Wow, you must have done a lot of research for this and I presume you don't know Chinese... Just a minor correction: in the recent interview you mentioned at the end, when asked about if he was still angry over Ti Lung's absence in Cheung Cheh's funeral, Chiang actually said "I am in no position to talk about this - attending the funeral or not, it was Ti's own decision and own business". A little bit more info: Chang Cheh received Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hong Kong FIlm Awards four months before he passed, which was attended by most of his deciples, Jimmy Wang Yu, David Chiang, Cheng Pei-pei, etc., but Ti Lung was not there allegedly for the same reason he gave for missing the funeral - shooting the same TV series in Beijing. Also in the same interview, Chiang mentioned that he was not informed that his award would be presented by Ti Lung in that TVB ceremony and he was apparently not so happy about that... After the alleged fell-out, most of the times the duo appeared next to each other are in those functions relating to their master-teacher Chang Cheh. Ti was supposed to play Chen Kuan-tai's role in "Just Heroes" (1989), a film project dedicated to Chang Cheh initiated by Danny Lee, John Woo and David Chiang, but he was replaced due to "medical reasons" (the full story would be too long to tell in a comment but least to say Ti and Danny Lee both had their own story to tell). In 1992, Ti was invited by Derek Yee (David Chiang's younger brother and director) to attend a function of Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild to witness Chang Cheh receiving the Lifetime Acheivement Award of the Guild; David Chiang was also there sharing the stage (with Chang Cheh, Ti lung and John Woo) because he was one of the five founders of the Guild and a member of the Guild's Executive Committee then. It was also reported by director Daniel Lee that they both attended a media conference held by Chang Cheh in 1999... In addition, interestingly, Ti Lung have maintained a good friendship with Derek Yee who once commented he had no idea why the Ti-Chiang friendship fell out (the three brothers Paul Chun, David Chiang and Derek Yee have always been very close according to their own interviews) and Chiang worked closely and on friendly terms with Ti's son Shaun Tam in three TVB's TV series recently. So I feel while the differences in personalities and the way they treat certain things may drive them apart, they at least have maintained some level of respect towards each other throughout the years.
Thank you so much for this comment! My translation of the David Chiang statement had said: "It's hard to talk about this, because it comes from his heart. I can't express my anger towards him. Even if he thinks he should point it out, I can't even say it. I can't express my anger." Taken from this article: www.hk01.com/article/998791? Your translation sounds more authentic, maybe a little less outwardly angry, but reading between the lines… he still doesn’t sound outright indifferent to the situation. It seems pretty wild to be friends with someone’s brother and their son, but essentially have no contact with that person. I am still so infatuated with this story. You’d think these two would be doing signings at conventions side by side, or at least doing interviews together talking about their films, even if they simply had differing personalities, right? Lots of people have drastically different personalities but still work together and keep things cordial. I hope someday the two of them can do some joint interviews and maybe put the past in the past.
@@weirdcinemashow Yeah I totally agree Chiang was not indifferent to the situation. Watching the interview I think it's more like he didn't want to discuss it or disclose more details even though the interviewer pressed for more. Among Chang Cheh's disciples, Chiang is the one who prefers to keep things to himself. In the 2012 book "Wuxia Master Chang Cheh" (武侠大宗师：张彻) the author interviewed many who worked with Chang Cheh, in which Ti made quite a lot of comments on Chiang ranging from his appearance to his relationship with Chang (apparently the director was familiar with Chiang's late father), Chen Kuai Tai said not very nice things about Ti and praised Chiang, even Jimmy Wang Yu gave his own guess on the Ti-Chiang fell-out (his guess was that Chang Cheh might unfairly favor Chiang because the latter was a native Mandarin speaker and knew how to speak Shanghainese while Ti might find difficulties communicating with the Shanghainese-speaking director), but Chiang essentially made no comments on any of his stage brothers. In the same interview, Ti also made a private letter from Chang Che to himself public, in which Chang "thanked" Ti as if Ti were a stranger because Ti tried to persuade Chang to give up the film business and retire by giving the director 100,000 HKD. Ti said he was deeply saddened because the director misunderstood him. In fact, Chang Cheh was in some financial trouble in his later years because he put all his money into film productions, so Ti and Chiang cooperated at times to help the director after the alleged fell-out, but the way they worked eventually might drive them further apart. They both appeared in "Shanghai 13" (1984), in which the cast members were supposed to receive no money so that substantially all earnings of the film could go to Chang. When the cast members were asked to sign some contracts back-date (because Chang Che had legal fights with another producer in Taiwan), Ti was the only one who refused to do so because he was a man of principles. Then came "Just Heroes" (1989): while the duo seemingly talked to each other again after 1986 (in the first scene of the film, Chiang's character introduced Ti's character as "an old buddy of more than 10 years" because this scene was shot before Ti was replaced), apparently their relationship again worsened after Ti withdrew from the project. Ti said he thought the plot around his villain character made no sense so he asked John Woo the director to change the plot, but the director was too proud to listen to his suggestions, and then he somehow decided to have surgeries to fix his teeth and arms so that the director could also have few more months to think about the plot ... After that, he was surprised that he was replaced without notice. Danny Lee said Ti asked for a change so that he could play Danny's role at the last moment and the project couldn't be further delayed because all crew members basically worked for free and would have schedule conflicts... So, another Rashmon situation. Ti has seemingly retired from the entertainment business now, so I doubt the two actors would have any opportunity to cooperate on some projects again or take interviews side by side, especially considering both are described to be rather stubborn individuals. I think they do not "hate" each other per se and certainly are not enemies (Chiang mentioned that they would greet each other and say "hello", etc.); it's just their differences that made them unable to work well as a pair again.
@@joelle01990 thank you so much for the replies here! I’ve pinned this discussion thread because I think anyone interested in the video should probably read through this in order to get a further fleshed out version of all this. I almost brought up the moment from Just Heroes where Chiang says “this is my friend of 10 years!” Because it’s an interesting little moment - but the English subtitles don’t capture what I think was actually stated in the original language. I only found out about this easter egg while studying for this video, but I did NOT know about Ti Lung wanting to change the film around so much while shooting. In retrospect this makes total sense because Ti Lung gets introduced in the movie, but then outside of that dinner party I don’t recall him showing up much more throughout the rest of the movie. Also, it’s kind of crazy to hear that Chen Kuan Tai also had such comments about Ti Lung. Chen Kuan Tai, Ti Lung, and David Chiang, they appeared to be so close. When you search for pictures of Ti Lung and Chiang next to each other, probably 75% of the pictures you’ll find will have Chen Kuan Tai standing right next to them. Onscreen or offscreen. Really wish I had these posts before making the video, would have probably made this into an hour long video :P
@@weirdcinemashow Thanks! I just think it might be useful to provide those for completeness. Actually, Chen's comments are also somewhat around Chang Cheh, just quoting him here, "That said, I may have issues with Ti Lung. Back then Li Han-siang and Chang Cheh were rivals, and Ti ran off for a leading role in Li's The Empress Dowager (1975). Instead, Chiang only agreed to appear in the movie after a long talk with Chang Cheh. For us kungfu learners, this is called the virtue of kungfu (武德). Chang Cheh has made you a star - no matter what, you need to discuss it with Chang Chech first, isn't it? I think showing this kind of respect is necessary. When Chang Cheh passed, Ti Lung did not come, which affirms my personal views of him. No matter how busy you are, John Woo flew back from the United States, Wang Yu flew back from Taiwan, and I flew back from Beijing, all for accompanying our old master's last ride. What other payback he could get from us? Nothing else. But you can't even do this for him. So our inner circle had a big problem with Ti Lung." To be fair, before Chang's pass, Ti Lung was seen flying back from Beijing and visiting him in the hospital. David Chiang and Danny Lee were also seen flying back from Canada and Beijing respectively and visiting Chang Cheh in the hospital. Chiang and Lee later flew back again to Hong Kong to organize the old master's funeral and officially called Chang their "father" at the funeral.
@@joelle01990 interesting, interesting! In the notes for this video I mentioned how I had heard that Ti Lung was rumored to have visited Chang Cheh as he was sick, but the rumor I heard made it sound like Ti Lung had been actually taking care of Chang Cheh before he passed - but it sounds like it was more of a case of him (as well as all of the disciples) coming to pay respects. Incredible stuff!
Thanks for the informative and interesting video. I interviewed Chiang when he visited Bangkok in October 2014. He mentioned that he was still in touch with Ti Lung. But his face really lit up when I asked him what is was like working with the legendary Peter Cushing on The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974). He said Cushing asked him to come over to his hotel the day before shooting began and spent 4 hours going over the script with him. He said he really enjoyed working with him and learned a lot about the craft from Cushing. I also got Chiang to autograph my DVD of Vengeance, one of my all-time favourite Shaw films.
@@weirdcinemashow I also got to interview Chow Yun-fat in 2010 and directors Chen Kaige in 2005 and Peter Chan in 2007 as I covered Chinese cinema for one of the national newspapers. They were all very down to earth and made many interesting observations about cinema.
This video was incredible, very well researched! Ti Lung and David Chiang are my two favourite Shaw Brothers stars and I love their chemistry together so it always makes me sad that they fell out, for whatever reason. Thankfully, we still have all the wonderful art they created together.
Thank you so much! And for sure, we've still got the movies. Hopefully one day they'll set aside all of the small grudges. For whatever happened between them, it seems like 40 years is long enough to set those things aside. At least, I hope so!
This is too bad, because TI Lung and Divid Chin are my best stars,and I wonder why I don't see the 2 together, I pray that they both reunit because they're wonderful together, I love them both
Thank you. I’m trying my best to get more and more people to watch the video from beginning to end, lol, so a little sensationalism is probably needed. However, I do my best in studying everything I cover and I try to be as informed for the viewer as can be. Kung fu fans, in particular, will let you know if you get something wrong, lol, so I try to vet my sources and include them throughout the video as much as possible.
Ti Lung and David Chiang have appeared in two Wong Fei Hung-related movies. Ti Lung played Wong Fei Hung’s dad in Drunken Master 2, the sequel to the famed Drunken Master movie featuring Jackie Chan. As for David Chiang, he played Lu Haodong, a colleague of Sun Yat Sen who’s played by Zhang Tielin (he would be also famous for his role as the Tianlong Emperor in My Fair Princess) in Once Upon a Time in China 2 which has Jet Li portray Wong Fei Hung.
That is an awesome little factoid. Like six degrees of Wong Fei Hung :) thank you so much for watching and thank you again for the little connective piece of trivia!
They were in so many great movies together. I didn’t even want to try and count them for fear of getting the number wrong, lol. Once I think I’ve heard of all of these films, one pops up that I wasn’t familiar with.
Thank you! I’m own all of these films and I’m always looking for new info! I even went to Hong Kong and visited Alexander Fu Shengs ashes. Beautiful country.
Thank you for watching! And one of these days I hope to make a video about Alexander Fu Sheng as well, just covering his life and how beloved, and missed, he is by film fans.
He was as slick as they come! I always wonder what a spy movie starring David Chiang might have looked like, with his longer hair like he had in Vengeance. I just think he was cool enough to pull something like that.
@@weirdcinemashow Good one. I think he would've been badass in a spy movie. With the theme music too, like " chicka, chicka kai". That would've been dope, lol.
I have seen almost all of the Shaw Brothers films with David Chiang and Ti Lung. I was crazy about David Chiang but my Chinatown friends all seemed to prefer Ti Lung. David Chiang had a delicate romantic esthetic feel. I found this video very interesting although we will probably never know the whole story. Chen Kuan Tai was also in many of these films and was the most popular among the guys.
Chen Kuan Tai was definitely the MAN, and a lynchpin for all of these films. Honestly, when you dig into all of the photos shared between Chiang and Ti Lung from back then, in a very large number of them - there's Chen Kuan Tai just hanging out with the guys. Such a pivotal performer for the era.
Very, very true. I hope it comes across in the video, but when I look at this situation, I can honestly see it from either man's perspective. We are all human, and indeed, so grateful for the entertainment they provided.
I thought they were best friends, in the early seventies in 1974 when Kung Fu films hit our cinemas here in England I and my friends used to go to the cinema and watch their films, Chinese Connection was one of them among others, so it's true just because someone plays the best of friends on screen doesn't mean they got chemistry together, and there are so many stories about other actors etc.
Thank you for sharing your memories! It's fascinating how on-screen relationships can differ from real life, eh? Sure, they were friends for much of their career together, but you know at some point things were brewing - but you'd never guess it.
Thank you so much! More to come! My next video will probably be about the start of the Category III rating in Hong Kong, then after that it’ll probably be a full video on Jimmy Wang Yu!
Thank you, Fletch! Hope you enjoyed the video! Am finishing the next script now and hope to have a pretty fast turn around with the next, I’m trying to do as many 20-30 minute videos as I can so I don’t get bogged down making the 1-2 hour epics!
I'm very surprised 😮 to hear about this story 😮 i though they were best friends 😁 But both guys are great kung fu movies actor in my opinion 👊📺🎥📺🎥 Great info buddy 👍👍 You should do more stories like this story 😮👍👍thanks for the stories 👍👍
"He (Ti Lung) had been training in Wing Chun for some time before moving into acting, even being taught by a sifu who had a mixed legacy that could be traced to the legendary Yip Man." That makes little sense as Yip Man would've still been alive and even teaching at that time. Depends what "mixed legacy" means.
Thank you for watching! I used the term “mixed legacy,” which seemed like the best description of his lineage that came to my mind. According to Chapter 5 of Alexander Fu Sheng: Biography of the Chinatown Kid by Terrance J Brady. “Before Tan Furong entered the Shaw Brothers organization in 1968, he also trained in Wing Chun (Yong Chun) under Sifu Jiu Wan, a respected elder of the southern based system. Jiu Wan learned the style from his cousin, Jiu Tong, who was in the same martial arts lineage as Wing Chun Master Yip Man (Bruce Lee's teacher).” So, it would go Yip Man -> Jiu Tong -> Jiu Wan -> Ti Lung. So, rather than go into all of that and prolong the information, I figured mixed legacy was good enough. Yip Man may have been alive, but his students had students and even they had students at this point.
@weirdcinemashow - sorry to be nitpicky. That makes perfect sense. I understand why you wouldn't want to go into detail yet the connection's absolutely worth mentioning. Wouldn't mind reading that biography of Fu Sheng.
It’s tremendous! I picked it up on Amazon specifically for this video, just hoping to find some stuff about Shaw Studios during this period, but to my surprise there’s a whole chapter dedicated to David Chiang and Ti Lung which was invaluable to this video. It was great for the background information. Easily digestible writing and thoroughly researched. Some day, I’m going to do a Fu Sheng video and it’ll be hard not to just rip off the book, lol. Promise I’ll do my own research when that time comes!
Ti Lung was taught by Jiu Wan a classmate of Yip Man. I am a teacher from the Jiu Wan lineage. Jiu Wan also taught Lee Hoi Sang RIP and my master Jason Lau Wai and his younger brother Francis Fong. You can find many Francis Fong videos on this site. And his disciple Kevin Lee also has many videos out.
Pardon my noob status, but in general I am wondering how these kinds of films contrast with for example Jackie Chan films, who himself has admitted that in his early days as an actor, he was not primarily trained as a martial artist but an acrobatic dancer. Is there supposed to be a noticeable difference in how these different actors perform?
I don’t consider myself much of an expert either, but I would say, from the early wuxia days up until most of the 80s, some martial arts training was definitely encouraged - even if not a pure pre-requisite. You have guys like David Chiang who had less of a background in martial arts, but even he said he trained multiple hours per day in kung fu as it went along. In the case of Jackie Chan, he was actually trained in Peking Opera. Although not a martial arts training ground or anything, there is a kung fu component to their training. As far as I understand it. This might focus more on the “look” of performing kung fu, probably learning different styles and movements to become more believable, even if it didn’t make you a master fighter. Due to how difficult Peking Opera is often considered to be, I think having that under your belt would probably give you respect when entering the film business back in the day.
I'm not really a fan of 70s kung fu movies (I'm more into the 80s and 90s ones) but I love John Woo's 80s gangster movies. So I associate Ti Lung with A Better Tomorrow (and Jackie Chan's dad in Legend of Drunken Master)
That's how I first associated him as well. Big fan of those movies too. It wasn't until later that I started to dig deeper into the Shaw Bros. catalog and found this whole other phase of his career.
I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I do want to do a full video just on the death of Bruce Lee. Specifically, want to look at the incompetence of Betty Ting Pei and Raymond Chow in the time immediately after he was found down, but first I want to build my 3D animation skills.
Very interesting! That one was outside of my radar. Do you know, by chance, if they actually shared any screen time? Looks like it was released about a year after Chang Cheh's death. That's a very interesting period to be in the same movie together!
Steve McQueen and Bruce Lee had similar beef. Like Ti Lung said, it's a business. Directors go the way of the money. I was surprised to see Ti Lung in A Better Tomorrow. I thought his career was gone forever. Ti Lung is a one trick pony, while David Chiang is a more diverse actor.
After reading Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly, it was interesting how Bruce and McQueen had this weird competitive relationship. So much that McQueen, who was his close friend, basically refused to help him in his career because he didn’t want to help anyone become more successful than him. Can’t imagine that sort of competitive spirit when your buddy is just trying to get a leg forward.
to be honest i think david chiangs kung fu ability is underated . i would say hes is more well known casualy than ti lung .they both did east west cross overs being legend of the seven golden vampires with david chiang and peter cushing mr shatter with ti lung stuart witmoore n cushing both uk hammer and shaw collabs. actualy Whitmore hated making that film though run run shaw was spying on him and lilliy li was horrible to him ? Duel of fists was great . Grear tp see ti lung come back in the heroic bloodshed stuff . non shaw films that chiang did like the loot the challenger six directions of boxing lost kung fu secrets strife for mastery . shaoiln mantice and shaoilin handlock david chiang are hard shaw films to beat and the heroic ones ? David chiang was in more tv shows too i think like dynasty ? etc .lung was good in drunken master 2 and his cameo in tiger on the beat . thanks for a insightfull and coulourful video . Ps a good non shaw film with ti lung is the hearoes with tan tao liang n chan wai man . A must watch . peace from england .
Thank you so much for watching! In an early version of the video, I was thinking about getting into Seven Golden Vampires, because there's footage from Chiang back in the 70s in a UK documentary program called Fists of Fire. Ultimately, I trimmed it down, but that's a super interesting project and I would have loved to have learned more about that time period.
Not seen fists of fire ages great doc. the vhs must be collectable now. yes legend of the seven golden vampires is a classic. Another great shares west collab non hammer is THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER aka loh lei and lee van cleif.cool movie.
A Lot of these guys aren't as young as they use to be, With the passing of both Li Hoi Sang and Norman Chui. I hope that David Chiang and Ti Lung could put their difference to rest.
Most articles on the Chinese internet that I Google translated while looking into all of this just straight up translated it as “Dillon,” so that makes sense! Thank you so much for watching and thanks for the heads up on the pronunciation!
It puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? Would just like to hear one day that they’re able to end up as being friends and are able to reminisce together about what all they’ve achieved.
You know, that's a very good question. It started me thinking, so I started doing some looking. It appears his artist was Jimmy Ho, apparently a well known tattoo artist in Hong Kong: instagram.com/p/5cKQ0DJZSp/ If that link works, it shows Ti Lung in Jimmy's establishment after getting a tattoo alongside his friends. Going by his hair and look, I'd say late 1970s to early 1980s. And looking more, interesting enough, I saw that he did a body print (though not a real tattoo, just something temporary) for Simon Yam in the Billy Tang film Street Angels: instagram.com/p/BxEd4GrFU5b/ Also, this is a pretty neat little article that I haven't finished reading just yet about the subject: www.watt-studio.com/journal/not-just-for-triads-hong-kongs-unique-style-of-tattoos It talks about the societal change in Hong Kong related to how people view(ed) tattoos. Similar to Japan, there's a stigma about them being related to organized crime. Thanks for the excellent question, this was a hoot to dig into!
THE LAST MOVIE I REMEMBER SEEING THEM IN IS SHANGHAI THIRTEEN AKA 13 RASCALS AN ALL STAR CAST BUT BOTH OF THEM DIDNT MEET IN THIS MOVIE DAVID FOUGHT REAL GOOD BUT WAS KILLED NEAR THE END DEFENDING A MAN WHO HAD A SECRET DOCUMENT NOW I TOL SOME PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK WITH IGNORANT COMMENTS ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT HAPPEN ON CAMERAS TO WATCH CERTAIN MOVIES AND OTHER THINGS BACK TO THIS MOVIE TI LUNG SURVIVED GREAT MOVIE PUNCH IT UP ON HERE JACKIE CHAN AND SAMMO HUNG ALONG WITH YEON BIA WERE ALSO APART OF SHAW BROTHERS MOVIES AND A FEW VENOM MOB MEMBERS APPEARED IN HIS MOVIES JACKIE AND ALEXANDER FU SHENG RIP 1983 WERE COMIC RIVALS BUT FRIENDLY JACKIE SENT FLOWERS TO ALEXANDERS WIFE AND PRAISED HIM AND THE LAST VENOM CHIANG SHENG RIP 1991 HE WOULD MOCK THE NUMBER 1 VENOM MOB LU FENG BUT THE VENOM MOB WOULD SEND PRANKS TO HIM LIKE HITTING HIM WITH CAKE IN HIS FACE ALL IN FUN NOTHING SERIUOS ALSO DAVID CHIANG WOULD CHASE JACKIE ALONG WITH TI LUNG PLAY FIGHTING IN THE EARLY DAYS
Shanghai Thirteen is definitely a wild movie! I have still only seen a really beat up VHS print of the movie, but look forward to seeing a pristine version of the movie eventually. Especially with everything getting re-released these days!
Reminds me of the saying, "He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more." I'm not sure how much money went into the breaking down of this friendship, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was something to that. And I KNOW their wives definitely played a role in things... but hey, that's life. Hard not to take these things personal, but it just sucks because they seemed to be such close friends.
It’s one of those situations where I think both sides seem to have some legitimate grievances, but after all the time, I wish they could just set them aside.
Hey, thank you for the pronunciation! As a Southern American, I’m still not sure if I speak the English language correctly at this point, but I do my best! :) Will keep this in the back of my head the next time I see anything that ends with “zhou,” will at least google to find out if my pronunciation is way off base or not.
Shaw Brothers teaches martial arts? More like choreography. Rumor is that David Chiang was not a martial artist, hence his subdued (camouflaged) martial arts movie performances.
Well, it was called the ACTING Training Class. I don't think he was legitimately cross-training like an MMA fighter or anything, and I certainly didn't intend to allude to that. To quote Terrence J. Brady's book: "At Shaw's in-house Nanguo Acting Training Class, the new actor was introduced to Karate, Thai Boxing, Taekwondo, Judo, and Mantis Style Kung Fu." Pg. 38 To me that means, more than likely, they learned the basics of various martial arts in order to better represent them for the screen. I would imagine they were likely taught these things by fellow Kung Fu martial artists and not imported experts or anything like that. I don't think Ti Lung was learning all of the katas of Karate or preparing for muay thai kickboxing matches. Whether or not David Chiang practiced martial arts... I can not say. In Fists of Fire (1974/1975), he was quoted as saying: "When I was young, I lost lots of street fights. By that time, I always lose. That's why I tried to learn some Chinese martial arts. That's when I found my teacher, Mr. Liu. By now, it's been twelve years of it." And the documentary claimed that he trained for two hours every day in Kung Fu. Knowing Chiang's relaxed attitude, it would be a bit of a surprise to hear about that sort of dedication. He also says it had been twelve years since his training began, but he may have misspoke or something (the interview was in English), but I do not think he had any connections to Liu Chia-liang in or around 1962/1963. It could be that he had a teacher beforehand, but considering he much later told the Bangkok Post: "I was not that good, neither a senior nor a junior. I don't train now - I'm getting old. But I practice every day for exercise." I'd say that Kung Fu was never Chiang's be-all-end-all. Still love him!
From what I've seen, it certainly seems like that might have been the case back in the 70s. There may have been more to it, but there's definitely a component of jealousy from what we've seen. I do wonder what his feelings are like now.
Not attending Chang Cheh’s funeral because David would be there sounds like an insult, and disrespect, that Chiang may never fully forgive. Hopefully time will heal the wounds because I don’t think either has all that much time left.
He was jealous of David back them because David was the Asian teen idol back then, and director's took to him a lot more, but he wanted Ti to with him due to their friendship!
Dave Chiang had absolutely no "Tough guy" personna, He had the face of a goofy and while as a good "athletic" actor in KF cinema, He had no actual skill in the art and the Shaw's knew that he wouldn't be successful as an independent as there were stiff competition among those who literally had "Household names" in leading role play and nobody else would sign him even as a supportive so they exploited him
I take it you’re not a fan of his? I think he had excellent charisma and despite his size and lack of martial arts fluidity, he managed to sell me on any role he took. In terms of pure athletic ability, yeah, he’s definitely not at the top of that list. There’s a documentary on UA-cam here called Fists of Fire, I believe, and in it Chiang is interviewed and he talks about training in kung fu daily… but I wonder how much he threw himself into martial arts, considering how most say he was so laid back during the 60s and 70s and didn’t seem committed to heavy work. Still, a legend for sure and always worth watching.
Someone else gave me a criticism about one select scene in particular, not sure if you and he have the same issue or not. Their criticism was certainly worded differently. When you talk about this VHS tracking effect, which one do you mean in particular? I use many effects throughout. During the intro right before Ti Lung I use a certain type that turns into a distorted-signal-looking thing at like 00:21, then I use a different kind at around 02:31 when I’m quoting Ti Lung. Dislike one vs the other or all of them in general?
@@weirdcinemashow Yeah. That second one was the one. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember VHS and how irritating tracking problems were. So maybe I'm the only one who finds it annoying and distracting. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed the content. 👌
Ahh, that was the same one my friend had issue with as well. I can see how it might come across as over-produced. When making these videos, I typically don’t like the look of a purely unedited piece of stock footage, so I typically try to dress it up a little bit to match the style of the other parts of the video - but maybe I’ll try to do something a little less flashy. Thanks for watching and thanks for the comments!
okay.... this has been kinda slippin' in and outta my mind, whenever I see Chang Cheh in videos and photos....and the facts that he tend to favor MEN over women in MOST of his movies...he liked his men in warrior-shaped physique to be half naked in most of the time throughout his movies....and judging by how things worked in SB.... is there ANY possibility that....Chang Cheh might've just GROOMED Ti Lung to be HIS leading man super star...and that there might've been something MORE than just working relationship behind the scene that we don't know about between the two men...maybe even without the acknowledgment of David and the rest of the SB cast & crew...?? could it be that Ti Lung finally just had it with Chang's advances or even "forced" romantic relationship he had to have with him...?? cos, I just heard, in another documentary about Lau Kar Leung, that Chang Cheh WAS known to be gay (which looks pretty obvious to me)..even tho he had a (female) wife. and let's not kid each other....even as a straight guy, I can admit, Ti Lung, in his prime, WAS ONE ATTRACTIVE GUY. i think there's something to this...to have caused such a long and heartbreaking strain between the star and "mentor"...and David was somehow oblivious to it all....even to this day. 🤷♂️
Sorry for being late to reply! In this situation, its hard to accuse Chang Cheh of anything since he's not around to defend himself. I think back to a post I read on Kung Fu Fandom that was made in the mid 2000s. In it, the poster supposedly relayed something he had heard: that Chang Cheh was interviewed by Stanley Kwong for his documentary Yang + Yin, which was about homosexuality in Chinese cinema. SUPPOSEDLY, and this is just something pulled from an internet rumor, that Cheh went through with the interview upon thinking it was just an overview of his filmography, but when he kept getting asked about the homoerotic themes in his films, he realized what it was about and got angry. He supposedly kicked them out of his house and said that these rumors had hurt his career in the latter days of his filmmaking journey. He and his wife were supposedly hurt by the rumors. Mind you, I don't know if that rumor has any merit. It does seem like he was a straight man and if he were gay it wouldn't change anything about his amazing career. I just imagine he took the "machismo" thing to its obvious conclusion: that big strong guys demonstrate the macho vibes I'm trying to present more than anything else.
@@weirdcinemashow well, I just wonder if you have more insight into that....but, I agree, as long as it remains as a bunch of rumors, anybody should only care about HIS works. heck! most of his Venom mob movies made quite a good chunk of my childhood, so....I'd be quite deva ✌
Wow, you must have done a lot of research for this and I presume you don't know Chinese... Just a minor correction: in the recent interview you mentioned at the end, when asked about if he was still angry over Ti Lung's absence in Cheung Cheh's funeral, Chiang actually said "I am in no position to talk about this - attending the funeral or not, it was Ti's own decision and own business". A little bit more info: Chang Cheh received Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hong Kong FIlm Awards four months before he passed, which was attended by most of his deciples, Jimmy Wang Yu, David Chiang, Cheng Pei-pei, etc., but Ti Lung was not there allegedly for the same reason he gave for missing the funeral - shooting the same TV series in Beijing. Also in the same interview, Chiang mentioned that he was not informed that his award would be presented by Ti Lung in that TVB ceremony and he was apparently not so happy about that...
After the alleged fell-out, most of the times the duo appeared next to each other are in those functions relating to their master-teacher Chang Cheh. Ti was supposed to play Chen Kuan-tai's role in "Just Heroes" (1989), a film project dedicated to Chang Cheh initiated by Danny Lee, John Woo and David Chiang, but he was replaced due to "medical reasons" (the full story would be too long to tell in a comment but least to say Ti and Danny Lee both had their own story to tell). In 1992, Ti was invited by Derek Yee (David Chiang's younger brother and director) to attend a function of Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild to witness Chang Cheh receiving the Lifetime Acheivement Award of the Guild; David Chiang was also there sharing the stage (with Chang Cheh, Ti lung and John Woo) because he was one of the five founders of the Guild and a member of the Guild's Executive Committee then. It was also reported by director Daniel Lee that they both attended a media conference held by Chang Cheh in 1999...
In addition, interestingly, Ti Lung have maintained a good friendship with Derek Yee who once commented he had no idea why the Ti-Chiang friendship fell out (the three brothers Paul Chun, David Chiang and Derek Yee have always been very close according to their own interviews) and Chiang worked closely and on friendly terms with Ti's son Shaun Tam in three TVB's TV series recently. So I feel while the differences in personalities and the way they treat certain things may drive them apart, they at least have maintained some level of respect towards each other throughout the years.
Thank you so much for this comment! My translation of the David Chiang statement had said:
"It's hard to talk about this, because it comes from his heart. I can't express my anger towards him. Even if he thinks he should point it out, I can't even say it. I can't express my anger."
Taken from this article:
www.hk01.com/article/998791?
Your translation sounds more authentic, maybe a little less outwardly angry, but reading between the lines… he still doesn’t sound outright indifferent to the situation.
It seems pretty wild to be friends with someone’s brother and their son, but essentially have no contact with that person. I am still so infatuated with this story. You’d think these two would be doing signings at conventions side by side, or at least doing interviews together talking about their films, even if they simply had differing personalities, right? Lots of people have drastically different personalities but still work together and keep things cordial. I hope someday the two of them can do some joint interviews and maybe put the past in the past.
@@weirdcinemashow Yeah I totally agree Chiang was not indifferent to the situation. Watching the interview I think it's more like he didn't want to discuss it or disclose more details even though the interviewer pressed for more. Among Chang Cheh's disciples, Chiang is the one who prefers to keep things to himself. In the 2012 book "Wuxia Master Chang Cheh" (武侠大宗师：张彻) the author interviewed many who worked with Chang Cheh, in which Ti made quite a lot of comments on Chiang ranging from his appearance to his relationship with Chang (apparently the director was familiar with Chiang's late father), Chen Kuai Tai said not very nice things about Ti and praised Chiang, even Jimmy Wang Yu gave his own guess on the Ti-Chiang fell-out (his guess was that Chang Cheh might unfairly favor Chiang because the latter was a native Mandarin speaker and knew how to speak Shanghainese while Ti might find difficulties communicating with the Shanghainese-speaking director), but Chiang essentially made no comments on any of his stage brothers. In the same interview, Ti also made a private letter from Chang Che to himself public, in which Chang "thanked" Ti as if Ti were a stranger because Ti tried to persuade Chang to give up the film business and retire by giving the director 100,000 HKD. Ti said he was deeply saddened because the director misunderstood him.
In fact, Chang Cheh was in some financial trouble in his later years because he put all his money into film productions, so Ti and Chiang cooperated at times to help the director after the alleged fell-out, but the way they worked eventually might drive them further apart. They both appeared in "Shanghai 13" (1984), in which the cast members were supposed to receive no money so that substantially all earnings of the film could go to Chang. When the cast members were asked to sign some contracts back-date (because Chang Che had legal fights with another producer in Taiwan), Ti was the only one who refused to do so because he was a man of principles. Then came "Just Heroes" (1989): while the duo seemingly talked to each other again after 1986 (in the first scene of the film, Chiang's character introduced Ti's character as "an old buddy of more than 10 years" because this scene was shot before Ti was replaced), apparently their relationship again worsened after Ti withdrew from the project. Ti said he thought the plot around his villain character made no sense so he asked John Woo the director to change the plot, but the director was too proud to listen to his suggestions, and then he somehow decided to have surgeries to fix his teeth and arms so that the director could also have few more months to think about the plot ... After that, he was surprised that he was replaced without notice. Danny Lee said Ti asked for a change so that he could play Danny's role at the last moment and the project couldn't be further delayed because all crew members basically worked for free and would have schedule conflicts... So, another Rashmon situation.
Ti has seemingly retired from the entertainment business now, so I doubt the two actors would have any opportunity to cooperate on some projects again or take interviews side by side, especially considering both are described to be rather stubborn individuals. I think they do not "hate" each other per se and certainly are not enemies (Chiang mentioned that they would greet each other and say "hello", etc.); it's just their differences that made them unable to work well as a pair again.
@@joelle01990 thank you so much for the replies here! I’ve pinned this discussion thread because I think anyone interested in the video should probably read through this in order to get a further fleshed out version of all this.
I almost brought up the moment from Just Heroes where Chiang says “this is my friend of 10 years!” Because it’s an interesting little moment - but the English subtitles don’t capture what I think was actually stated in the original language. I only found out about this easter egg while studying for this video, but I did NOT know about Ti Lung wanting to change the film around so much while shooting. In retrospect this makes total sense because Ti Lung gets introduced in the movie, but then outside of that dinner party I don’t recall him showing up much more throughout the rest of the movie.
Also, it’s kind of crazy to hear that Chen Kuan Tai also had such comments about Ti Lung. Chen Kuan Tai, Ti Lung, and David Chiang, they appeared to be so close. When you search for pictures of Ti Lung and Chiang next to each other, probably 75% of the pictures you’ll find will have Chen Kuan Tai standing right next to them. Onscreen or offscreen.
Really wish I had these posts before making the video, would have probably made this into an hour long video :P
@@weirdcinemashow Thanks! I just think it might be useful to provide those for completeness. Actually, Chen's comments are also somewhat around Chang Cheh, just quoting him here, "That said, I may have issues with Ti Lung. Back then Li Han-siang and Chang Cheh were rivals, and Ti ran off for a leading role in Li's The Empress Dowager (1975). Instead, Chiang only agreed to appear in the movie after a long talk with Chang Cheh. For us kungfu learners, this is called the virtue of kungfu (武德). Chang Cheh has made you a star - no matter what, you need to discuss it with Chang Chech first, isn't it? I think showing this kind of respect is necessary. When Chang Cheh passed, Ti Lung did not come, which affirms my personal views of him. No matter how busy you are, John Woo flew back from the United States, Wang Yu flew back from Taiwan, and I flew back from Beijing, all for accompanying our old master's last ride. What other payback he could get from us? Nothing else. But you can't even do this for him. So our inner circle had a big problem with Ti Lung." To be fair, before Chang's pass, Ti Lung was seen flying back from Beijing and visiting him in the hospital. David Chiang and Danny Lee were also seen flying back from Canada and Beijing respectively and visiting Chang Cheh in the hospital. Chiang and Lee later flew back again to Hong Kong to organize the old master's funeral and officially called Chang their "father" at the funeral.
@@joelle01990 interesting, interesting! In the notes for this video I mentioned how I had heard that Ti Lung was rumored to have visited Chang Cheh as he was sick, but the rumor I heard made it sound like Ti Lung had been actually taking care of Chang Cheh before he passed - but it sounds like it was more of a case of him (as well as all of the disciples) coming to pay respects. Incredible stuff!
Thanks for the informative and interesting video. I interviewed Chiang when he visited Bangkok in October 2014. He mentioned that he was still in touch with Ti Lung. But his face really lit up when I asked him what is was like working with the legendary Peter Cushing on The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974). He said Cushing asked him to come over to his hotel the day before shooting began and spent 4 hours going over the script with him. He said he really enjoyed working with him and learned a lot about the craft from Cushing. I also got Chiang to autograph my DVD of Vengeance, one of my all-time favourite Shaw films.
That sounds like an absolutely amazing experience! Very jealous!
@@weirdcinemashow I also got to interview Chow Yun-fat in 2010 and directors Chen Kaige in 2005 and Peter Chan in 2007 as I covered Chinese cinema for one of the national newspapers. They were all very down to earth and made many interesting observations about cinema.
This video was incredible, very well researched! Ti Lung and David Chiang are my two favourite Shaw Brothers stars and I love their chemistry together so it always makes me sad that they fell out, for whatever reason. Thankfully, we still have all the wonderful art they created together.
Thank you so much! And for sure, we've still got the movies. Hopefully one day they'll set aside all of the small grudges. For whatever happened between them, it seems like 40 years is long enough to set those things aside. At least, I hope so!
This is too bad, because TI Lung and Divid Chin are my best stars,and I wonder why I don't see the 2 together, I pray that they both reunit because they're wonderful together, I love them both
I like how your narration is both sensational and analytical at the same time.
Thank you. I’m trying my best to get more and more people to watch the video from beginning to end, lol, so a little sensationalism is probably needed. However, I do my best in studying everything I cover and I try to be as informed for the viewer as can be. Kung fu fans, in particular, will let you know if you get something wrong, lol, so I try to vet my sources and include them throughout the video as much as possible.
Interesting vid, great job. Two HK legends!
Wow! Interesting video.
I am a fan of both David Chiang and Ti Lung. Both legends
Ti Lung and David Chiang have appeared in two Wong Fei Hung-related movies.
Ti Lung played Wong Fei Hung’s dad in Drunken Master 2, the sequel to the famed Drunken Master movie featuring Jackie Chan. As for David Chiang, he played Lu Haodong, a colleague of Sun Yat Sen who’s played by Zhang Tielin (he would be also famous for his role as the Tianlong Emperor in My Fair Princess) in Once Upon a Time in China 2 which has Jet Li portray Wong Fei Hung.
That is an awesome little factoid. Like six degrees of Wong Fei Hung :) thank you so much for watching and thank you again for the little connective piece of trivia!
I would NEVER Guessed those 2 Legends had a beef with each other. Alway demotrated great chemistry . They played in about 20 to 30 📽
They were in so many great movies together. I didn’t even want to try and count them for fear of getting the number wrong, lol. Once I think I’ve heard of all of these films, one pops up that I wasn’t familiar with.
So well elaborated. Great video!
Your editing is absolutely insane man. Some of the best I've ever seen in a video essay. What do you use to edit?
Thank you! I’m own all of these films and I’m always looking for new info! I even went to Hong Kong and visited Alexander Fu Shengs ashes. Beautiful country.
Thank you for watching! And one of these days I hope to make a video about Alexander Fu Sheng as well, just covering his life and how beloved, and missed, he is by film fans.
David Chiang worked with Ti Lung's son Shawn Tam in a TVB drama called Big Biz Duel
Nice - had no idea on all the behind the scenes drama! Everyone should be jealous of Ti Lung tho who was a superstar
David Chiang put the coolness in those Shaw Bros movies. Triple Irons Ruled !!!
He was as slick as they come! I always wonder what a spy movie starring David Chiang might have looked like, with his longer hair like he had in Vengeance. I just think he was cool enough to pull something like that.
@@weirdcinemashow Good one. I think he would've been badass in a spy movie. With the theme music too, like " chicka, chicka kai". That would've been dope, lol.
Shaw Brother was an excellent company all of their pictures are classic or classic of classic.
Preach! A lot of gold in those hills!
Jordan and Pippen. Ti Lung and David Chiang. Thx for the video!
And thank you for watching! And indeed, two of the best!
David was the Jordan son!
I have seen almost all of the Shaw Brothers films with David Chiang and Ti Lung. I was crazy about David Chiang but my Chinatown friends all seemed to prefer Ti Lung. David Chiang had a delicate romantic esthetic feel. I found this video very interesting although we will probably never know the whole story. Chen Kuan Tai was also in many of these films and was the most popular among the guys.
Chen Kuan Tai was definitely the MAN, and a lynchpin for all of these films. Honestly, when you dig into all of the photos shared between Chiang and Ti Lung from back then, in a very large number of them - there's Chen Kuan Tai just hanging out with the guys. Such a pivotal performer for the era.
Fantastic Job!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Damn good job of investigating. I didn't know the 3 had issues with each other
Both actors were not infallible, like all humans. However, they gave us great entertainment. We remain grateful to their art.
Very, very true. I hope it comes across in the video, but when I look at this situation, I can honestly see it from either man's perspective. We are all human, and indeed, so grateful for the entertainment they provided.
Wow, I had no idea they fell out; I just figured they were always friends.
The researching was great.
Fantastic Job.
Thank you so much! And thank you for watching!
I thought they were best friends, in the early seventies in 1974 when Kung Fu films hit our cinemas here in England I and my friends used to go to the cinema and watch their films, Chinese Connection was one of them among others, so it's true just because someone plays the best of friends on screen doesn't mean they got chemistry together, and there are so many stories about other actors etc.
Thank you for sharing your memories! It's fascinating how on-screen relationships can differ from real life, eh? Sure, they were friends for much of their career together, but you know at some point things were brewing - but you'd never guess it.
After all, we live in a fallen world!
Awesome vid. New fan! 🎉
Thank you so much! More to come! My next video will probably be about the start of the Category III rating in Hong Kong, then after that it’ll probably be a full video on Jimmy Wang Yu!
@@weirdcinemashow awesome bro. Notifications are on and I've shared widely. Well done 👍
Dude. You rule. I'm leaving it at that.
Helio Gracie cameo is tight!
Thank you, Fletch! Hope you enjoyed the video! Am finishing the next script now and hope to have a pretty fast turn around with the next, I’m trying to do as many 20-30 minute videos as I can so I don’t get bogged down making the 1-2 hour epics!
@@weirdcinemashow I'm in your corner as to whatever you choose to do, bud. This channel is awesome.
Thanks man, you’ve been supporting the channel for a while now and it is always appreciated! Thank you!
Ótimo vídeo!!! Parabéns pela narração! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Obrigado!
I'm very surprised 😮 to hear about this story 😮 i though they were best friends 😁 But both guys are great kung fu movies actor in my opinion 👊📺🎥📺🎥 Great info buddy 👍👍 You should do more stories like this story 😮👍👍thanks for the stories 👍👍
Thank you! And yes, I hope to make more videos that focus on the STORIES behind the scenes. Its harder to dig up, but it is so fascinating!
This story is old as dirt! Anybody who ever grew up in the 70's and early 80's watching Shaw Brothers, and RUN RUN Shaw always knew!!!!
"He (Ti Lung) had been training in Wing Chun for some time before moving into acting, even being taught by a sifu who had a mixed legacy that could be traced to the legendary Yip Man."
That makes little sense as Yip Man would've still been alive and even teaching at that time. Depends what "mixed legacy" means.
Thank you for watching! I used the term “mixed legacy,” which seemed like the best description of his lineage that came to my mind. According to Chapter 5 of Alexander Fu Sheng: Biography of the Chinatown Kid by Terrance J Brady.
“Before Tan Furong entered the Shaw Brothers organization in 1968, he also trained in Wing Chun (Yong Chun) under Sifu Jiu Wan, a respected elder of the southern based system. Jiu Wan learned the style from his cousin, Jiu Tong, who was in the same martial arts lineage as Wing Chun Master Yip Man (Bruce Lee's teacher).”
So, it would go Yip Man -> Jiu Tong -> Jiu Wan -> Ti Lung. So, rather than go into all of that and prolong the information, I figured mixed legacy was good enough. Yip Man may have been alive, but his students had students and even they had students at this point.
@weirdcinemashow - sorry to be nitpicky. That makes perfect sense. I understand why you wouldn't want to go into detail yet the connection's absolutely worth mentioning. Wouldn't mind reading that biography of Fu Sheng.
It’s tremendous! I picked it up on Amazon specifically for this video, just hoping to find some stuff about Shaw Studios during this period, but to my surprise there’s a whole chapter dedicated to David Chiang and Ti Lung which was invaluable to this video. It was great for the background information. Easily digestible writing and thoroughly researched.
Some day, I’m going to do a Fu Sheng video and it’ll be hard not to just rip off the book, lol. Promise I’ll do my own research when that time comes!
Ti Lung was taught by Jiu Wan a classmate of Yip Man. I am a teacher from the Jiu Wan lineage. Jiu Wan also taught Lee Hoi Sang RIP and my master Jason Lau Wai and his younger brother Francis Fong. You can find many Francis Fong videos on this site. And his disciple Kevin Lee also has many videos out.
Pardon my noob status, but in general I am wondering how these kinds of films contrast with for example Jackie Chan films, who himself has admitted that in his early days as an actor, he was not primarily trained as a martial artist but an acrobatic dancer. Is there supposed to be a noticeable difference in how these different actors perform?
I don’t consider myself much of an expert either, but I would say, from the early wuxia days up until most of the 80s, some martial arts training was definitely encouraged - even if not a pure pre-requisite. You have guys like David Chiang who had less of a background in martial arts, but even he said he trained multiple hours per day in kung fu as it went along. In the case of Jackie Chan, he was actually trained in Peking Opera. Although not a martial arts training ground or anything, there is a kung fu component to their training. As far as I understand it. This might focus more on the “look” of performing kung fu, probably learning different styles and movements to become more believable, even if it didn’t make you a master fighter. Due to how difficult Peking Opera is often considered to be, I think having that under your belt would probably give you respect when entering the film business back in the day.
I'm not really a fan of 70s kung fu movies (I'm more into the 80s and 90s ones) but I love John Woo's 80s gangster movies. So I associate Ti Lung with A Better Tomorrow (and Jackie Chan's dad in Legend of Drunken Master)
That's how I first associated him as well. Big fan of those movies too. It wasn't until later that I started to dig deeper into the Shaw Bros. catalog and found this whole other phase of his career.
Yeah ........
Like Example
Bruce Lee.vs.Bruce Li 💬
Betty Ting and Raymond dog Chow. And shaw brothers issues.
I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I do want to do a full video just on the death of Bruce Lee. Specifically, want to look at the incompetence of Betty Ting Pei and Raymond Chow in the time immediately after he was found down, but first I want to build my 3D animation skills.
Fun fact: they both were featured in a martial arts movie together called Star Runner.
Very interesting! That one was outside of my radar. Do you know, by chance, if they actually shared any screen time? Looks like it was released about a year after Chang Cheh's death. That's a very interesting period to be in the same movie together!
They were together in far more then just that alone son!
@weirdcinemashow Strangely enough no they didn't share screen time together.
@@JudahAwakening this was after their young Kung fu duo days
Steve McQueen and Bruce Lee had similar beef. Like Ti Lung said, it's a business. Directors go the way of the money. I was surprised to see Ti Lung in A Better Tomorrow. I thought his career was gone forever. Ti Lung is a one trick pony, while David Chiang is a more diverse actor.
After reading Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly, it was interesting how Bruce and McQueen had this weird competitive relationship. So much that McQueen, who was his close friend, basically refused to help him in his career because he didn’t want to help anyone become more successful than him. Can’t imagine that sort of competitive spirit when your buddy is just trying to get a leg forward.
So sad. They're great working together.
Absolutely. They had so much chemistry onscreen, one of the best duos in action history. Here’s hoping they patch things up at some point.
Do a video about sammo hung and fung hark on relationship
Interesting, I don’t know much about their relationship. Is there anything in particular I should look into?
@@weirdcinemashow I heard how they used to be close friends then they had a fallout decades ago never reconciled
Very interesting! I had not heard of this! Going to dig into it and see what I can find!
to be honest i think david chiangs kung fu ability is underated . i would say hes is more well known casualy than ti lung .they both did east west cross overs being legend of the seven golden vampires with david chiang and peter cushing mr shatter with ti lung stuart witmoore n cushing both uk hammer and shaw collabs. actualy Whitmore hated making that film though run run shaw was spying on him and lilliy li was horrible to him ? Duel of fists was great . Grear tp see ti lung come back in the heroic bloodshed stuff . non shaw films that chiang did like the loot the challenger six directions of boxing lost kung fu secrets strife for mastery . shaoiln mantice and shaoilin handlock david chiang are hard shaw films to beat and the heroic ones ? David chiang was in more tv shows too i think like dynasty ? etc .lung was good in drunken master 2 and his cameo in tiger on the beat . thanks for a insightfull and coulourful video . Ps a good non shaw film with ti lung is the hearoes with tan tao liang n chan wai man . A must watch . peace from england .
Thank you so much for watching! In an early version of the video, I was thinking about getting into Seven Golden Vampires, because there's footage from Chiang back in the 70s in a UK documentary program called Fists of Fire. Ultimately, I trimmed it down, but that's a super interesting project and I would have loved to have learned more about that time period.
Not seen fists of fire ages great doc. the vhs must be collectable now. yes legend of the seven golden vampires is a classic. Another great shares west collab non hammer is THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER aka loh lei and lee van cleif.cool movie.
Ti Lung is actually pronounced Di Long in Mandarin, Dik Long in Cantonese. Only English speakers say Ti /Tee.
A Lot of these guys aren't as young as they use to be, With the passing of both Li Hoi Sang and Norman Chui. I hope that David Chiang and Ti Lung could put their difference to rest.
Most articles on the Chinese internet that I Google translated while looking into all of this just straight up translated it as “Dillon,” so that makes sense! Thank you so much for watching and thanks for the heads up on the pronunciation!
It puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? Would just like to hear one day that they’re able to end up as being friends and are able to reminisce together about what all they’ve achieved.
Where did Ti Lung's tattoos come from? At the time, that just wasn't acceptable in mainstream society...
You know, that's a very good question. It started me thinking, so I started doing some looking. It appears his artist was Jimmy Ho, apparently a well known tattoo artist in Hong Kong: instagram.com/p/5cKQ0DJZSp/ If that link works, it shows Ti Lung in Jimmy's establishment after getting a tattoo alongside his friends. Going by his hair and look, I'd say late 1970s to early 1980s. And looking more, interesting enough, I saw that he did a body print (though not a real tattoo, just something temporary) for Simon Yam in the Billy Tang film Street Angels: instagram.com/p/BxEd4GrFU5b/
Also, this is a pretty neat little article that I haven't finished reading just yet about the subject: www.watt-studio.com/journal/not-just-for-triads-hong-kongs-unique-style-of-tattoos It talks about the societal change in Hong Kong related to how people view(ed) tattoos. Similar to Japan, there's a stigma about them being related to organized crime.
Thanks for the excellent question, this was a hoot to dig into!
Hell fekkin' yeah!!!
Hope you dig this one! It’s a slight departure in style for me, but it was an interesting and little-explored topic so I thought I’d give it a shot!
THE LAST MOVIE I REMEMBER SEEING THEM IN IS SHANGHAI THIRTEEN AKA 13 RASCALS AN ALL STAR CAST BUT BOTH OF THEM DIDNT MEET IN THIS MOVIE DAVID FOUGHT REAL GOOD BUT WAS KILLED NEAR THE END DEFENDING A MAN WHO HAD A SECRET DOCUMENT NOW I TOL SOME PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK WITH IGNORANT COMMENTS ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT HAPPEN ON CAMERAS TO WATCH CERTAIN MOVIES AND OTHER THINGS BACK TO THIS MOVIE TI LUNG SURVIVED GREAT MOVIE PUNCH IT UP ON HERE JACKIE CHAN AND SAMMO HUNG ALONG WITH YEON BIA WERE ALSO APART OF SHAW BROTHERS MOVIES AND A FEW VENOM MOB MEMBERS APPEARED IN HIS MOVIES JACKIE AND ALEXANDER FU SHENG RIP 1983 WERE COMIC RIVALS BUT FRIENDLY JACKIE SENT FLOWERS TO ALEXANDERS WIFE AND PRAISED HIM AND THE LAST VENOM CHIANG SHENG RIP 1991 HE WOULD MOCK THE NUMBER 1 VENOM MOB LU FENG BUT THE VENOM MOB WOULD SEND PRANKS TO HIM LIKE HITTING HIM WITH CAKE IN HIS FACE ALL IN FUN NOTHING SERIUOS ALSO DAVID CHIANG WOULD CHASE JACKIE ALONG WITH TI LUNG PLAY FIGHTING IN THE EARLY DAYS
Shanghai Thirteen is definitely a wild movie! I have still only seen a really beat up VHS print of the movie, but look forward to seeing a pristine version of the movie eventually. Especially with everything getting re-released these days!
If I had a dollar for every friendship that has been broken by either money or a woman...................
Just saying
💰💰💰💰💰💰
Reminds me of the saying, "He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more." I'm not sure how much money went into the breaking down of this friendship, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was something to that. And I KNOW their wives definitely played a role in things... but hey, that's life. Hard not to take these things personal, but it just sucks because they seemed to be such close friends.
More david has an issue with ti lung
It’s one of those situations where I think both sides seem to have some legitimate grievances, but after all the time, I wish they could just set them aside.
Guangzhou is pronounced Guang "Joe"
Hey, thank you for the pronunciation! As a Southern American, I’m still not sure if I speak the English language correctly at this point, but I do my best! :) Will keep this in the back of my head the next time I see anything that ends with “zhou,” will at least google to find out if my pronunciation is way off base or not.
Shaw Brothers teaches martial arts? More like choreography. Rumor is that David Chiang was not a martial artist, hence his subdued (camouflaged) martial arts movie performances.
Well, it was called the ACTING Training Class. I don't think he was legitimately cross-training like an MMA fighter or anything, and I certainly didn't intend to allude to that. To quote Terrence J. Brady's book:
"At Shaw's in-house Nanguo Acting Training Class, the new actor was introduced to Karate, Thai Boxing, Taekwondo, Judo, and Mantis Style Kung Fu." Pg. 38
To me that means, more than likely, they learned the basics of various martial arts in order to better represent them for the screen. I would imagine they were likely taught these things by fellow Kung Fu martial artists and not imported experts or anything like that. I don't think Ti Lung was learning all of the katas of Karate or preparing for muay thai kickboxing matches.
Whether or not David Chiang practiced martial arts... I can not say. In Fists of Fire (1974/1975), he was quoted as saying:
"When I was young, I lost lots of street fights. By that time, I always lose. That's why I tried to learn some Chinese martial arts. That's when I found my teacher, Mr. Liu. By now, it's been twelve years of it."
And the documentary claimed that he trained for two hours every day in Kung Fu. Knowing Chiang's relaxed attitude, it would be a bit of a surprise to hear about that sort of dedication. He also says it had been twelve years since his training began, but he may have misspoke or something (the interview was in English), but I do not think he had any connections to Liu Chia-liang in or around 1962/1963. It could be that he had a teacher beforehand, but considering he much later told the Bangkok Post:
"I was not that good, neither a senior nor a junior. I don't train now - I'm getting old. But I practice every day for exercise."
I'd say that Kung Fu was never Chiang's be-all-end-all. Still love him!
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Familiarity breeds Contempt.
Lung comes across as very insecure and the one who is easily slighted. Jealous.
From what I've seen, it certainly seems like that might have been the case back in the 70s. There may have been more to it, but there's definitely a component of jealousy from what we've seen. I do wonder what his feelings are like now.
Not attending Chang Cheh’s funeral because David would be there sounds like an insult, and disrespect, that Chiang may never fully forgive. Hopefully time will heal the wounds because I don’t think either has all that much time left.
He was jealous of David back them because David was the Asian teen idol back then, and director's took to him a lot more, but he wanted Ti to with him due to their friendship!
Dave Chiang had absolutely no "Tough guy" personna, He had the face of a goofy and while as a good "athletic" actor in KF cinema, He had no actual skill in the art and the Shaw's knew that he wouldn't be successful as an independent as there were stiff competition among those who literally had "Household names" in leading role play and nobody else would sign him even as a supportive so they exploited him
I take it you’re not a fan of his? I think he had excellent charisma and despite his size and lack of martial arts fluidity, he managed to sell me on any role he took. In terms of pure athletic ability, yeah, he’s definitely not at the top of that list. There’s a documentary on UA-cam here called Fists of Fire, I believe, and in it Chiang is interviewed and he talks about training in kung fu daily… but I wonder how much he threw himself into martial arts, considering how most say he was so laid back during the 60s and 70s and didn’t seem committed to heavy work. Still, a legend for sure and always worth watching.
You sound goofy as hell! Dave had a young charismatic look that the box office was looking for back then, and was also a Asian teen idol!
Interesting video, but not a fan of that fake VHS tracking effect you use. Please stop.
Someone else gave me a criticism about one select scene in particular, not sure if you and he have the same issue or not. Their criticism was certainly worded differently. When you talk about this VHS tracking effect, which one do you mean in particular? I use many effects throughout. During the intro right before Ti Lung I use a certain type that turns into a distorted-signal-looking thing at like 00:21, then I use a different kind at around 02:31 when I’m quoting Ti Lung. Dislike one vs the other or all of them in general?
@@weirdcinemashow Yeah. That second one was the one. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember VHS and how irritating tracking problems were. So maybe I'm the only one who finds it annoying and distracting. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed the content. 👌
Ahh, that was the same one my friend had issue with as well. I can see how it might come across as over-produced. When making these videos, I typically don’t like the look of a purely unedited piece of stock footage, so I typically try to dress it up a little bit to match the style of the other parts of the video - but maybe I’ll try to do something a little less flashy. Thanks for watching and thanks for the comments!
@@weirdcinemashow No worries. Hope you didn't think I was just trying to be a dick. 🙂
okay.... this has been kinda slippin' in and outta my mind, whenever I see Chang Cheh in videos and photos....and the facts that he tend to favor MEN over women in MOST of his movies...he liked his men in warrior-shaped physique to be half naked in most of the time throughout his movies....and judging by how things worked in SB....
is there ANY possibility that....Chang Cheh might've just GROOMED Ti Lung to be HIS leading man super star...and that there might've been something MORE than just working relationship behind the scene that we don't know about between the two men...maybe even without the acknowledgment of David and the rest of the SB cast & crew...??
could it be that Ti Lung finally just had it with Chang's advances or even "forced" romantic relationship he had to have with him...??
cos, I just heard, in another documentary about Lau Kar Leung, that Chang Cheh WAS known to be gay (which looks pretty obvious to me)..even tho he had a (female) wife.
and let's not kid each other....even as a straight guy, I can admit, Ti Lung, in his prime, WAS ONE ATTRACTIVE GUY.
i think there's something to this...to have caused such a long and heartbreaking strain between the star and "mentor"...and David was somehow oblivious to it all....even to this day.
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Sorry for being late to reply! In this situation, its hard to accuse Chang Cheh of anything since he's not around to defend himself. I think back to a post I read on Kung Fu Fandom that was made in the mid 2000s. In it, the poster supposedly relayed something he had heard: that Chang Cheh was interviewed by Stanley Kwong for his documentary Yang + Yin, which was about homosexuality in Chinese cinema. SUPPOSEDLY, and this is just something pulled from an internet rumor, that Cheh went through with the interview upon thinking it was just an overview of his filmography, but when he kept getting asked about the homoerotic themes in his films, he realized what it was about and got angry. He supposedly kicked them out of his house and said that these rumors had hurt his career in the latter days of his filmmaking journey. He and his wife were supposedly hurt by the rumors.
Mind you, I don't know if that rumor has any merit. It does seem like he was a straight man and if he were gay it wouldn't change anything about his amazing career. I just imagine he took the "machismo" thing to its obvious conclusion: that big strong guys demonstrate the macho vibes I'm trying to present more than anything else.
@@weirdcinemashow well, I just wonder if you have more insight into that....but, I agree, as long as it remains as a bunch of rumors, anybody should only care about HIS works.
heck! most of his Venom mob movies made quite a good chunk of my childhood, so....I'd be quite deva
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At least both were there at Wong Chun funeral. He was Chiang Da Wei's cousin.