HKCinemagic : How did it feel to be dubbed in Mandarin? |
Chen Kuan Tai : In Shaw Bros, there were professional dubbers. At that time, I didn't know how to speak Mandarin but I still spoke the dialogue in Mandarin. I learned Mandarin from Ku Feng. All my earlier movies, I worked with him, so we had good relationships but because I didn't know how to speak Mandarin, it created a lot of jokes. So, I requested him to be my Mandarin teacher. There was an actor called Cheung Pooi Saan who always dubbed my voice. Back in the days of Shaw, everything was well planned. From actors to leading actors, they planned who dubs who, so in every movie, it's the same voice. |
The Chinese Boxer
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HKCinemagic : Iron Bodyguard was different. |
Chen Kuan Tai : Most of time, we try to use the same voice. |
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HKCinemagic : Did you expect the appeal to last 30 years? |
Chen Kuan Tai : Now, I still have friends who still like Shaw Brothers movie, so when they re-release the DVDs, a lot of them bought it, including oversea people like European and American people. They like Shaw movies. They like Bruce Lee and our types of action movie, especially foreigners who think that our movies are kung fu movies while the movies now are martial arts movies. They can differentiate it. They think that martial arts is a form of performance that looks good onscreen but cannot provide the tension of the action. As for using computers to make people flying around, they've [foreigners] seen a lot of them so they don't like those. |
Bruce Lee in the "Two Brothers" set
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HKCinemagic : You fought a lot of people in the movies… |
Chen Kuan Tai :
Every day we have to shoot ten scenes of fighting. Because every fighting scene takes a long time, therefore, shooting ten scenes was pretty tough. |
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HKCinemagic :
Any favorite actor?
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Chen Kuan Tai : I like Jimmy Wang Yu in One Armed Swordsman also by Chang Cheh. He's my favorite. |
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HKCinemagic :
And actresses?
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Chen Kuan Tai : Actresses…it's those [who worked] when I was not in the biz yet, such as Li Lihua, Ivy Ling Po, etc., those who are more seniors. The actresses nowadays don't have the “star feel”. When I was not in the biz, I already like to watch their movies like Cheng Pei Pei's films. |
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HKCinemagic : You directed and also produced, which job do you prefer? |
Chen Kuan Tai : Producer and director jobs concern different tasks. When I was an actor, I was working as a producer [also]. Did you watch James Yi Lui's movies? “Woo Lung Dao Yat”, it's one of the first action comedy movies and I was the producer. My company produced about 20 movies. |
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HKCinemagic : You worked with Stephen Chow. Was it one of the 20 films? |
Chen Kuan Tai :
Yes. It's “Stephen Chow “Ah Sing” from Chor Yuen and I was the producer. It was called Sleazy Dizzy. So, each post has different things to do. I still prefer behind the scene work the most. |
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HKCinemagic : You also worked with Chor Yuen. |
Chen Kuan Tai : In the earlier days when I was an action director in Cathay, I worked with Chor Yuen in a martial movie called Cold Blade. |
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HKCinemagic :
This is not released in DVD yet. |
Chen Kuan Tai : It's not? It was memorable because it's my first movie as action director. They requested to do a scene with wires flying around, so that's memorable. When he came to Shaw Bros, we did some movies together, it was a good experience. When I set up a company outside, I wanted him to direct two movies: Sleazy Dizzy and “Jor Fung Seung”, which was a drama. They were done at the same time. |