A wuxia icon, Wang was a breakout star for Shaw Brothers Studio starring in traditional movies similar to 'One-Armed Swordsman,' 'Golden Swallow' and the extremely influential 'The Chinese language Boxer.'
Jimmy Wang Yu, the trailblazing martial arts star who starred in traditional Hong Kong films Golden Swallow, One-Armed Swordsman and The Chinese language Boxer and paved the best way for the likes of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, has died. He was 79.
Wang died in a Taipei hospital on Tuesday, his daughter Linda Wang revealed on Instagram. He had been affected by power unwell well being for various years.
On Fb, Jackie Chan wrote, “One other martial arts hero has left us… The contributions you’ve made to kung fu films, and the assist and knowledge you’ve given to the youthful generations will at all times be remembered within the trade. And your films will at all times stay within the hearts of your followers. We are going to miss you!”
Born Wang Cheng-chuan in Shanghai in 1943, he migrated together with his household to Hong Kong. Wang began performing within the early Sixties and caught the eye of the fledgling Hong Kong department of the Shanghai-based Shaw Brothers Studio, which had begun to broaden its manufacturing slate with motion films and wuxia movies.
A contract participant at first of his profession, Wang’s early profession was indelibly linked with Shaw Brothers, for higher and worse, and he would develop into a mainstream star within the studio’s most well-known wuxia movies together with One-Armed Swordsman (1967) which broke field workplace information in Hong Kong, Golden Swallow (1968), Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969) and ground-breaking kung fu movie The Chinese language Boxer (1970).
The Chinese language Boxer, which noticed Wang’s character single-handedly tackle a gang of Japanese karate thugs, proved to be an enormous hit and located an viewers outdoors of Hong Kong and Asia. Written, directed and starring Wang, the movie is credited with establishing a brand new template for Hong Kong motion movies, giving beginning to the kung fu movies, with storylines that veered away from swords and fantasy components and centered extra on combat scenes pushed by hand-to-hand fight. It additionally established a preferred trope utilized in numerous kung fu movies, that of a loner looking for revenge however dealing with seemingly not possible odds/numbers of enemies.
The preeminent Hong Kong motion star of the late Sixties and early Seventies, Wang’s profession was derailed by a really messy and public authorized battle with Shaw Brothers after he broke his contract with the studio in 1970. The studio sued the star, profitable after a extremely publicized trial. Additionally weighing on Wang’s superstar was a sequence of scandals in his non-public life, together with intercourse scandals, alleged hyperlinks to organized crime and repeatedly brawling in public.
In an interview with Jap Kicks, Wang referred to himself as a “avenue fighter” and stated that within the interval between 1964 and 1968 he was usually within the newspapers for combating, usually with paparazzi, and even a policeman.
Discovering work tougher to come back by in Hong Kong, Wang would relocate to Taiwan to work with Shaw Brothers’ rivals Golden Harvest.
In Taiwan, and now producing his personal options, Wang was prolific and among the many many kung fu movies he made on this interval, One-Armed Boxer (1972), A Man Referred to as Tiger (1972) and Seaside of the Struggle Gods (1973) have all gone on to realize cult standing.
With the rise of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and the success of Shaw Brothers stars Ti Lung and David Chiang, Wang’s recognition started to dip by the mid-Seventies. A self-proclaimed avenue brawler somewhat than a martial artist by coaching, Wang’s lack of abilities, hidden to an extent by modifying, was starting to indicate when in comparison with his fully-trained rivals.
Wang was nonetheless in demand in worldwide productions, nonetheless, with producers within the west trying to money in on the kung fu craze. In 1975, Wang starred within the first Hong Kong-Australia co-production, The Man From Hong Kong. The next yr he starred in The Queen’s Ransom. Each movies co-starred a declining George Lazenby.
One other notable Wang movie from this era was Grasp of the Flying Guillotine (1976), which Quentin Tarantino would rank as considered one of his favourite movies and that might later affect RZA’s The Man with the Iron Fists.
By the Eighties, Wang’s profession started to decelerate, and he was higher recognized for the scandals in his non-public life. There have been studies of home abuse, continued studies of his alleged hyperlinks to Triads and in Taiwan, he was charged with homicide in 1981, however the costs have been dropped on account of an absence of proof.
Within the Nineties, Wang’s movies gained a brand new viewers after his work, significantly The Chinese language Boxer, was championed by the likes of Tarantino.
In his later years, Wang appeared in Peter Chan’s 2011 movie Wu Xia, starring Donnie Yen and Tang Wei. The movie was a tribute to the One-Armed Swordsman sequence and premiered on the Cannes Movie Competition. His last movie look got here in 2013, within the Taiwanese horror film Soul. In 2019, Wang was awarded the lifetime achievement award at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards.