"When I was small, I trained at a Peking Opera school." "I was about 10 years old then." "After the Peking Opera, I went on to do acting." "And after I graduated from that, I entered the film industry." "My teacher was Tong Dik and my school was called the Eastern Drama Acting School." "Drama..." "No, film acting." "It should be film acting." "Some schools had drama but ours had film acting." "I know how to perform Peking Opera very well." "It had to become your second nature." "Second nature as in..." "Once in school, a whole year..." "Your training could be for say, five, seven or ten years." "Some pupils went in aged six and didn't graduate until their twenties." "There's no time limit." "The hard part was all the practising." "You really had to practise." "We were like gymnasts but it was harder than that." "We got up at five o'clock in the morning." "When I was training, there were four Peking Opera schools." "We were one of them." "Each year each school would have an annual concert at the city hall and perform for a whole night." "When one school performed, the other three would go and watch and when it was our night, we performed." "We competed..." "For example... tumbling." "They did a flip so we would do a flip and half." "It was that type of rivalry." "And for... stage swordplay... when one disarms an opponent with a sword, they may disarm them with one kick." "Then everyone else would practise more kicks so that there was variety for the audience." "Things like that." "It was quite funny." "When I was young, I probably looked a little weird." "My head was shaved bald." "When I was young and performing in Thailand," "I was involved in a car accident." "My injuries in that car crash gave me 28 stitches." "I have two interesting scars on my head - one smiles and the other cries." "So I was always bald when I performed." "When I was a martial artist, people called me 'Weird Fire Star'." "Chaw Yun used to call me 'Weird Simple Head'." "That name implied that I didn't think - tell me to do something and I would." "One time, we were filming in Thailand." "There was an actor... who was a boxing champion and was the lead man." "There was also the supporting actor who was called Tsang..." "Lui Kong." "One day we were rehearsing with the boxing champion." "We didn't know his capability even though he was a champion." "When acting, you have to be in control." "The coordinator told me to come over and try a few moves with him." "A simple punch is easy." "I punched, he blocked and followed through and I reacted." "The move we created looked OK, so we tried it." "I hit him and he hit back." "By the time I got there, he had hit me." "One punch and I had a black eye." "The director saw the boxer couldn't control himself and wondered what to do." "So he had the actor with the supporting role take the lead and I took his role." "I didn't mind doing it." "After doing it, you get credit for it so I was asked for my name." "I said my name was Cheung Wing Fat." "The director disliked Cheung Wing Fat and asked for a stage name." "What stage name did I choose?" "The fire star was Mars, so I was called Mars." "It didn't matter as it was my first film." "The lead man was Kwon Shan." "It was a long time ago." "So back then, Mars became my stage name." "It was hard work being a stuntman back then." "Harder than it is now." "It's easier being a stuntman now." "The directors and coordinators have already thought out the action and the degree of danger is zero nowadays." "In the past, we didn't have the support apparatuses there are today." "A lot of the time, they just relied on people for stunts." "It was 20 to 30 times more difficult to do stunts then." "For example, the padding was not as good as it is now - the pads then were small and thin." "But now you can have full body armour." "Compared to how it was in the past, it is much better being a stuntman now." "In the past, you risked your body." "Your body was punished from both the left and the right, and you broke arms and legs." "There was a lot of that." "It has lessened now." "When we did stunts and had to fall 10 or 20 feet, we just fell with nothing to cushion us." "But now the director wouldn't allow a fall that high." "The insurance is expensive and it's easy to get hurt." "The camera angle now hides the safety mats." "It's much more comfortable being a stuntman now." "Unlike the past, when you got..." "Now it is just fake." "There is a big difference." "You can see it in the action." "The stunts in the 70's compared to those in the 90's, you'd think anyone could do them now." "But not anyone could do a stunt back then." "You had to have skills so you didn't get hurt." "But not getting hurt..." "There was always a small chance you would." "So you endured it." "The standards were not high back then." "I got injured many times." "I've broken both arms and legs." "I have been injured many times." "I've broken my arm." "I've broken my coccyx." "My coccyx was the worst, as I lost half of my ability." "Following that, I couldn't do proper Kung Fu." "I couldn't do a lot of action after that." "During this period it was quite chaotic in the film industry." "If you had a bit of Kung Fu or style or anything, the directors would pick you and would try you out." "At that time..." "I was a stuntman in a film called Tower of Death..." "I think that was its name." "It was a film that Yuen Woo-ping coordinated." "I did stunts and somehow I caught their eye." "They thought I was quite bright and offered me a lead role." "I thought they were kidding and played along." "At the time, I was under Sammo Hung at Golden Harvest." "I thought they were just joking." "After about four months they rang me up and offered me a film role." "They offered it to me so I took it." "I discussed it with Sammo." "I said that they were offering me a lead role." "He replied that I should go and do it and try something new." "So I went and did the film." "That was my first lead role." "The Jackie Chan's Stuntmen Association was set up two years before they made The Young Master." "I hadn't joined the association then," "I was doing the lead role in another film." "After that film, I took time off and at that time, Jackie was starting to make The Young Master." "He asked if I could help out with the martial arts." "I hadn't joined his team yet." "There was a scene where Wong In Sik was hitting people all over the place and I was there to help out." "The reactions were strange." "The reactions were... like being hit into the air, and you weren't allowed to touch the ground." "They had a wire that pulled you backwards." "Reactions like that." "It was experimental and we created these great action sequences." "It was OK." "The fight scenes in the film were awesome." "Jackie said it was good and asked me to join his team." "I said, "Later", as I still had other films to do." "We talked every day and I went to his company office a lot." "Then, when I finished my film and there was a dry spell with my current company they allowed me to go over to Jackie's." "As soon as I got there, Jackie gave me a film." "It was Dragon Lord." "I still hadn't joined Jackie's team yet." "I was an actor." "After that film, he urged me to join his team." "And so after making Dragon Lord, I joined Jackie's team." "Back then, Jackie and I... had both been in Peking Opera school and grew up at the same time so we knew of each other." "Also, being in the same martial arts field, we often bumped into one another." "We were also good friends." "We saw each other a lot and were familiar with one another." "So when he asked me to join, I joined his Jackie Chan's Stuntmen Association." "It was funny making Dragon Lord." "When making a film... there's usually a script but Dragon Lord didn't have one." "When I got there, they told me what a scene involved but they didn't say what was to follow." "Only after the scene was shot did they say that." "So it was very hard to develop a character for Dragon Lord as I didn't have a script to tell me what the character was like." "In the past, they used to hand you scripts." "In this film, when you arrived, they gave you a costume and told you to say this for a scene and that for a scene." "And now, you get to memorise the lines several days in advance." "But it was like that then." "So it was... quite interesting." "My character in Dragon Lord was... one of the sons of two rich families who had too much time on his hands and was always causing mischief." "The characters were good." "It was like that second cousin stuff." "Everyone was..." "One called the other's father 'Uncle' and vice versa and they played together wherever they went." "They were like brothers - but not of the same father and not of the same home." "The two fathers were good friends and so were the two sons." "The characters in Dragon Lord were not... like big brother and little brother." "His father was the friend of the other's father." "And we were friends too." "And so it developed." "He pursued a girl that I was after, so we fought." "It was fun." "It was nothing really." "That film was..." "Jackie's character was the son of a rich family and was unruly." "He wanted to do everything." "The story is based around his character flying a kite one day and a mob approaches him and tries to sell him some national treasures." "You need that in a story." "There has to be bad and good." "If they were all good, there'd be nothing to watch." "So from that we developed the story and made Dragon Lord." "Kicking the shuttlecock scene." "In Dragon Lord, the kicking the shuttlecock scene was hard to do." "Why was it hard?" "It was in July." "In Taiwan, it's very hot in July." "The ground was pure white sand." "And we were surrounded by big white sheets." "And when the sun shone, the whole set turned white." "30 degrees turned into 40, then to 50 degrees." "I was suffering." "That scene took over a month to do." "After a whole week of shooting, the film from that scene was discarded." "Why was it discarded?" "Jackie is very particular when it comes to the screen." "After a week of filming, he went back and discarded the whole film." "We wondered why, as we'd worked hard on it all week." "He told us to watch the tape, so we did." " "Can you see it?" - "No, it's fine." "We're kicking it around."" "We couldn't see it so he told us and then we saw it." "It was the shuttlecock." "We created a kicking sequence for it." "And the frame is a rectangle." "When we kicked the shuttlecock, it went up and everyone looked up." "And when it came down, it was kicked up again and again." "The frame was empty, there was just people there." "When the shuttlecock came down, it was kicked back up." "The shuttlecock was not within the frame and it didn't look good." "Because it didn't look good we had to shoot it all again." "This time, we tried to keep the shuttlecock within the frame." "We adjusted the action so the shuttlecock wouldn't go above the frame." "It was such a difficult action sequence and we had to be fast." "As you know, what goes up comes down." "So everything had to be shot again." "Kicking it to me and back to you..." "We kicked that shuttlecock for a month." "We became as black as Africans." "I was fine." "I didn't go out and kick the shuttlecock." "I was the goalkeeper." "I fainted under the heat of the sun." "The sun was incredible." "It was too hot." "For the whole month in Taiwan, there wasn't a cloud in the sky." "It was all sun." "So the shuttlecock scene was the hardest part of the film." "It was all filmed in Taiwan." "Originally..." "Well, at the end of 1980 we went to Korea." "We started work in Korea..." "But when we came to do the dialogue, "Your mother's looking for you"." "The actor would say, "Your-your-your mother..."" "Korea is cold." "When we left it was 30 below zero." "When we spoke steam poured out." "The people were cold and the teeth were chattering." "So after two weeks and doing two days filming, we said, "No more." "It was too cold."" "The clothes we were wearing were very thin, and when speaking on camera, you're not allowed to shake." "So the producer said we couldn't film in Korea." "In Korea it gets cold in October and doesn't warm up until April or May." "We couldn't wait that long." "Taiwan was far away in the south." "So when we got back to Hong Kong, they said we'd film in Taiwan." "So the whole film was shot in Taiwan." "I had to fall down a ten foot drop." "It wasn't a simple fall." "There was a crossbeam and a ledge on which I stood." "There was a six foot gap I had to fly over and then slam onto the ground." "And, I couldn't touch the crossbeam." "The ground was not dug or cushioned." "I said I'd film all the fight action sequences first before doing this so that even if I was injured, it wouldn't be a problem, because it wouldn't stop the filming." "They agreed." "So we came to do it and we did three takes." "In the first take, I fell backwards and when I got to here, I got scared and my hands touched the wooden crossbeam." "I touched the crossbeam, back flipped and landed on my feet." ""OK, one more time."" "So I went up again." "The second time round, I went past it but I probably went too far and my feet went down first." "If I then landed on my back, it wouldn't look good." "So I did the take again." "And I landed on my back." "My insides almost exploded." "It really hurt." "I had to fall over 15 feet and slam onto the ground." "It was OK as we were trained to do this." "At school, we had to practise landing on our backs." "Thankfully, we had practised it." "But this was not the worst thing." "The hardest part was..." "Now it was his turn." "I was on the ground and he was pushed off by what's-his-name." "After a somersault, I was to dive in and cushion him." "If the ground was flat, it would've been quite comfortable." "But he was afraid that I wouldn't get to him in time." "If I couldn't get to him in time, he'd slam onto the bare ground." "So he had a hole dug, just large enough for a small mattress." "If I could get to him in time, he'd land safely onto the mattress." "I thought it was OK and not a problem as I would be underneath him." "The awful part was that the mattress was three foot square." "And I'm over five foot, so the mattress was like this." "So when I got there and he landed on me, here and here were still on the stone ground, and this wasn't." "Both my shoulders hurt for four months." "That take..." "And it wasn't one take." "We did over ten." "When he came down, sometimes I didn't get there in time to catch him." "And when I did catch him, his head was tilted or he overshot." "That scene was hard work." "Afterwards, I had to rest for four months." "I couldn't lift my arms." "I bent them, as it was empty underneath." "When he came down, his weight crushed me." "These two shots in Dragon Lord were particularly hard to do." "He is quite good." "He is a Tae Kwon Do expert." "His feet are very fast." "It's hard on him because when he is fighting with Jackie he has to control himself." "He couldn't hit." "He must..." "He'd trained for many years to kick others out of sight." "But to get him to do... is very hard to do." "He was..." "Jackie liked his style of fighting." "He liked it because he could do many difficult action moves." "His punches and kicks were very good." "But he didn't understand Cantonese." "A lot of the time when we fought and spoke..." "As a Korean actor - doing action films in Hong Kong - he wasn't bad." "Even though he understood just a bit of the language... he was of a good standard and met our expectations." "You can see his Kung Fu is good as well as his action style and the way he portrays power is just beautiful." "When I fight with him, I didn't get hurt." "Unlike some others, who may be very stylish, but hurt me when we fought." "If they kicked, it hurt like hell." "A lot of it was cut." "It had to be edited to fit the duration of a film for the cinema - 85 or 90 minutes." "For Dragon Lord, there was tens of thousands of feet of film." "He was only allowed to have 8,000 or 9,000 feet for the cinema." "In the end, he had about 40,000 feet in total." "40,000 feet of film." "But if you showed all 40,000 feet in the cinema, it would take nearly five hours to watch." "So he had to cut it." "We watched him..." "Editing the film was hard for him." "From 40,000 feet, he had to choose 9,000 feet for the audience to watch." "So a lot had to be thrown away." "Basically, the entire film." "But for me..." "I feel that... he couldn't throw much of my work away, or he didn't want to." "He'd rather edit each scene, cutting out the bad bits and putting in the good bits." "Just cutting it that way, he got rid of some but he still had 15,000 left." "And from the 15,000 he cut again." "The producer didn't like him making films in this way." "It was bound to be too long." "And if it was long, he had to cut it and it was heartbreaking as each was an original shot." "He liked each one otherwise he wouldn't have created it." "But if it was too long, he couldn't show it in the cinema." "So he had to edit it." "Why did the box offices take so much in the past?" "Because you could only watch a film at the cinema and nowhere else." "When videos and VCRs came out people began watching films at home." "Because technology had advanced, making films became very hard." "Why hard?" "Because it is so convenient to watch a film." "On video, you can get everything." "In the past they had to go to the cinema." "That's why movie stars were so popular back then." "You had to go to the cinema to see the famous stars." "But now, you can see them on television." "They are on every television set in the street." "They didn't have televisions then." "So now..." "Not just now, in the future, it will be even more difficult." "The directors are just running out of new ideas." "Every film script is like a copy of another one." "How can people survive doing that?" "So it is this that is affecting our film industry." "So we hope... some new technology comes along to make the film original and help the sales." "I am now working in television." "I still work with Jackie but I am no longer contractually bound to him." "So if he wants to hire me, I will still do it." "In television, I am still doing stunts." "It's no different than Jackie's stuntmen team." "I am doing what I already know and putting it in." "Television is much more secure." "A lot of the actors in television do not know how to fight." "If the script calls for fighting and they don't know how to do it, they have to fight without getting hurt." "It is not like making a film." "After a film you can stop." "But for television there may be 30 to 40 episodes." "We can't injure them in the first episode." "So on many occasions we use a stuntman." "The stunts have to be simple as you can't injure the stunt double." "If the stuntman is injured, there's no one to double for the actor." "So it is more comfortable doing television, more convenient than doing film." "Television has its limits." "Film is one step at a time." "They are two different worlds." "I hope my European fans and friends keep supporting my Kung Fu films." "I will endeavour to use what I have learnt to create the best fight scenes in the most aesthetic surroundings for the audience to appreciate." "I hope you will keep supporting me."