Yuen Woo-ping

Yuen Woo-ping (; alias: Yuen Wo-ping; born 1945) is a Hong Kong martial arts choreographer and film director who worked in Hong Kong action cinema and later Hollywood films. He is one of the inductees on the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong. Yuen is also a son of Yuen Siu-tien, a martial arts film actor. Life and career Yuen was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. With a support of Ng See-yuen, he achieved his first directing credit in 1978 on the seminal Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, starring Jackie Chan, followed quickly by Drunken Master. The films were smash hits, launching Jackie Chan as a major film star, turning Seasonal Films into a major independent production company, and starting a trend towards comedy in martial arts films that continues to the following two decades. Yuen went on to helm other star vehicles for such figures as Sammo Hung in Magnificent Butcher (1979), Yuen Biao in Dreadnaught (1981), Donnie Yen in Iron Monkey (1993), Jet Li in Tai Chi Master (1993), and Michelle Yeoh in Wing Chun (1994). Yuen's works, particularly his action choreography on Fist of Legend (1994), attracted the attention of the Wachowskis, who hired him as the martial arts choreographer on The Matrix (1999). The success of this collaboration, plus his action choreography on the following year's hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, made him a highly sought after figure in Hollywood. He went on to work on the first two Matrix sequels, as well as Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004).