The Iron Fisted Monk
"The Iron Fisted Monk" HKL Interview:
When I decided to make the film „The Iron Fisted Monk”, at that time the Chinese liked stories about historic heroes, fighting heroes, like the Cantonese Ten Tigers. We chose that kind of story for the movie. Wong Fung is like my Godfather, I followed him for many years, we made movies, I worked for him as an assistant action director, choraographer, and my first film I worked on as action choraographer was directed by him. He helped me lot during those years. Then once I asked him: „Do you think I could be a director?” And he said: „Why not? If you’d like I’ll help you, I’ll write the script for you. Tell me what kind of story you’d like”. Then I told him my idea and he wrote the script for me. Hong Kong people always like to hear about heroes. There is a very popular story about the Ten Tigers. We chose that kind of movie, a kind of movie that people would be interested in. The character is a young guy, his father and mother were killed, then he met a monk who brought him to Shaolin Temple. He trained there, because he wanted to take revenge. There was a lot of pressure on him, he was not supposed to go out of the Temple, he had to do some tests and then was allowed to go out, just like me. I am lucky to make this first film, it’s like a test. I’m OK, I passed the test.