Yuen Wah

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Yuen Wah (元華 p.y. Yuan Hua, stage name, real name 容志 p.y. Rong Zhi; born September 2, 1950, Tianjin, China) is a Hong Kong action film director, choreographer, actor and stuntman who has starred in more than 60 movies since his first, Fist of Fury, in 1972.

A member of the Beijing Opera school from which Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Yuen Qiu and Corey Yuen received their training, they all trained under Master Yu Jim Yuen (于占元 p.y. Yu Zhanyuan) in Hong Kong (see Seven Little Fortunes). Yuen Wah took his stage surname as a tribute to his teacher. He is the second oldest student under the master after Sammo Hung. Jackie Chan has said that Yuen was respected for his martial arts ability by his fellow students.

Known for his extreme agility and acrobatic skills, he started his movie career by becoming Bruce Lee's stunt double in the movies Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon. He also made his debut as an actor in Fist of Fury, as a Japanese person who asks Bruce Lee's character to crawl like a dog and is soundly beaten for it. One of the more memorable movies that he acted during this period in is Dragons Forever with classmates Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao.

Yuen's versatility, his lean, wiry frame and later, distinctive moustache would get him cast in a number of villainous roles, sometimes with a comedic twist. He began to receive a number of roles in Shaw Brothers Studio. Later on he branched on to comedies, all with great success. In the 1990s he lessened his movie output and instead began focusing on TV roles, in TVB, starting in 1996 as a Taoist priest. His goofy and endearingly scroogy image earned him popularity in the Hong Kong TV circle and he is now perhaps better known there for his TV roles then for his previous film characters.

In 2004, Yuen Wah was cast as the Landlord in Stephen Chow's comedy film Kung Fu Hustle. His fellow colleagues during the Hong Kong Film Awards took the opportunity to award him with the Hong Kong Best Supporting Actor that same year. Currently acting as a man out for revenge in "Guts of Men".