KingsOfKings
𝔻𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕞 𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕥
There was a time when Sammo Hung Kam-bo, one of the world’s great martial arts film stars, and, for a long time the only overweight one, was slender enough to play Sun Wukong, the fabled character also known as Monkey King. But that was when he was around 12 years old. Hung was training under Peking opera master Yu Jim-yuen at the time, and his itineraries often saw him shuttling between film sets – where he would work as a child actor or an extra – and the Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park (or Lai Yuen, as it is more commonly called), where he would take part in acrobatic performances with his fellow apprentices. Hung was always supposed to warm up, exercise, and practise for an hour before putting on make-up and taking the stage. But there was a time, when Hung was shooting the film The Crisis (1964), that he arrived late and had to head straight for make-up and then perform. “Amitabha!”, Hung shouted in character, before climbing up three tables stacked on top of each other and then somersaulting back to the ground. He hurt his leg, was in great pain, but Yu ignored his pleas and Hung finished the show limping
“In the two months that followed,” Hung, now 72, recalls, “I wasn’t able to train at all. I was just sitting around and eating. I happened to be going through my adolescent growth spurt and my weight ballooned as a result.” It is certainly rare for a martial arts actor as venerated as Hung to be his size, especially back in his prime
When we meet up one Friday afternoon in early March, in a corner suite at the Regent Hong Kong, in Tsim Sha Tsui, some 60 years have passed since that pivotal moment in Lai Yuen. Incidentally, the luxury hotel is a few minutes’ walk from Mirador Mansion, the building in which Hung had been undergoing his gruelling training with Yu around the time of his injury. These days, Hung looks a bit slimmer than the portly figure to which audiences have long grown accustomed
This has primarily to do with the diet orchestrated by his wife, the former Miss Hong Kong and actress Joyce Godenzi, who is 58. She is sitting across the room from us with great poise, supplying Hung with snippets of information – usually film titles – whenever memory fails him
In Hung’s case, those gaps in recollection are probably less a consequence of “dementia” – as he has somehow seen fit to joke about on occasion – than the fact that he has worked in a staggering number of films. The 200-plus productions in which he has taken part – as actor, director, producer, martial arts choreographer and action director – have made it a straightforward task for the Hong Kong Film Awards, the city’s most prestigious industry prize body, to this year recognise Hung with its Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented to him at the awards ceremony on April 14.
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“In the two months that followed,” Hung, now 72, recalls, “I wasn’t able to train at all. I was just sitting around and eating. I happened to be going through my adolescent growth spurt and my weight ballooned as a result.” It is certainly rare for a martial arts actor as venerated as Hung to be his size, especially back in his prime
When we meet up one Friday afternoon in early March, in a corner suite at the Regent Hong Kong, in Tsim Sha Tsui, some 60 years have passed since that pivotal moment in Lai Yuen. Incidentally, the luxury hotel is a few minutes’ walk from Mirador Mansion, the building in which Hung had been undergoing his gruelling training with Yu around the time of his injury. These days, Hung looks a bit slimmer than the portly figure to which audiences have long grown accustomed
This has primarily to do with the diet orchestrated by his wife, the former Miss Hong Kong and actress Joyce Godenzi, who is 58. She is sitting across the room from us with great poise, supplying Hung with snippets of information – usually film titles – whenever memory fails him
In Hung’s case, those gaps in recollection are probably less a consequence of “dementia” – as he has somehow seen fit to joke about on occasion – than the fact that he has worked in a staggering number of films. The 200-plus productions in which he has taken part – as actor, director, producer, martial arts choreographer and action director – have made it a straightforward task for the Hong Kong Film Awards, the city’s most prestigious industry prize body, to this year recognise Hung with its Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented to him at the awards ceremony on April 14.
Hong Kong martial arts film icon Sammo Hung on his stellar career
Martial arts film icon and the 2024 Hong Kong Film Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Sammo Hung talks about his movies, stars like Donnie Yen, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan – and eating.
amp.scmp.com
