FISTS & GUTS

About

Mysterious Jackie Chan cameo in the film “Fists And Guts” (1979) by director Lau Kar-Wing?

26. September 2018

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By

Thorsten Boose

In the late 1970s, Jackie Chan was a star recognized by everybody on the streets of Hong Kong thanks to his films “Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow” and “Drunken Master”, both released in 1978, as well as the freshly released “The Fearless Hyena”. Still contractually bound to Lo Wei, he sometimes helped his friends Sammo Hung and Chen Chi-Hwa as an action director away from the camera. From this very time there is a strange hint of a hidden cameo by Jackie Chan.

It is December 21, 1979. In a few days, not just the year but a whole decade will be over. For many people this is an important step towards a new start. Jackie Chan wanted to tackle exactly such a new beginning. For years he made cheap films under the leadership of Lo Wei that damaged his image.

Reviewing the Lo Wei era

In 1976, the young Jackie Chan signed a contract for almost a dozen films with the then still quite popular director Lo Wei, who worked with Bruce Lee on the classics “Fist Of Fury” (1972) and Cheng Pei-Pei on “The Golden Sword” (1969). Lo Wei wanted to make a new Bruce Lee out of the young Chan, and so he first had to shine in the sequel “New Fist Of Fury” (1976).

The success was meager and people tried other concepts that just didn’t work. Without further ado, Jackie Chan was even recommended to have plastic surgery on his eyes. The Asian audience was attracted to big eyes, and so they wanted to manipulate the audience visually. In “Shaolin Wooden Men” (1976) we see Jackie Chan with his natural eye shape for the last time before the operation.

But this measure also failed. Jackie was downcast and saw his entire film career in jeopardy. He secretly worked on third-party productions as an action director and stunt coordinator, such as “Dance Of Death” (1976) by Chen Chi-Hwa and “The 36 Crazy Fists” (1979), also by Chen Chi-Hwa, who in turn collaborated with Lo Wei.

When nothing worked and even Lo Wei no longer believed in the success of his pupil, he loaned it to the young film studio Seasonal Films for cash, where he was granted free work. There are already quiet rumors about the interference of the triads and Jimmy Wang Yu, who put Lo Wei under pressure to free Jackie Chan from his career-destroying clutches. With the two films “Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow” and “Drunken Master”, both of which broke cinema records in 1978, Jackie became a star and proved to the last doubters, especially Lo Wei, that his way of making films worked.

Archive

Internet Archive, in More feature films

Licence or status

Public Domain Mark 1.0, as the Internet Archive states it.

Credit

KonCategory3

Language

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed