is giving orders to the bad guys, while I stood there in my black frock, just listening. It's supposed to surprise the audience that the goofy priest is actually with the bad guys. There's no explanation in the film about the priest actually being a Russian or, why is he a priest on one hand…a killer on the other. Next, I'm found stabbing old men with a sharpened crucifix! There are major story gaps as far as the character goes. But, why Russian?..why a priest?...what do I have to do with the Eagle Claw school?...and so forth, who knows? (laughs) It's anybody's guess!

Then, for the final fight, I make a tremendous flying entrance where I actually hurt myself quite badly. They didn't have a stuntman big enough, or hairy enough, for me in the first shot, which was to be a special stunt. So, they asked me to do it. I asked, “What stunt?” Yuen Shun Yi demonstrated it. He jumps off a ladder, hits a trampoline, does a flip in the air slicing with a sword and lands rolling off on the ground. I looked in amazement, “I'm not a stunt guy and I've never done flips”. They said “It's easy!” Being the naïve one, I say, “Well, all right, I'll give it a go”…goofy, stupid guy. So, I jump from the ladder, hit the trampoline, do a slice with the sword, do the flip in the air, but not flipped enough...and come down hard on the ground on my left shoulder…dislocating the shoulder quite badly. It was hanging like this [shows a limp arm, impossible to move and hanging like dead meat]. They are mumbling like “Shit! What do we do now?” Hwang Jang Lee comes over, has a look at the damage…says “Grit your teeth.”… and yanks the bone back in place (clack)…which was pretty painful. Ng and the director, Yuen Woo Ping ask, “What are we gonna do? We've already have a lot of footage on you. Can you move? fight?” I said, “Obviously, I can't use my left hand.” They had begun with swordplay and lots of martial arts in mind so, I said “Let's stick as much as we can with the sword. I'll try to use my legs a bit, and see if we can get through this.” There were two, to two and half days of fighting for the scene. So, just about every take, the shoulder would pop out. And Hwang Jang Lee would come and pop it in again! It was very, very painful….and people thought I was acting angry! I didn't want to see a doctor because the moment I saw a doctor, he would give me a lot of medicine and ask me not to move. I managed to get through the scene, using the sword, and when a Chinese bone doctor finally looked at me, he went, “My God! What have you done to this shoulder?”. “Fighting with it for two days”, I said. He was shocked, “What!”. (laughs) I was a bit disappointed at not being able to use the martial arts I learned from Hwang in the scene…couldn't even do one spinning kick because it takes both arms.

So, whatever action Hwang did, Jackie would compensate. And whatever action Jackie did, Hwang would compensate. I think that the two of them worked pretty well together. There was no animosity on the set, whatsoever. They were both very professional. So whatever you heard about disagreements (from my perspective and through my friendship with Hwang) is incorrect. As for action actors that were out of shape, even Yuen Woo Ping and other action choreographers would ask them, “What were you doing last night?” The common understanding is that the reason a guy can't perform on set is because he performed in bed the night before...a common joke in shooting kung fu films. There was a lot of this talk going around. “How come you can't do the moves? Who were you with last night?. You smoke too much!”. Hwang Jang Lee had incredible stamina because he also smoked on set, yet he never got out of breath, no matter what. He just kept fighting…and fighting…pretty amazing. He had respect for Jackie.