 HKCinemagic: I'll come back a bit in time, around the end of the 1970s. There is in your filmography a lot of movies shot in Korea with Korean actors as Hwang Jang Lee and for which you are credited as the director. Is it really you who directed them or were they Korean productions simply with your name on it? |
| Godfrey Ho: I was co-director actually. |
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| HKCinemagic: So, you were actually there shooting?
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| Godfrey Ho: Yes, [although] most of the parts were done by Korean directors. But for distribution, I put only my name on it. Because, otherwise, how can I direct more than 6 to 7 films a year? It's impossible! I was a kind of chief director. I knew the story… |
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| HKCinemagic: You were like Chang Cheh in a way, supervising everything.
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| Godfrey Ho: Right. That kind of things. Because the bosses of IFD, there were 2 bosses [actally], one was called Thomas Tang, he died in a fire a few years later, and the other one was Joseph Lai. These 2 guys found a [niche] market and I was a kind of expert. So I advised them and I made those 2 guys rich. |
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| HKCinemagic:
How were the shooting conditions in Korea at that time?
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 Godfrey Ho:
Fine. Very good. They were quite professional. It's only their ideas that were quite domestic, very local. But they learned something about China , that's why they wanted to shoot something about Kung Fu or be dressed like Chinese people. But in the foreign markets, they didn't know about Chinese culture. Who knew the Emperor of China looked like that? They didn't care about that, they cared about action only. And luckily, Korean people knew Kung Fu so well, especially the kicks with Taekwondo (compared to Chinese Kung Fu that use handsmore). This combination worked. At that time, Hwang Jang Lee, this kind of people, was so popular. People looked at them and were amazed. It was the golden time of the Kung Fu era. A lot of young kids were in the audience. |
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| HKCinemagic: So, the deal with the Korean was that you would handle distribution all over the world and they would keep the rights for the domestic market?
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| Godfrey Ho: Korean had their own markets and would handle them themselves indeed. |
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