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James Marsh

Hong Kong cinema fans have been thrown into mourning by news of the death of legendary film director and action choreographer Corey Yuen Kwai.
He died from Covid-19 in 2022 but until now, Yuen’s family had chosen to keep this a secret. His death was inadvertently leaked by fellow action star Jackie Chan in a social media post this week.
Commenting on the 65th anniversary of the Seven Little Fortunes, the Peking opera school troupe that launched the careers of Yuen and Chan, as well as those of Sammo Hung Kam-bo, Yuen Wah and Yuen Biao, among others, Chan made Yuen’s death public, writing: “It is with profound sadness we bid farewell to Corey Yuen, whose legacy in action cinema is unparalleled.”
Yuen began acting in the early 1970s, with small roles in films such as Fist of Fury and The 14 Amazons, and continued to appear on screen throughout his career, both in the films he directed and those directed by close friends and colleagues.

Once he started directing, Yuen enjoyed frequent sojourns working in Hollywood, either as an action choreographer on such prestigious projects as X-Men and The Expendables, or as director, starting with 1986’s No Retreat, No Surrender, the film in which a young Jean Claude Van Damme first drew international attention.
As we belatedly commemorate the death of a true pioneer of Hong Kong cinema, we look back at five of our favourite Corey Yuen films.
1. Ninja in the Dragon’s Den (1982)


Yuen’s directorial debut shows a number of flourishes that would come to define his work, such as his pairing of mismatched heroes in elaborately choreographed action sequences.
The film stars Japanese martial arts legend Hiroyuki Sanada as the titular ninja, who heads to China to avenge his father’s death.
He discovers that the man responsible is protected by Conan Lee’s arrogant young kung fu protégé, and the two young warriors square off in a number of hugely imaginative clashes, until they eventually reconcile their differences to fight side by side against their common enemy, embodied by Korean star Hwang Jang-lee.
2. Yes, Madam! (1985)


Yuen introduced the action world to two of its finest female fighters in this action-packed policier.
Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh (billed as Michelle Khan) landed her first leading role as a Hong Kong detective who is partnered with a British investigator from Scotland Yard to track down a stolen microfilm.
American martial artist Cynthia Rothrock, a world champion in multiple disciplines, made her acting debut opposite Yeoh, and the pairing proved an instant box office hit.
Rothrock starred in a string of Hong Kong films over the following five years, including Yuen’s follow-up, Righting Wrongs, in which she appeared alongside Yuen Biao.
3. She Shoots Straight (1990)


Female protagonists are front and centre once more in this endlessly entertaining crime thriller, in which the future Mrs Sammo Hung, Joyce Godenzi, takes the lead, playing a police inspector who is forced to juggle her work and personal life.
Tasked with going undercover to thwart Yuen Wah’s Vietnamese crime syndicate, she is simultaneously facing blowback from her boyfriend’s family, who object to her marrying their son (Tony Leung Ka-fai).
Carina Lau Ka-ling stars as a jealous fellow cop, while the action pinballs back and forth between urban shoot-outs and exotic jungle-style warfare.
4. Fong Sai Yuk (1993)


Yuen’s partnership with Jet Li proved incredibly fruitful, with the director becoming de facto custodian of Li’s Hollywood career, choreographing his fight scenes in Lethal Weapon 4, Kiss of the Dragon and numerous other films.
Perhaps their finest collaboration, however, is this rip-roaring action comedy which bagged Yuen his only Hong Kong Film Award, for best action choreography.
Li embodies the classic Chinese folk hero Fong Sai-yuk, who is dragged into all manner of life-threatening shenanigans by the antics of his parents, first vying for the hand of Michelle Reis’ local beauty, before protecting the identities of secret society members.
5. The Transporter (2002)


While perhaps not the greatest accomplishment in the history of action cinema, Yuen’s European-set action thriller can lay claim to having solidified Jason Statham’s position as a bona fide action star while simultaneously introducing the global mainstream to the magnificence of actress Shu Qi.
For one sequence alone, a fight scene in which a ludicrously greased up Statham strips to the waist to see off a horde of goons as they slip and slide through a pool of motor oil, The Transporter endures as a masterclass in acrobatic choreography, narrative inventiveness and classic Hong Kong slapstick that Yuen made his signature.
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Yuen directed Jason Statham, Jet Li, Jean Claude Van Damme and Michelle Yeoh in a six-decade career that spanned Hong Kong and Hollywood


As a director, Corey Yuen gave Michelle Yeoh her debut, was one of the first to feature Jean Claude Van Damme, and steered Jet Li’s career. He was also an action choreographer and actor.
