Lau Kar-leung

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Lau Kar-Leung 劉家良 (Mandarin: Liu Jialiang, Liu Chia-Liang) is a famous Hong Kong Chinese martial arts director, choreographer and actor.

He is best known for his movies which he made during the 1970s and 1980s with the Shaw Brothers Studio. One of his most famous films is The 36th Chamber of Shaolin which starred his adopted brother Gordon Liu, aka Lau Kar Fai.

Before becoming famous, Lau worked as an extra and choreographer on the black & white Wong Fei Hong movies. He teamed up with fellow Wong Fei Hong choreographer Tong Gaai on the 1963 Hu Peng wuxia picture South Dragon, North Phoenix. This would prove to be a fruitful collaboration that would continue on until the mid-'70s.

In the 1960s he became one of Shaw Brothers' main choreographers and had a strong working relationship with director Chang Cheh, working on many of Chang's movies as a choreographer (often alongside Tong Gaai) including The One-Armed Swordsman, as well as other Shaw Bros. wuxia pictures, such as The Jade Bow. After a split with Chang on the set of Disciples of Shaolin, Lau evolved into a director during the sudden boom of kung-fu movies in the early 1970s. He occasionally did choreography work for non-Shaw movies as well, such as Master of the Flying Guillotine.

After Shaw Brothers collapsed in the 1980s, Lau moved on and continued directing and choreographing movies. His most famous non-Shaw film is undoubtedly Drunken Master II, which is regarded as one of the best martial arts movies by many fans. However it is a well known fact that the film's star Jackie Chan and director Lau had argued hotly over the style of fighting, which resulted in Lau leaving the set before the filming of the final fight scene, which was then taken over by Chan. Most recently, Lau did acting and choreography work for Tsui Hark's 2005 wuxia movie Seven Swords.

Lau Kar-Leung's newest film, "Heroes of Shaolin", produced by Michael Parrella's Burning Shaolin Productions, out of New York, begins filming in 2007 in Mailand China. Already attatched are his brothers Lau Kar-Fei (Gordon Liu) who will reprise his Kill Bill vol. 2 roll as the treacherous monk Bai Mei (Bok Mei in Cantonese) and Lau Kar-Wing who will handle the fight choreography. Lau believes that "Heroes of Shaolin" will be his greatest martial arts movie to date.

http://www.burningshaolinproductions.com

http://www.heroesofshaolin.com

In real life, Lau is a practitioner of Hung Gar style kung-fu. Not surprisingly, many of Lau's films are about Hung Gar history and its practitioners. In fact, Lau has kung-fu lineage to the legendary Wong Fei Hung. Recently, Lau has ventured into opening up a Hong Kong based Lau Family Hung Gar academy with his real-life student, Kung-Fu Sifu Mark Houghton.


Contents

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] As director

[edit] As martial arts choreographer

[edit] As actor

[edit] External link

Lau Kar Leung is born in August 1936, he is the third child of Lau Cham, a famous martial art master who was a pupil of Lam Sai Wing (the pupil of Wong Fei Hung). Lau's wife is Mary Jean Reimer, a solicitor in Hong Kong, who was formally an actress known as Yung Ching Ching (Weng Jing Jing). The website of Mr. Lau is www.laukarleung.com.

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