Chen Kuan-tai

Chen Kuan-tai (; born 24 September 1945) is a Hong Kong martial arts actor, director, and action choreographer. Chen rose to fame in the early 1970s for his movies with the Shaw Brothers Studio and is credited as being one of the film company's first professionally trained martial artists. Early life Chen was born in Guangdong, China. At age 9, he was accepted as a pupil of kung fu practitioner Chen Xiu Zhong, founder of the Tai Sing Pek Kwar Martial Arts Association which specializes in monkey style kung fu. While studying in Pui Kiu Middle School, he excelled in athletics, notably in javelin and soccer. After graduating, he worked as a stuntman and action director, his first project being Chor Yuen's 1970 film, Cold Blade. Chen attracted the attention of Cantonese filmmakers in 1969 after winning a light-weight division championship in Singapore's National Skills Competition. He eventually signed with the Shaw Brothers Studio in November of 1971. Unlike his contemporaries, Chen did not adopt a stage name. Career Chen had been cast in some two dozen films with Shaw Brothers playing tertiary roles, amongst them Jimmy Wang Yu's The Chinese Boxer (1970) and Chang Cheh's Vengeance (1970) before he was cast in the role of Ma Yung Chen by Chang in the latter's kung fu film, The Boxer from Shantung. The film was his first lead role. At the time, Chen had been working with Ng See-yuen on his independent film, The Bloody Fists (1972) and left mid-production to film Chang's movie. Released in 1972, The Boxer From Shantung was a commercial success, netting over HK $2 million in ticket sales and launched Chen into stardom overnight. By the mid-1970s, he had become one of Hong Kong's most famous kung fu stars and achieved several hits including The Teahouse (1974), Heroes Two (1974), Big Brother Cheng (1975), and The Flying Guillotine (1975). At the 20th Asia-Pacific Film Festival, Chen was awarded Most Popular Male Actor by the Taipei Press Association. In 1976, the actor expanded his career into directing and in February that year, made his directional debut with the comedy film, The Simple-Minded Fellow. The film was a moderate success at the box office. In October, Chen continued directing and filming with independent film companies in Taiwan, resulting in the Shaw Brothers Studio filing and winning a temporary injunction against the actor that prohibited him from making movies with any other company other than Shaw Brothers.