The Man from Hong Kong Lobbycards

Reel East is proud to celebrate the career of the OTHER great action hero of the 1970s with The Jimmy Wang Yu Collection.

A native of Jiangsu, Wang Yu was raised in Shanghai, and relocated to Hong Kong in 1960. There Wang became a champion water polo player, and attracted the attention of director Chang Cheh when he became involved in a televised poolside brawl. He was signed to a contract by Shaw Bros, and came into his own when directed by the leading action film-maker of the day, Chang Cheh.

Chang Cheh directed Jimmy Wang Yu in the ground-breaking actioner ‘One-Armed Swordsman’, a huge success that established Wang as the pre-eminent swordplay hero of his day. In 1970, Wang Yu directed and starred in ‘The Chinese Boxer’, a film that revived fist-and-foot, rather than swordplay, action. Its success paved the way for the return to Hong Kong of another kung fu expert, Bruce Lee.

After producer Raymond Chow left Shaw Bros to form his Golden Harvest company, Wang Yu followed suit, breaking his contract and relocating to Taiwan, where he set up his own production base. It was from there that Jimmy produced, directed and starred in a string of films, many of which were distributed by Golden Harvest.

After Bruce Lee’s death, Golden Harvest tried to launch Jimmy Wang Yu as their new international action star. They hired Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith to make ‘The Man from Hong Kong’, also known as ‘The Dragon Flies’. The film was shot on location in Australia and at Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest studios. It focused on Wang Yu’s more visceral fighting methods, and avoided the obvious comparison with Bruce Lee’s more stylised martial arts action.

The film’s villain is George Lazenby, the one-time James Bond who had been signed by Golden Harvest to co-star opposite Bruce Lee in three films, with the first being Lee’s ‘Game of Death’. After Bruce’s passing, Lazenby starred opposite Wang Yu here and Angela Mao in ‘Stoner’ and ‘A Queen’s Ransom’.

Such was Wang Yu’s influence that he, not Trenchard-Smith, was given the director credit on some Chinese versions of the film. Sammo Hung choreographed the film’s one real kung fu fight scene, shot on a stage at Golden Harvest studios in Hong Kong. ‘The Man from Hong Kong’ was one of the first action films to feature hang-gliding (performed by Australian stunt ace Grant Page), and featured the hit song ‘Sky High’ by the British group Jigsaw

‘The Man from Hong Kong’ is now a genuine cult flick in its own right, and was featured in the documentary ‘Not Quite Hollywood’. Fans who previously dismissed Wang Yu as being nothing but an inferior rival to Bruce Lee have come to admire Jimmy as a star with his own charisma, courage and persona.

Reel East is proud to share this rare set of Chinese lobbycards, printed by Golden Harvest to promote the original theatrical release of the film.