Roy Chiao
Roy Chiao is an actor, born 1927.
Western audiences met Roy Chiao as a man who appears for about eight minutes and then leaves the picture. Hong Kong audiences had known him for thirty years by then. Nicknamed the Lion of Cinema for his build and his presence, he was a popular leading man through the 1950s and 1960s and kept working into the 1990s.
His most important collaborator was King Hu, who cast him in A Touch of Zen and The Fate of Lee Khan, early landmarks of the wuxia film. He also appears in The Valiant Ones. This is the work that matters, and it is the least seen outside Asia.
Look at his later credit list and a pattern jumps out: Abbot, Abbot, Judge, Judge, Professor, Lawyer, Boss, Uncle. He became the screen's designated authority figure, the man brought in so a scene has weight, whether that is the crime boss Lao Che opening Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Tanaka in Bloodsport, or the uncredited Shaolin abbot in Enter the Dragon. Bruce Lee's Game of Death and its sequel both use him for the same reason.
The last decade is the surprise. Rather than coasting on martial arts cameos, he turned up in Hong Kong dramas such as Cageman and Summer Snow and comedies like All's Well, End's Well '97. Born in Shanghai in 1927, he died in 1999.
Movies (29)
- Game of Death (1978)
- Bloodsport (1988)
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
- Enter the Dragon (1973)
- Dragons Forever (1988)
- A Touch of Zen (1970)
- The Protector (1985)
- Game of Death II (1981)
- All's Well, End's Well '97 (1997)
- I Do! (1983)
- Righting Wrongs (1986)
- The Fate of Lee Khan (1973)
- A Kid from Tibet (1992)
- Enter the Fat Dragon (1978)
- The Valiant Ones (1975)
- Aces Go Places IV: You Never Die Twice (1986)
- Burning Ambition (1989)
- The Last Message (1975)
- Summer Snow (1995)
- Only Fools Fall in Love (1995)
- Mr. Fortune (1989)
- Games Gamblers Play (1974)
- Blind Romance (1996)
- The Black Musketeer 'F' (1966)
- Treasure Hunt (1994)
- Life is a Moment (1987)
- Killer Wears White (1980)
- Cageman (1992)
- Shadow of China (1990)
TV (3)
Where to start with Roy Chiao
A Touch of Zen first, without hesitation. It is one of the towering achievements of Chinese-language cinema, it is long and patient and then suddenly weightless, and it is the film that explains why he was a star at home rather than a face in someone else's blockbuster.
Stay with King Hu for The Fate of Lee Khan, which is tighter, wittier and set almost entirely in one inn, then The Valiant Ones if the period style has hooked you.
For the Western half of the career, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom gives him the best entrance of his life in a Shanghai nightclub, Enter the Dragon hides him in plain sight, and Bloodsport casts him as the mentor the whole plot depends on. Cageman is the late-career one to seek out if you want to see what he could do with a straight dramatic part.