Hero Of This World, And The Next

27 December 1951 - 8 November 1997

Today, as you might note above, is the 20th anniversary of the death of my favorite movie star. And you've probably never heard of him if you live in the USA. You may also have noticed that his birthday is seven weeks away. We'll be spending some time during the next seven weeks taking a look at some of his works. But today, let me introduce you to Lam Ching-Ying:

In the 1990s, he was my first choice to play Doctor Strange

While probably unfamiliar to you, you likely have actually seen his work. Well, indirectly, you've almost certainly seen his work. Behind the camera, he also trained others, including transforming Michelle Yeoh from a dancer into the top female action star in the world. But, while you probably never noticed his face behind John Saxon in the audience, you did see him fight in this little movie:

Shek Kin, the big villain of the film, was rather old by this time. Lam Ching-Ying is the one you see fighting Bruce Lee whenever you can't see his face clearly. Of course, since he was also Lee's fight coordinator, that wasn't really a stretch for him. You can see him in The Big Boss and Lee's other films, but where you should be seeing him is in his own films, and his work with Sammo Hung Kam-Bo. (Americans - remember that fat Chinese cop show from the 90s with the amazing action that made a joke of how Walker, Texas Ranger was filmed in the following hour? That was Sammo Hung.)
My favorite Lam Ching-Ying movie is probably the 5th in the Mr. Vampire series - Magic Cop:

He we have a modern cop who is also a Taoist, fighting a Japanese sorceress using undead thugs and evil magicks. It's a glorious mix of physical action and visual insanity. Lam Sifu was a master of Wing Chun (some of the finest on film is his work in The Prodigal Son) and his skills are on display again Billy Chow Bei-Lei (Billy Chong above) in fights, as well as the almost enearhtly precision it brings to his moves in magic rituals. We'll look more closely at Magic Cop later, most certainly.
But, for now, let's look at the life of Lam Ching Ying. Presented here is the biography i was able to assemble for my previous tribute site, from which the title of this post is derived.

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Lam Ching-Ying was born as Lam Gun-Bo in the year of the dragon on December 27th, 1952 in Hong Kong. (Shanghai? I've found conflicting reports.) He was the third of seven children, with one elder brother whose name is unknown to me, and an elder sister named Ling-Chu. His younger siblings include two sisters, Bo-Chu and Wai-Chun, a brother named Chun-Hung, and one more of whom nothing is known to me.
He studied for 2 years at the Shun Yi Association Elementary School in Hong Kong before leaving school. About 1963-4 he joined what is usually refered to as the "other" Peking Opera School; that of Madame Fan Fok Fa (Fun Guk Fa). He studied at Fun Guk Fa's Chu Chau Opera School for 5 years, where he began his lifelong friendships with John Lone, Mang Hoi and Stephen Tung-Wai among several others. Less than a year later, he began to appear in his first public performance, White Beach. Madame is reported to have said that young Gun-Bo was disobedient, beyond her ability to handle. But he obviously learned more than she may have realized while her student.

At 17, he began his professional career as a stuntman and martial coach at Shaw Brothers. The slender build that had led to his playing many roles as females and old men at the opera school now served him as he doubled for female stars, as he did for Cheng Pei-Pei in his first movie, Gold (Silken?) Sabre Big Hero (Gum Doe Dai Hup) in which he appears onscreen as a young monk. He received a salary of HK$60 per day working on this movie, HK$20 of which went to his mentor. Half of what remained Lam spent on his "brothers" in those early times, a time that he once recalled as his happiest days.

Lam Ching-Ying in The Big Boss Lam Ching-Ying
In just two years he began Action directing, starting with Fist Of Fury (The Chinese Connection) in 1972 with Hong Ying-Kit. He was hand picked by Bruce Lee Siu-Lung as his assistant as well. On Enter The Dragon, Bruce insisted Raymond Chow bring Lam Ching-Ying in from Korea to serve as Action Director. He AD'd (with Billy Chan Wui-Ngai, with whom he would later share several HKFA nominations and wins) on all of Bruce's Hong Kong productions excepting Return Of The Dragon. He also had a supporting role in Lee's The Big Boss. Production on The Big Boss was delayed when he was arrested in Hong Kong for fighting.

Although from different schools, he was close friends with Sammo Hung Kam-Bo (close enough for Sammo to be there when he was arrested at some point when they were young - was this the Big Boss incident referred to above?)) and was a core member of the Hung Kar Pan (Hung Ga Ban), Samo's legendary action direction and stunt team. About this time (the mid-1970s) he moved from Shaw Brothers to Golden Harvest, where Sammo was under contract, and he was a stuntman/actor in many of their best films of the period, including such Sammo films as Enter The Fat Dragon, Warriors Two and Magnificent Butcher.

Lam Ching-Ying in The Prodigal Son Lam Ching-Ying
In 1981 the Hong Kong Film Award was created, and only a year later, in 1982 Lam Ching-Ying won his first for Action Direction on The Prodigal Son with Samo Hung Kam-Bo, Yuen Biao, and Billy Chan Wui-Ngai. Prodigal Son also picked up a Best Picture nomination, due in no small part to the work of the Hung Kar Pan. The following year the same team was nominated for another Best Action award for their work on The Dead And The Deadly (which was also nominated for Best Picture), but they lost out to Winners And Sinners. But, since the action team on Winners And Sinners was Lam Ching-Ying, Yuen Biao and Billy Chan Wui-Ngai, it wasn't really much of a loss, was it? More like a two-fold win.

Lam Ching-Ying in one of his earlier Taoist Ghostbuster roles. Lam Ching-Ying
He continued acting as well, appearing in a wide variety of roles over his career ranging from psychopathic villains to noble heroes to professional soldiers and weary men. Even his cameo roles in movies such as Pedicab Driver were memorable, but it wasn't until he began to play his "Eternal Sifu" character in Hocus Pocus that he began to ascend to international stardom. Movies like Close Encounter Of The Spooky Kind 2 and Mr. Vampire ensured his place in the cinematic heavens. In 1985, Lam Ching-Ying was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor HKFA, and Mr. Vampire for best picture. After that Lam became rather typecast in the role, appearing in many movies and two TV series playing his all-knowing Vampire Buster. Although this led to difficulty securing other roles, you couldn't tell it from his performances. Even in the worst of his films, Lam is always top notch, even if the rest of the material or production isn't.

1985 was a good year for Lam Ching-Ying. Besides his great success with Mr. Vampire and booming theatrical career, he and his then wife, Cheng Bing-Bing had their first child - a daughter whose name is, unfortunately, unknown to me. Three years later they had a son, Ka-Yiu. Both children were fans of his work and reportedly collected his films on video tape. (Not at that point in time, of course, but later when old enough to do so.)

Somewhere around this time the Western world missed out on a tremendous oppurtunity. At Golden Harvest, David Chan decided that with the phenomenal success of his recent films the time was right to make an English language version of Mr. Vampire starring, of course, Lam Ching-Ying. The film went into production with the title Demon Hunters, and American actors Tanya Roberts and Jack Scalia were brought in to co-star. Unfortunately, the project rapidly fell apart. The production was plagued with difficulties, not the least of which were the Hollywood actors doing their best to play the part of Ugly Americans, with Tanya Robert's ego out of control Jack Scalia's inability to cope with Lam Ching-Ying's lack of English. Sadly, after viewing the dailies and reviewing the situation, Raymond Chow shut production down and we were all poorer for it. And after the unpleasant experience Lam Ching-Ying turned his back on the foreign film market. I still wonder at times what might have happened if he had become one of the early break-out stars from Hong Kong in Hollywood had the production been the smashing success it should have been... >sigh!< ... ah, well. And so it goes.

In 1988, Lam began his directing career with One Eyebrow Priest, a character he co-created (with Chua Lam) and portrayed on camera for the Dai Lo Film company the team co-created. Because production ran over budget, Lam didn't receive his director's fee on this one. But since it was his own company, that was probably his decision, at least in part.

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His martial coaching of actors continued as well, including helping to turn dancer Michelle Yeoh into the top female action star in the world, and mentoring rising star Chin Kar-Lok as a martial arts coach.

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In 1991, Lam Ching-Ying opened a bar in Sai Gung, where his parents and brothers reside.

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In 1993, Ching-Ying divorced from Cheng Bing Bing.

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In 1995, ATV approached him about developing a series based on his Taoist Priest character for television. Far from his early salary of $60 dollars a day, he signed a $1,000,000 deal to do this series, Vampire Expert (Geung Si Doe Jeung) which earned some rave reviews and spawned two sequels.

Lam Ching-Ying from Vampire Expert 2 Lam Ching-Ying (Vampire Expert 2)
Early in 1996, while filming Vampire Expert 2 (Geung Si Doe Jeung 2) for ATV, Lam Ching-Ying became romanticly involved with Yuen King-Tan, an actress on the series with whom he had first started to develop feelings the previous year during filming Vampire Expert. During the filming of the series, she moved from her home in Happy Valley to Sai Gung so she could be near Lam Ching-Ying.
Later that year he starred in another series, Coincidentally (Dun Jeuk Nei Wui Loi), and the following year he was featured in the series Flower Monk (Fa Wor Seung). He was signed to do a third Vampire Priest series at the time of his death, but the world was denied that pleasure. ATV, the network that was home to the Vampire priest series, aired a one hour special on Lam Ching-Ying in the month following his passing.

In 1997, Lam Ching-Ying developed Liver Cancer. A quiet and private man, Lam asked his family not to reveal his illness to the public to avoid suffering the sympathy of others. He dissappeared from the public eye and sought seclusion as he received herbal treatment for his condition. The more he deteriorated, the less he wanted others, his loved ones included, to see him. In early October, as Lam Sifu was succumbing to his illness, he tried to send Yuen King-Tan from his side, asking her to move from his Sai Gung home, but she refused to leave him. Instead, he retreated to his sisters house, where he remained until slipping into a partial coma at the beginning of November. In the last weeks, even his children were declined visits, Lam not wanting to scare them with his current state. He spent his remaining days at St. Theresa's Hospital in Kowloon until he passed away on the 8th; much, much too soon.

His liver cancer has been missreported as due to drinking, but it actually came on quite sudden, and is hereditary in his family. Ching-Ying's older brother had died of liver cancer earlier in the year.


On November 13th, 1997, just past 7:00 in the evening, 50 Buddhist Monks began a 3 hour prayer ceremony to honor Lam Ching-Ying's exit from this world. His ex-wife and children, his girlfriend and his many friends were in attendance, as well as the press, of course. Yuen King-Tan had to sneak in to the funeral, and Jackie Chan entered and exited through the back. Offerings on the altar included cigarettes, mushroom and vegetable dishes, fruits and cakes. Not on the altar were a large variety of paper offerings, the "Lam Gun Bo Mansion 1997" - a two-story high garden mansion resembling Lam Ching-Ying's residence in Tai Po, and his favorite priest shoes and top hat.

Pallbearers were Wu Ma, Samo Hung Kam-Bo, Cheung Wing-Hong, Billy Chan Wui-Ngai, Chin Kar-Lok on the right and Yeung Siu-Hung, Chin Yuet-Sun, Lee King-Chu, Ng Ming-Choi, and Chung Fat on the left. Lam Sifu was cremated, and his ashes returned to the United States, with Cheng Bing Bing and his children, for burial with his favorite clothing & sunglasses, and a caligraphy of One Smile Returns To The West from Chua Lam.

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Sifu, You are missed.

Join us over the next several weeks for less words and more pictures, maybe a game or two. Heck, you got your old NES emulators handy? I'll see if i can't dig out the ROM for the video game based on his undead fighting Taoist Priest movies - 

(found it)