Salute to veteran film director - Ho Meng Hua

On September 17th, I had attended the Chinese Film Panorama (2007) and enjoyed watching the movie but the more joyful thing for me was to be able to sit next to the director of one of Shaw Brother's all time classic cult movies The “ ", Mr. Ho Meng Hua, throughout the whole show and to escort him to his transport afterwards.

In the 1970s, the Shaw Brothers Studio was the greatest producer of classic martial arts films, but during that time they also dipped into other genres like sci-fi, horror, comedy and dramas.  The was Shaw's cover version of with a dash of Tarzan done in their own incredibly entertaining way.

Over thirty years ago, in 1976, Sir Run Run had the dream of releasing this Hong Kong remake of earlier than the Hollywood remake of the same movie which was also in production at the same time.  Director Ho Meng Hua had to work with Japanese special effects professionals who only had a maximum of 3 months to stay per Visa grant.  So, extra time was lost when the special effects work could not be completed within 3 months and new teams from Japan had to come to pick up the unfinished work of the previous teams.  While director Ho was contracted to do 4 movies for Shaw Brothers each year, he had taken over 1 year to just work on the due to the many physical and technical challenges he had to overcome for a movie of this scale and nature at that time.  The movie was finally released in 1977, after the release of its Hollywood rivalry, (1977).

In 1999, Quentin Tarantino had re-released the in North America through his Rolling Thunder Pictures distribution company with Miramax.  The Rotten Tomatoes had gathered 6 Fresh tomatoes and 5 Rotten tomatoes reviews for this movie.http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mightypekingman/

Last night, the 78-year old director Ho had a bit of discomfort walking from the cinema to the building entrance.  And, one of the comments that he made kept resonate in my mind, 

As a humble new director who wants to direct feature films one day, I am writing this blog to salute director Ho, who had directed almost 50 movies for the Shaw Brothers Studio, for his life long efforts and passion in the making and appreciation of movies!

This was the original movie poster

of the MIGHTY PEKING MAN

in 1977.

This was the video cover of North America's  

re-release in 1999 by Quentin Tarantino's

film distribution company.

This was my attempt to take a nice photo

with director Ho with my right hand

• however resulting in this "ghostly" effect !

Me signing on the guests board

Next to me was Shaw's classic hero, Ti Lung

A group photo with director Ho and the Shaw's film stars.

(From photo left) director Ho, me, Lin Chung, Shaw Yin Yin,

Ku Feng (who was one of the main casts in the MIGHTY

PEKING MAN) and Fong Wah. 

The director of the opening film "GUN OF MERCY", Feng Gong, happened to pass by and walked into the right frame of this photo!

 P.S.

Ho Meng Huais a Cantonese born in Shanghai in 1929. He studied at a Shanghai theatrical academy and moved to Hong Kong in 1948, joined Shaw Brothers in 1955. By 1957 he had worked his way up to director, his directorial debut being released in 1958. He moved on to direct approximately fifty films for Shaw Brothers.

Chang Chehwas the mentor of Hollywood film director, John Woo.  He had directed more than 90 movies during the course of his career, including such classics as One-Armed Swordsman, Golden Swallow, Chinatown Kid, The Five Venoms, and many more. Shortly before his death in 2002, Chang received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards. He will be remembered as the “Godfather” of Hong Kong Action Cinema.

Li Han Hsiangwas the award-winning director of the classic Chinese huang-mei opera movies, and

Cheng Kangwas the award-winning director of the internationally acclaimed .  He was also the father of the famous Hong Kong martial arts director, Ching Siu-tung.