Sammo Hung
Hong-Kong-based martial artist, actor, producer, director, and fight choreographer. Hung is known throughout Asia as "The Great Dragon", and is, along with the other two "Dragons", Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, credited with creating the modern Martial Arts Movie. Sammo grew up along with Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, and the three were raised to become performers of Peking Opera. The Peking Opera tradition is famed for it's highly acrobatic fighting scenes, which the three carried with them to their film productions. Sammo's trademark over-weightedness comes from a period in his youth, when he was bedridden with disease for three months and was unable to train.
Hung is not particularly well-known in the West as an actor, but has done a lot of stunt work (he worked as the stunt co-ordinator on Enter the Dragon). In Asia, he is considered one of the superstars of action films. Westerners are most likely to remember him for starring in the TV series Martial Law.
Note to other editors: How many of the movies listed here should we include? We can include some as redlinks in order to help spur people to make pages about them...
He could have been the swords-master for the Star Wars prequel-trilogy. Unfortunately, the financers of Fox Studios vetoed the idea.
Tropes relating to this performer:
- Acrofatic: Sammo is built like a teddy bear, but is still extremely agile.
- Cool Old Guy: Pushing sixty, but can still beat people half his age and weight on- and off-screen.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Sammo is a cigar aficionado.
- Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: He used to bully Jackie Chan while they attended the same school. However, now the two have starred in the same films together and are no longer enemies.