The Millionaires Express
"Millionaires Express" HKL Interview:
There are many Western that I like. In particular, I like John Wayne, who is like the godfather of Westerns. So, I like Westerns and I feel they 
really portray a sense of freedom. They ride horses to go wherever they want to in Westerns, unlike regular films where people can be very constrained and restricted. In Westerns they’re usually out in the open, they’re riding, walking around and you feel a sense of openness. In China, in Shanghai, when it divided into different concession zones, many Shangahinese dressed like people in Westerns, like they were in the West, like it was Chicago. All the suits with the hats, it was very similar. But I didn’t go for a Western flavour, the mood I was aiming for was of how it was in China. This type of film is uncommon in HK, the audience for the genre is small. They thought it was a Western but it wasn’t. Except for the puncho like they wore in spaghetti westerns, the rest of it was very Chinese.
I was very lucky because firstly, they let us film in the Bangkok train station. Secondly, we needed to film a highway then another railroad track and they had just completed a track and it was brand-new so they gave us full support to film there. I was very happy with the filming, you know. All action fims are difficult to film. You need a lot of time to film action films and situations like that always take time. The train goes from here to here, but it’s no good so you do it again, but usually shots like that don’t take too long. It didn’t take that much time… It was a very smooth shoot… But you must have enough time, you must allow enough time to make a film, so it’s all part of the budget. Storyboards weren’t in fashion yet. Usually we had it in our heads when writing the script. I already had a sense of what each character was going to do or how they’d fight. Then once you have the basic framework, it’s easy to choreograph each move. We were at Tai Po, on government land. We spent a lot of money, several million, and created a street set, and the hotel was here, the village was there… We built them there.
I speak all the different languages so there weren’t any problems. I know Korean, I can speak a little Japanese, I know a bit of Thai. Yeah, I didn’t find it a problem. Most important of all, we had interpreters. Right? We had interpreters and all the actors were professionals. Once you tell them about the story, the dialogue, then it was very easy for them to grasp their characters and what to convey. So there wasn’t any problems. I don’t think the issue of language is that important. The most important thing is the ability to quickly grasp a concept and be very professional on film. Then there won’t be any problems.
I think Cynthia had been in a film that I saw. I thought she had good moves. In that scene we were going for a bit of comedy – comedic effect. I thought the audience would take to it and I admired Bruce Lee. In addition, I had already done another film, imitating Bruce Lee, called „Enter the Fat Dragon”. Then for a long time I didn’t film or do anything to do with Bruce Lee. So to suddenly add a bit of his stuff, I felt it was fun, so that’s why we added a few of his moves. That was a funny scene (Sifus and kids on train). We asked Jimmy Wang to be Kwan Tak Hing and we asked Uncle Kien to be in it, they worked well together – their dialogue clicked. It was a funny moment. I thought Jimmy Wang was good in it.
Yuen Biao is my „younger brother” in martial arts. We trained together for 7 years so I know everything about what he trained in. I have some
insight into what he knows. I also know what level his martial arts skills are at. He’s very good. I thought Yuen Biao could have a go at portraying this character and he could do all the moves and action sequences that I designed. He could do it all, so I had no worries about his action sequences. And in terms of his acting, he acted on stage… He did Peking opera for so long so acting wasn’t difficult either. As for his character, normally he’s very quiet, he doesn’t say much. But he was very good at martial arts in school. When I was at the school, he was very young. We grew up together, so it’s easy for me to grasp what kind of person Yuen Biao is. We don’t get into arguments, we’ve worked on so many films. He respects me and most of the time, I win! When we get into an argument, we don’t argue, we… When we get together, we all speak Mandarin, and in Mandarin, I like to make fun of him, ridicule him. He’ll always ask „Why do you have to make me look bad when you don’t do that to others?” Noone knows what kind of relationship we have. With you I speak Cantonese, but when I’m with Yuen Biao or Jackie Chan, I’ll speak Mandarin. Often, if others don’t understand Mandarin, they think we’re fighting but we aren’t. We’re always been like that since childhood.
This is all my past work – my old films. Now that they’re popular again, I’m happy. That’s it. I feel happy when I hear about it. I don’t feel surprised or whatever, becasue there’s no use being surprised, you still have to face the future. You hope that what you do in the future will be popular, then you’ll be especially happy.
really portray a sense of freedom. They ride horses to go wherever they want to in Westerns, unlike regular films where people can be very constrained and restricted. In Westerns they’re usually out in the open, they’re riding, walking around and you feel a sense of openness. In China, in Shanghai, when it divided into different concession zones, many Shangahinese dressed like people in Westerns, like they were in the West, like it was Chicago. All the suits with the hats, it was very similar. But I didn’t go for a Western flavour, the mood I was aiming for was of how it was in China. This type of film is uncommon in HK, the audience for the genre is small. They thought it was a Western but it wasn’t. Except for the puncho like they wore in spaghetti westerns, the rest of it was very Chinese. I was very lucky because firstly, they let us film in the Bangkok train station. Secondly, we needed to film a highway then another railroad track and they had just completed a track and it was brand-new so they gave us full support to film there. I was very happy with the filming, you know. All action fims are difficult to film. You need a lot of time to film action films and situations like that always take time. The train goes from here to here, but it’s no good so you do it again, but usually shots like that don’t take too long. It didn’t take that much time… It was a very smooth shoot… But you must have enough time, you must allow enough time to make a film, so it’s all part of the budget. Storyboards weren’t in fashion yet. Usually we had it in our heads when writing the script. I already had a sense of what each character was going to do or how they’d fight. Then once you have the basic framework, it’s easy to choreograph each move. We were at Tai Po, on government land. We spent a lot of money, several million, and created a street set, and the hotel was here, the village was there… We built them there.
I speak all the different languages so there weren’t any problems. I know Korean, I can speak a little Japanese, I know a bit of Thai. Yeah, I didn’t find it a problem. Most important of all, we had interpreters. Right? We had interpreters and all the actors were professionals. Once you tell them about the story, the dialogue, then it was very easy for them to grasp their characters and what to convey. So there wasn’t any problems. I don’t think the issue of language is that important. The most important thing is the ability to quickly grasp a concept and be very professional on film. Then there won’t be any problems.
I think Cynthia had been in a film that I saw. I thought she had good moves. In that scene we were going for a bit of comedy – comedic effect. I thought the audience would take to it and I admired Bruce Lee. In addition, I had already done another film, imitating Bruce Lee, called „Enter the Fat Dragon”. Then for a long time I didn’t film or do anything to do with Bruce Lee. So to suddenly add a bit of his stuff, I felt it was fun, so that’s why we added a few of his moves. That was a funny scene (Sifus and kids on train). We asked Jimmy Wang to be Kwan Tak Hing and we asked Uncle Kien to be in it, they worked well together – their dialogue clicked. It was a funny moment. I thought Jimmy Wang was good in it.
Yuen Biao is my „younger brother” in martial arts. We trained together for 7 years so I know everything about what he trained in. I have some
insight into what he knows. I also know what level his martial arts skills are at. He’s very good. I thought Yuen Biao could have a go at portraying this character and he could do all the moves and action sequences that I designed. He could do it all, so I had no worries about his action sequences. And in terms of his acting, he acted on stage… He did Peking opera for so long so acting wasn’t difficult either. As for his character, normally he’s very quiet, he doesn’t say much. But he was very good at martial arts in school. When I was at the school, he was very young. We grew up together, so it’s easy for me to grasp what kind of person Yuen Biao is. We don’t get into arguments, we’ve worked on so many films. He respects me and most of the time, I win! When we get into an argument, we don’t argue, we… When we get together, we all speak Mandarin, and in Mandarin, I like to make fun of him, ridicule him. He’ll always ask „Why do you have to make me look bad when you don’t do that to others?” Noone knows what kind of relationship we have. With you I speak Cantonese, but when I’m with Yuen Biao or Jackie Chan, I’ll speak Mandarin. Often, if others don’t understand Mandarin, they think we’re fighting but we aren’t. We’re always been like that since childhood. This is all my past work – my old films. Now that they’re popular again, I’m happy. That’s it. I feel happy when I hear about it. I don’t feel surprised or whatever, becasue there’s no use being surprised, you still have to face the future. You hope that what you do in the future will be popular, then you’ll be especially happy.