Lau Kar-leung was a Hong Kong martial artist, filmmaker, fight choreographer and actor.
28 Facts About Lau Kar-leung
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Lau Kar-leung is best known for the films he made in the 1970s and 1980s for the Shaw Brothers Studio, notably those starring Gordon Liu.
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Lau Kar-leung is considered one of the most influential figures in the history of martial arts cinema.
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In many of his best-known films, Lau was credited as Liu Chia-liang, the Mandarin spelling of his name.
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Lau Kar-leung was part of a lineage of Hung Ga practitioners originating from Wong Fei-hung.
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Lau Kar-leung had a younger brother, Kar-wing, a prominent martial arts actor and filmmaker.
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Lau Kar-leung began learning kung fu when he was nine years old, under strict tutelage from his father, Lau Kar-leung Cham.
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The elder Lau Kar-leung was a well-known practitioner of the Wong Fei-hung lineage of Hung Ga, as a disciple of Wong's pupil Lam Sai-wing.
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Lau Kar-leung was the headmaster of the Hua Chiang Martial Arts Society in Guangzhou, where he lived with his family until 1948, when they moved to British Hong Kong.
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Lau Kar-leung became adept in various styles of Southern Chinese martial arts, training rigorously with his father until the age of 28.
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Lau Kar-leung teamed up with fellow Wong Fei-hung choreographer Tong Gaai on the 1963 Hu Peng-directed wuxia film South Dragon, North Phoenix.
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Lau Kar-leung occasionally did choreography work for non-Shaw films as well, such as Master of the Flying Guillotine.
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Additionally, because his last film for Shaw Brothers, Martial Arts of Shaolin, had been filmed in Mainland China, Lau Kar-leung was not allowed to work in Taiwan and no Taiwanese distributors would handle his films.
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Lau Kar-leung approached Cinema City who agreed to settle his issues with Taiwan if he directed three films for them, Tiger on the Beat, Aces Go Places V - The Terracotta Hit, and Tiger on the Beat 2.
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Lau Kar-leung subsequently directed Drunken Master III and Drunken Monkey without Chan.
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Lau Kar-leung was notable for emphasizing both unarmed and armed arts.
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Lau Kar-leung avoided overt stylization in his on-screen combat, minimizing the use of wirework and trampolines that would prove the staple of other choreographers like Yuen Woo-ping.
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Lau Kar-leung began training students Hung Gar before the age of 5 and was already quite proficient in the style.
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Lau Kar-leung opened the Lau Kar-leung Family Hung Gar academy in Fanling, led by his pupil Mark Houghton.
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Lau Kar-leung gave his disciple the permission to spread the art of Lau Family Hung Gar to chosen students.
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Lau Kar-leung's nephew Lau Kar-leung Kar-yung is an actor, choreographer and director.
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In 1978, Lau Kar-leung first met the then 14-year-old Mary Jean Reimer, who was 30 years his junior and a fan of his.
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Lau Kar-leung died on 25 June 2013 at Union Hospital, Hong Kong.
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In 2005, Lau Kar-leung won a "Best Action Choreography" award at the Golden Horse Award for his action choreography work on Tsui Hark's Seven Swords.
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Lau Kar-leung won another Golden Horse Award in 1994, for "Best Martial Arts Direction" in the film Drunken Master II.
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In 1995, Lau Kar-leung won a "Best Action Choreography" award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his choreography in Drunken Master II and in 1997, the film won "Best Film" at the Fantasia Film Festival.
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Lau Kar-leung was nominated for a "Best Action Choreography" Hong Kong Film Award in 2006 for his work on Tsui Hark's Seven Swords, and nominated in 1983 for a "Best Action Choreography" Hong Kong Film Award for his work on Legendary Weapons of China, which he directed and wrote.
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In 2010, Lau Kar-leung was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his contributions to the martial arts film genre.