|
|
News
Article Big, Big Brother Sammo Hung
U-Weekly, Feb 2002, Issue 42
Hong Kong Special Appointment / Xiao Xuan
It is not clear that since when did the movie industry start calling influential
personalities as Big Brothers. Deng Guang-Rong of the less recent years and Sammo
Hung - Recent works: Flying Dragon, Leaping Tiger (Actor), Highbinders (Martial
Arts Director) - of the recent years belong to the familiar Big Brother class of people.
Since Three Strands of Hair Sammo Hung worked as a martial arts director, he had
been hailed as Big Brother. Later, his fellow junior brother, Jackie Chan, also
joined the Big Brother Hall of Fame. When shooting Project A, in order to
prevent confusion, the production crew called Sammo Hung Big, Big Brother and
this is how the term, Big, Big Brother, came about.
Sammo Hung was already calling the tune when he was in Golden Harvest. Zou Wen
Huai often discussed his project development plans with Sammo Hung. Should Sammo
Hung said no in front of his boss, whatever project in development would be
suspended temporarily. Beside having won the trust of his superiors, his
subordinates were also exceptionally respectful and in awe of him - even Jackie Chan obeyed him too.
Mayhap, everyone would still remember, there was a scene in Project A where
Jackie Chan has to jump down from the top of a 50 foot bell tower, the scene
which won the endless applause from the audience. It turns out that on that day
of shooting, Jackie Chan hesitated on the top of the bell tower for two days,
and was not brave enough to jump down.
On that day, after returning from lunch, on seeing Jackie Chan procrastinating
on the set, Sammo Hung said to him: "If you don't jump, why
not find someone to stand in ... ... Camera!" And when the camera started
rolling, Sammo Hung again commanded Jackie Chan imposingly, "Jump!", and Jackie
Chan acquiescently jumped down from the 50 foot tall bell tower. Subsequently, a
joke circulated among Golden Harvest, saying that Jackie Chan was sacred of
Sammo Hung. Should Sammo Hung instruct Jackie Chan to jump from a building, he
would do so obediently.
|
Because we are all God's children, we are used to heavenly bliss over there in
heaven, and when we come here, nothing is to our liking. Everything is so
terrible; everything is so hard on us. And then when we have a few more
problems, we can't bear it any more and we try to run away. We try to recover
the peace that we once had in heaven and so we use all kinds of substitutes in
order to shut out the problem. That's alcoholism. And then they turn to alcohol,
drugs, women, gambling, or whatever. And sometimes if they are weak, bad
spirits, ghosts, also possess them and make them drink. If they don't believe in
God too much or if they're too prone to negative, dark thinking too much, then
they will attract the dark elements.
When I talk about spirits, it doesn't
necessarily mean ghosts. There are bad elements everywhere, as well as
good elements. If we clean ourselves and become good, and our energy is
good, then we attract more good energy, more positive elements and they
surround us everywhere. And if we are bad or dark, then we attract more
dark elements in the atmosphere of the surroundings. Do you know where the
dark elements come from, and where the good elements come from? - From
human society. When people think badly, they create the dark elements,
dark energy, and woe to us if we become dark and susceptible to this kind
of dark element; we say that we are possessed by bad spirits. ~
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai on
Alcoholism. |
Sammo Hung loves betting on horses, to the extent of being delirious,
obsessive. Whenever
he is in Hong Kong, unless it is really necessary, he doesn't usually work
during horse racing days. Someone once said, Whenever Sammo Hung places his
bets, the electronic calculators in the turf club would jumped about
violently, implying how shockingly prodigious his stakes are. Word has it that when Sammo Hung went to Philippines to shoot Easter Condors, even though he was far
away from home, he still missed greatly the horse racing activities in Hong
Kong. As such, he phoned Ye Tong-Zhu, asking him him to bring a briefcase of
notes into the turf club and to inform him, through handphone, the horses in
the race, the wager to payment ratio. Then Sammo Hung "remote controlled" Ye Tong-Zhu to help him place the bets. When Ye Tong-Zhu talked about this matter later,
he was still shivering with cold sweat, "Oh gosh! 'Brought so much cash that
day, what if I was robbed?"
Sammo Hung cenrtainly possesses the bearing of a Big Brother, and is impartial and
generous. Often, there are no less than twenty, thirty people who eat with him,
depend on him. When Sammo Hung wins in horse races, he would buy watches,
handphones for everyone. Recently, when he was in United States of America
filming Martial Law series, someone spread scandals about him, saying that Sammo
Hung was so addicted to gambling that he missed the shooting for he was
loitering around in Las Vegas Casino. Sammo Hung was extremely angry over the
matter and both parties went into lawsuit because of this.
However, the success of Martial Law resulted in Sammo Hung becoming a household
name in America. It is said that Sammo Hung was appointed the martial arts
director of Jackie Chan's Hollywood movie, High Binders, as the US film studio
specifically wanted Sammo Hung and not, as earlier reports said, due to Jackie
Chan's recommendation. As Producer Zhang Jian-Ting puts it, "If Sammo Hung needs
to be taken care of by Jackie Chan so that he would have new productions,
wouldn't it be too contemptuous of him?" |
|
|
