Early Years
"Eastern Condors" HKL Interview:
'When I was 9 years old, that time I didn't like the normal school. My father and mother went working in the morning, they came home in the evening. I was always running and fighting on the streets. And then some friends said: why you le
t Sammo just walk on the streets, fighting, why don't let him to learn something. At that time my grandpa was still working and nobody took care of me. Then my grandpa said: How to make Sammo to learn something. then my parents' friend said: Take Sammo to The Peking Opera. Then my grandpa said, OK we can try it and they took me to The Peking Opera School. At that time I saw 4-5 kids in the school jumping or whatever. I thought they were funny, so when I got home later I told my grandma I wanna go to Peking Opera School. And 2 weeks later my grandparents took me to the school and signed 7 years, then they went home. I phoned them one week later that I wanna go home. Because it was so hard at the school, my master every day beat me. so I studied there 7 years, yes, it was a long time there. At that time we didn't didn't know anything just training, learning, be on the stage, performing.(The school was run by Master Yu Jim Yuen, a northern kung fu practitioner and a very stern teacher. He taught the children who enrolled there the acrobatic and acting skills that would later introduce most of them into the world of Chinese Theatre and movies. Practice was very strict. Training would take place 18 hours a day, this would include stretching, weapons training, acrobatics, martial arts and acting.) 
At 14 I was still at The Peking Opera School and one day - we had a teacher who was in film-business - one day he came and talked to my master. He wanted me learn to be a stuntman. My master got payed so he agreed and was happy to let me. He gave me chance to go to the studio, to be a stuntman. The first day I was so excited, I watched everything, the makeup, the singing, the talking, the fighting, I was so excited, it was very interersting. After the shooting I went back to the school and pretended to be a director, I would tell the younger, you do this, the camere is like that... I became very interested in the movie business. At that time there was a lot of chance to be a stuntman. So when I left school at 16, I wanted to be a stuntman. then I continued to work in the film business, I was so interested in it, I would learn everything. I watched every position: the position of the camera, of the director, of the action choreographer, and then I soon learnt everything and bacame assistant choraographer, and then action choraographer and about 3 years later director. I started to study it at 16 and I was 25 when I directed my first movie. Now there are so many high technologies I don't know, but I will learn it. Everything we did was for real, I got hurt so many times just like Jackie Chan. We can do some real things and it looks better then computerwork...'