In their own words: Sammo Hung, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li and other stars on what made them special in martial arts movies

Everybody needs to have an angle, and that’s true for martial arts stars, too: Jimmy Wang Yu played one-armed roles, Jackie Chan brought comedy to the genre, Hsu Feng claimed she used to “act with her eyes”, Brigitte Lin played gender-bending characters, and David Chiang put athleticism over brute strength.

Here’s what stars of the genre have said about what made them great.

Action legend Michelle Yeoh, talking to the SCMP’s Richard James Havis in 1993 about being versatile:

“I don’t have a particular style of martial arts – I go and learn whatever is required for each film I’m doing. I get a teacher and I practise, and I add things to what I know. I’m versatile that way, but it can be a disadvantage sometimes.

“If I had learned martial arts the way Jet Li had learned them, some things would be a lot better – my kicks would certainly be a lot better. I can do a lot of different styles, and I am very good at picking up movements quickly – that’s down to my training in dance. But if I had to accurately do an old Chinese style, that would be a challenge, as it would take me a while to master it.”

Chinese superstar Gong Li, talking to HK TV & Entertainment Times in 1994 about her only martial arts film, an adaptation of a Jin Yong novel called The Dragon Chronicles:

“I play a woman who never ages in this film. She is a very good fighter, as she was born to be good at kung fu. I don’t really do kung fu myself, but I had to learn a bit for this film. But I’m not really doing it, I’m acting.

“Still, I did occasionally get hurt during the wirework and the fighting scenes. But I had a lot of fun making this film, it is the first time I have played this kind of role.”

Jimmy Wang Yu telling Grady Hendrix about playing a left-handed fighter in Chang Cheh’s One-Armed Swordsman :

“I argued with Chang Cheh , I said One-Armed Swordsman would not work because I was not left-handed. I said, if you cut off my right hand, I will not be able to fight. But Chang Cheh said that I would not lose my martial arts skills if I lost my right hand, and I could use my left hand by learning from my right hand. I agreed.

“So from them on, for everything from taking a bath, eating a meal, and going to the toilet, I tried using my left hand. After two weeks, I could use my left hand to fight.”

David Chiang on not wanting to be like Jimmy Wang Yu:

“I had seen a lot of kung fu films when I began acting at Shaw Brothers. I watched Jimmy Wang Yu’s films and other fighting films from Taiwan. But I wasn’t trying to learn from those actors, I wanted to be different. Don’t follow the other guys, that is my philosophy. Try not to be the same as them.”

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Sammo Hung talking to Cinema AZN about why he started to make action comedies:

“I was the funny guy at the Chinese Opera School while I was a kid. I loved to make people happy. Whenever I was in school, whenever I was on stage, I would do something funny and everyone would laugh. I would do something different to what I was meant to do on the stage, and it would make me laugh, too.

“But I had to look around to make sure my master was not there. If he was there, I was always very serious. In school, I learned that I liked to make people laugh. So for my first movie, I was thinking, what kind of film I should I make?

“I decided to make a kung fu comedy, with both laughs and action. I wanted to make the audience laugh!”

Martial arts queen Hsu Feng ( A Touch of Zen ) talking to filmmaker Stanley Kwan about dedication:

“Everyone knows I am a martial arts star who hardly knows martial arts. So how did I perform in martial arts films for 15 years? Because every time I make a film, I think of it as my last film – it’s my last chance, so I must be at my best. I really do try my best because of this. Then I am given the chance to make a second film, a third film, a fourth film …”

Suet Nei, the prolific female martial arts star known for The Golden Hairpin (1963), The Deadly Dragon Sword (1968), The One-Armed Magic Nun (1969) and many others, talking to the Hong Kong Film Archive:

“I was just a girl then and didn’t know fear. I was very active by nature, and I didn’t find the work too tough. Stunt artists were used for things like somersaults, because I didn’t know how to do that.

“But I did the trampoline leaps and the action scenes on wires myself. I could also manage to jump down to the ground from rooftops, although I would sometimes lose my nerve!”

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Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia telling the Udine Far East Film Festival about performing her own stunts:

“When I did Swordsman II , there was a shot in which I had to jump from about five storeys high headfirst. That stunt was done with only one wire holding me up between my legs. You can imagine what would have happened if the wire snapped. I couldn’t think about it, because we had to do whatever the director told us to do.

“It was so awkward, an actress with her legs open and five or six men pulling her up by a wire. When I saw the film in the cinema, I had to see if my face appeared in the shot that I risked my life doing. I watched it a few times, but I couldn’t see my face in the shot. My hair was in the way!”

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.