From Lee to Li: An A–Z guide of martial arts heroes

‘I’m on the plane already,’ replied the 21-year-old Jackie, tired and filthy after yet another day spent working as a casual labourer.

New Fist of Fury was followed by a number of other films starring Chan, but it was only when he began to put his own ideas into the plots that he became a genuine star; producing such gems as Drunken Master in 1978.

Popular as he may have been in Asia—and Hong Kong in particular (where his nickname continues to be ‘Big Brother’)—success in the West would elude Chan for a long time. Only with 1996’s Rumble in the Bronx did Chan become a notable box-office success, capitalising on this with later films such as Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon.

It’s well known that Chan has broken umpteen bones, including his neck, while performing his own stunts; and he even came close to death on one occasion when he fractured his skull while filming 1987’s Armour of God. As a result of this he suffers from chronic pain, and these days relies—though not always—upon stunt doubles, as it would otherwise be next to impossible to find an insurance company prepared to underwrite his productions.

He has in recent years sought to diversify from roles which feature his martial arts’ prowess (as well as his standard, ‘slightly-goofy-but-basically-a-nice-guy’ character), resulting in films including The Myth—in which he played both a general in ancient China as well as a modern-day archaeologist—and Rob-B-Hood, in which Chan played a ‘comical’ criminal who kidnaps a baby.

Since the mid-1980s, Chan has forged a separate career as a pop star, singing in a variety of languages (including English and Japanese) and releasing over 20 albums. He also works tirelessly for a number of charities, including those that deal with environmental issues and animal rights, and has paid for several schools to be built in the poorer areas of China.

CHANG, SAN-FENG

The semi-mythical ‘founder’ (this is still hotly contested by many) of what is known in the West as tai chi chuan, or the ‘supreme ultimate fist’.

Establishing any concrete facts about Mr Chang San-Feng is nigh-on impossible. For example, the date

of his birth is variously estimated to have been between 600 AD and the sixteenth century. Rumours also abound that he achieved immortality (though where he is now is anyone’s guess), was over seven foot tall, could cover more than 300 miles in a single day (on foot), and that for whatever reason he wore on his head a large cymbal instead of a hat, which only the ‘privileged’ (whoever they might have been) were permitted to sound.

However, Chang San-Feng may have been a Shaolin monk, active sometime towards the end of the twelfth century, who for over a decade engaged in strenuous kung-fu training. But whilst out walking one day, he was captivated by a fight between a snake and a bird.

The bird was larger and seemed more powerful—there was little doubt that it would be able to kill and devour the snake—and yet, by suddenly feigning weakness, the snake caused the bird to become overconfident. Carelessly it soared down upon its seemingly stricken prey, only to be grabbed in the snake’s jaws and killed.

Chang San-Feng was dumbfounded. Here, provided by nature itself, was the answer to all the questions and doubts he’d privately had concerning his martial arts’ training.

Shrewdly, he copied the snake’s example of cunning and speed over superior strength, combining this with his own ideas concerning ‘chi’ or a person’s own inner power (for example, what sometimes—incredibly— allows a mother to lift a burning car to free her trapped child) and adding a more ‘spiritual’ dimension to the martial arts than had existed previously.

CHENG, MAN-CH’ING

Born in 1902, Cheng Man-ch’ing achieved the modest title ‘The Master of Five Excellences’ due to his expertise in poetry, medicine, painting, calligraphy, and last, but most definitely not least, tai ji quan (more popularly known in the West as tai chi chuan ). Cheng was fond of referring to himself as ‘the old child who never tires of learning’, and in his later years could be heard bemoaning the fact that old age had caught him unawares.

He was nine years old when he was struck on the head by a rock or a brick, which for a short while placed him in a coma and erased his memory. To aid his recuperation, he was apprenticed to a well-known painter, who soon discovered that the young boy was no slouch with a brush himself. In time, Cheng was able to provide for his family by selling his own paintings.

In his late twenties he began a serious study of tai ji quan as a way of counteracting tuberculosis, which he’d contracted a short while earlier. (Given that he lived until he was seventy-three, we can assume that his novel approach to a cure was successful.) The style of tai chi which he evolved is still widely practised today.

CHEUNG, KU YU

Old, black-and-white photographs abound of Grandmaster Ku Yu Cheung bending a steel bar around his arm, having a large boulder placed on his stomach, being smashed over the head with a lump of quarry stone, breaking twelve bricks with the palm of his hand, and so on.

Certainly, early on in his life, nothing indicated that Cheung would one day be capable of performing such feats. This was in spite of the fact that his father was a famous martial artist, who acted as an ‘escort’ to wealthy merchants who would otherwise be plagued by robbers and other assorted ne’er-do-wells as they travelled throughout China on business. So successful was Cheung’s father that he established a business employing some 200 martial arts’ experts, all acting as escorts or bodyguards for those who could afford their services. Through this, Cheung’s father could afford to send his quiet, bookish son to an exclusive private school.

Only on his deathbed did his father apparently plead with Ku Yu to train in the martial arts, and so off went the teenager to a kung-fu master named Yim Kai Wun.

In the ensuing eleven years, Cheung learned—amongst many other things—leg techniques, breath control and Gum Jung Chi Gung or ‘iron shirt’—the art of making the body withstand any blow.

The news that his mother had passed away caused Cheung to finally leave his sifu, or ‘teacher’, and return home. As he did so, Yim Kai Wun gave his departing student one last piece of advice:

‘Through your kung-fu training you have succeeded in climbing one mountain, but just remember—there is always another.’

Later, sometime around the mid-1920s, Cheung was appointed bodyguard to the Secretary of Finance, and then became Chief Instructor in the Martial Arts to the military. One of his ‘party tricks’ was to have a car filled with three students driven over his shirtless body.

A story concerning Cheung details how he accepted a bet that he wouldn’t be able to withstand a kick from a horse. Proving that he in fact could, he then insisted that he be allowed to hit the horse back—something which caused the unfortunate creature to expire soon after. (Outwardly, the horse bore hardly any trace of having received a blow. When an ‘autopsy’—of sorts—was performed, however, it was discovered that most of its internal organs had been ruptured. Such was the lethal power of Cheung’s ‘iron hand’.)

CHIN, GEN PINH

A Buddhist monk who came to Japan from China around 1559, bringing with him his knowledge of what the Japanese referred to as kempo or kenpo—the ‘law of the fist’. Following Chin Gen Pinh’s demonstrations of what he knew, parts of kempo were quickly assimilated into the type of jujitsu being taught to samurai warriors at that time.

CHIN, LIP MON

An ‘iron palm’ practitioner (SeeSing Pak, for more information about iron palm) and drunkard who, after a night of wine-fuelled debauchery, found himself fighting empty-handed against a tiger. Due to his mastery of iron palm, however, Chin Lip Mon was able to kill the creature.

The following morning, none of the villagers living nearby believed Chin Lip Mon when he told them what had happened.

‘Bah! You’re making it up,’ they scoffed, until Chin Lip Mon led them into a forest where the deceased tiger lay.

‘We take it back,’ said the villagers in awed tones. ‘And from now on, we’re going to call you “Tiger Master”.’

This victory caused Chin Lip Mon to get his act together, stop drinking (as much), and open up a kung-fu school.

CHOI, HONG HI

The purported founder of tae kwon do (although this is contested by some), Choi was born in 1918 in the remote Hwa Dae, Myong Chun district of what is now

North Korea. He was a somewhat frail and sickly child (this seems to be something of a pattern for famous ‘founding fathers’ of martial arts—refer here to Morihei Ueshiba).

Aged twelve, Choi was expelled from school for protesting against the Japanese authorities who were then in control of Korea. His father sent him to learn calligraphy—although so alarmed was the new teacher by Choi’s lamentable physical condition that he also arranged to have him taught the martial art of taek kyeon(’foot techniques’) as well.

Choi went to Japan in 1937, where within two years he’d become a black belt in karate. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Choi was forced to enlist in the Japanese army. However, when his links with the Korean Independence Movement were uncovered he was arrested, tried, and thrown into a cell.

This gave Choi some much-needed time and solitude in which to practise the martial art that would become tae kwon do. Soon the other prisoners were demanding that Choi teach them a little of what he knew—and Choi readily obliged. Finally, the situation threatened to descend into farce as even the jailers requested that their prisoner teach them what was—at heart—a mixture of taek kyeon and karate.

Choi was freed in August 1945 (according to some sources, just days before he was due to be executed for ‘treason’), and made his way to Seoul. There he was soon promoted to the rank of Lieutenant (ultimately he’d become a Major-General) in the South Korean army, taking this opportunity to teach soldiers—both American as well as Korean—tae kwon do.

In 1955, tae kwon do (’the way of the feet and the hands’) was formally recognised within Korea, with a special administrative board being appointed, and from there word concerning this new martial art soon spread across the globe. It became an official Olympic sport for the first time at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. (The middleweight gold medal that year was won by Cuban Ángel Matos, who was, however, disqualified for life in 2008 after he intentionally kicked a referee in the face at the Beijing Olympics.)

CHOI, YONG SUL

The founder of the Korean martial art of hapkido, Choi (born in 1904) always claimed to have been abducted, aged eight, from his village in present-day South Korea by—of all people—a Japanese confectionary maker. (There exist, however, several conflicting stories concerning Choi’s early years.)

The man abandoned the child in Moji, Japan, and Choi made his way to Osaka, where he was picked up by the police and placed in a Buddhist temple in Kyoto that cared for orphans.

In the two or so years that he spent at this templecum-orphanage, Choi had a particularly miserable time. Endlessly bullied because of his nationality and the fact that he couldn’t speak Japanese very well, he reacted in the only way he was able—with his fists.

Finally, the temple abbot thought to ask Choi where he saw his life going, and the young Korean replied that he was extremely interested in learning a martial art.

By a stroke of good fortune (surely by now deserved by Choi), the abbot—a man named Watanabe—knew the founder of the martial art daito-ryu aiki-jujitsu, Takeda Sokaku.

By all accounts, Choi was next whisked by Sokaku to a dōjō on Shin Shu mountain, where he and his sensei lived and trained for the following thirty years. During this time, said Choi later, he grew to have a complete understanding of Sokaku’s style.