn’t broken, why fix it?

But formulas grow stale, and the audiences that had enjoyed the old Shaw Brothers pictures were obviously tired of the same old thing. Bruce Lee should have been a warning, not just to Lo, but to the entire industry: moviegoers wanted something different—a new style action. The lesson that producers learned from Bruce’s success was the exact opposite of the one they should have learned. Instead of looking for something fresh and original, they tried as hard as they could to turn Bruce’s style into a new formula. And the results were, unsurprisingly, a terrible failure. 

Shaolin Wooden Men didn’t do all that well in the theaters either. Despite our experimenting, the character that I played was still pretty much a Bruce Lee type—dark, grim, and out for vengeance. By this time, I could tell that Lo was beginning to lose faith in me. On the other hand, Willie told me, the film had gotten me the notice of other producers and actors. “The word is out,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘That Jackie Chan, he can really move.’”

I smiled ironically. “If this keeps up, I’ll be moving all the way back to Australia,” I said. 

A trip was in my future, but it wasn’t back down under. In order to save on labor costs, Lo had decided that we’d shoot our next picture in Korea. And to boost the box office potential of the film, which was going to be called The Killer Meteors, Lo was hiring a big star to play the lead role—Jimmy Wang Yu, who’d exploded into prominence with his performance in The One-Armed Swordsman. After Bruce Lee, Jimmy was maybe the next biggest actor in Hong Kong, following up One-Armed Swordsman with a bunch of other films in which he played a martial artist who’d lost one of his arms—The One-Armed Boxer and so on. The story was always the same: Jimmy is betrayed by enemies, who cut off one his arms in order to destroy his fighting ability, and must painfully learn a new, invincible one-armed style, with which he exacts revenge. 

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Unfortunately for Jimmy, pretty much all of the movies he’d made in which he had two arms were failures, and by the time Lo hired him, his star was beginning to go down. Still, he was much bigger than me—the star of a couple of failed low-budget films—and so I was given the secondary role of villain to play. 

Jimmy was a decent guy, but he had been a star for years, and to him, I was just a kid. I hardly got the opportunity to get to know him, despite our weeks together in Korea. The only thing I did find out about him was that he was making a lot more money than I was—HK$50,000, compared to the HK$12,000 I was earning to be both an actor and the stunt coordinator. 

I didn’t begrudge him his salary. After all, he was a big man. Besides, later on, Jimmy would enter my life again—and I’d end up owing him my life. Compared to that, what’s a few thousand Hong Kong dollars? 

Despite the presence of Jimmy, Killer Meteors was another flop. So was my next film—To Kill with Intrigue, a confusing melodrama in which I play the only survivor of a massacre, once again looking for revenge against the murderer of my family. The plot was absurdly complicated, and Lo instructed me to look as tragic and grim as possible throughout the picture even though, halfway through the film, I had lost track of what was going on with the story. Anyone who sees the movie (and I pity you if you do) will understand why. I’m not sure Lo even had any idea where the plot was going, although I have to say, the final fight sequence—which I directed while Lo slept—turned out pretty well.

The next project I was put on, Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin, was something of a relief. Every film in which I had to play a dark and brooding hero was turning into a disaster, so I asked Willie to see whether he’d be able to convince Lo to give me a lighter role to play. Snake and Crane Arts wasn’t exactly a comedy, but my character—a lone, wandering warrior who is the owner of an ancient martial arts scroll, containing the secrets of a long-dead group of masters—at least gets the chance to show some sarcastic humor. I also was able to play with the action a little bit, adding intricate fights with traditional Shaolin weapons, as well as a somewhat less traditional fight in which I use my female costar as a weapon!

Despite the increased freedom I felt while doing Snake and Crane Arts, I still felt trapped by Lo’s demands. He hated anything different or original, and he still believed that he could turn me into another Bruce Lee. Every time I tried to lighten up the set, making jokes or doing acrobatic stunts, he became enraged, seeing my attempts at humor as personal mockery of him. 

To tell you the truth, joking around was the only way I could relieve my growing bitterness. I was never going to be Bruce, and everyone seemed to know it but Lo.

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Sharing another drink with Willie, I finally told him that I was almost at the end of my rope. My two years were almost up, and I still hadn’t really gotten anywhere. “I can’t do this anymore,” I told him.

To my surprise, Willie agreed. “It’s a real problem, Jackie,” he said. “You’re gaining a reputation in the industry as box office poison. If that reputation sticks, the distributors will revolt—and no amount of luck or skill will be able to save your career then.” 

“What am I going to do, Willie?” I was on the verge of panic. 

“Don’t worry, dear boy,” he said. “Uncle Willie will fix everything.” 

I hoped he was right. I really did.