Word: yuen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...personnel costs and the absence of labor union restrictions mean a day of shooting in Beijing costs as little as half of what it would cost in Hollywood. Equally critical, choosing to work in China made it easier?financially and logistically?to assemble the region's finest martial artists. Yuen Wo-ping?a master known to international audiences for his wire work on recent martial arts blockbusters Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix, was hired to choreograph the fight scenes, reviving material that appeared on his r?sum? 20 years ago. Venerable Japanese screen idol Sonny Chiba is both cast...
...doing action is there's not really a schedule," he says. "There's no shot list. I have certain shots in my mind that I know I want to do from like a year and a half of writing about them. But now, me and the master (Yuen), we come up with new things as we're doing it. Cool gags, funny gags, gory gags. They make movies here so cheap that you actually can do that." Says Fish Fong, Yuen's assistant: "The hardest thing for us as choreographers is having to remember all of these fighting styles...
...Corey Yuen's new movie So Close is corny, silly and a trifle predictable, but if you like gals doing remarkable kung fu, it's got three of them. Shu Qi and Zhao play sisters whose murder-ed father invented a system that can tap into every single camera on earth. As hired assassins, the sisters use this nifty gadget to help them track their unsuspecting victims. Karen Mok is a Hong Kong detective trying to stop them while simultaneously fighting the overpowering male chauvinism of the police force. (That the Hong Kong police force might be full of sexists...
...Yuen directed such classic martial arts films as Fong Sai Yuk and Hong Xiguan zhi Shaolin Wu Zu (released this year on DVD in the U.S. as Legend of the Red Dragon). He also choreographed Jet Li in seven action films. The director's flair for building memorable kung fu moments has put him in high demand in the U.S., where he has been asked by several studios to reshoot some of his earlier works in English. Sitting in a hotel suite overlooking the Hong Kong skyline, the jovial director insists his movies are not only about violent engagements...
...Working with three female leads was an emotional experience on and off camera. "It was a little troublesome," Yuen admits. The three were competitive but lax about training. "So I played a little trick on them. I filmed a Shu Qi scene and then edited it, put in music and enhanced the action so it looked really, really good. I didn't show it to her though: I showed it to the other girls. They took a look at the video and said 'Oh my gosh she's doing so well! Can we match that?' After that, everyone started training...