appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Richard James Havis

When Bruce Lee conceived the film The Silent Flute in the United States in the late 1960s, he intended it to explain the philosophy behind martial arts – and he thought it would make him a star.
Lee worked on the script with top screenwriter Stirling Silliphant and actor James Coburn, but it came to nothing, and Lee abandoned the project when he became famous in Hong Kong.
Silliphant, though, persevered and it was finally made as Circle of Iron in 1978. The result was a strange confluence of badly choreographed martial arts, faux Eastern mysticism and exotic fantasy sets.
The film, which was shot in Israel, featured unknown actor Jeff Cooper as Cord the Seeker, who has to pass challenges posed by a blind flute player to find the true secret of martial arts.


David Carradine, then best known for his starring role in the TV series Kung Fu, played the blind man and also Cord’s challengers the Monkey Man, the Rhythm Man and the Panther Man. This was the role that Lee had envisioned for himself.
We take a deep dive into Circle of Iron with Chris Poggiali, co-author of These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World.
Is it true that Lee tried to persuade acting legend Steve McQueen to play the role of Cord?
Yes, The Silent Flute was an idea that Lee first told to Stirling Silliphant in 1968 when the Oscar-winning screenwriter had just started taking lessons in jeet kune do (the martial art Lee conceived) from him.

Their plan was to get Lee’s friend and sometimes student Steve McQueen to play Cord, but he wouldn’t commit to something that hadn’t been written yet. The project was shown to another of Lee’s celebrity students, James Coburn, and he jumped at the chance.
There were more shenanigans, and then Lee got too busy for it. But wasn’t he going to return to it just before he died?
Yes, Silliphant and Sy Weintraub, the producer of the 1960s Tarzan movies, reached Lee by phone and got him to agree to a meeting about reviving The Silent Flute. But Lee died as they were making arrangements to fly to Hong Kong.
A few months later actor John Drew Barrymore, who was staying at Coburn’s home, sneaked a copy of the screenplay out to his friend David Carradine, who fell in love with the story.

Bruce’s original script was more violent and sexually explicit than the finished item. Would he have approved of the finished movie?
Bruce wouldn’t have been happy with any version of The Silent Flute that didn’t have him in it front and centre.
As far as the violence and sexual explicitness of the screenplay, that would have been toned down during production. I don’t know how much of it was in Bruce’s original 18-page treatment, but one or two passages in Silliphant’s screenplay read more like a pornographic novel.
Why did the martial arts scenes end up as bad as they did?
Circle of Iron’s producer Sandy Howard knew nothing about martial arts movies, except that Bruce Lee was the genre’s biggest star and he was no longer alive to take a meeting.

Howard’s initial plan was to get international stars like Oliver Reed and Omar Sharif to play the Rhythm Man and the Monkey Man, and then do all of the fight scenes through editing and body doubles.
Carradine talked him out of that, fortunately, but the martial arts sequences still turned out woefully inadequate.
Didn’t the Tai Mantis Association get involved with the fight choreography?
Yes, Carradine knew Kam Yuen, who had been introduced to him by Jeff Cooper a few years earlier after Carradine started hearing complaints that the Kung Fu television series contained only “judo forms” and no real kung fu.
Yuen was a co-founder of the Tai Mantis Association, a mix of the Praying Mantis and Shaolin schools, and his students included Bob Dylan, John Saxon and Michael Jackson.

Carradine got Yuen the job on Kung Fu, and he became Yuen’s student and friend. Yuen got the gig on The Silent Flute so he could continue training Carradine during filming.
Did Cooper do any martial arts training for the shoot?
Cooper decided he was going to start training with a cage fighter and aspiring stuntman named Michael Vendrell, who claimed he had been taught yee chuan tao style kung fu beginning at the age of three by – get this! – an astral projection only he could see, named Grandmaster Leong.
Oh, and according to Carradine, Vendrell was also skilled in teleportation.

Add to this the fact that both leads showed up on location with injuries – Cooper had torn a hamstring a week before filming began, and Carradine injured his knee in a motorcycle accident on his previous film – and it could only go downhill from there.
And did it?
It did. On the second day, Cooper got his teeth kicked through his cheek, causing an injury that required nine stitches and all subsequent close-ups to be focused on the other side of his face. Carradine’s nose was broken twice in four days.
The action scenes were so bad that Howard ended up hiring karate expert Joe Lewis for a week to restage all of the fight scenes on sets in Los Angeles. It didn’t work.

Didn’t Carradine claim that his body was possessed by Bruce Lee’s spirit?
Yes, Carradine debuted his “possessed by Bruce Lee” nonsense in a January 1974 issue of TV Guide and didn’t let up until January 1986, when he was promoting Kung Fu: The Movie for CBS and probably realised it would be in really poor taste to make these claims when his co-star was Brandon Lee.
Unknowns like Jeff Cooper share the screen with stars like Eli Wallach and Christopher Lee. How did that come about?
Bruce Lee was popular all over the world, but a movie based on his philosophy was a harder sell, so Sandy Howard needed a couple of actors with international appeal. Eli Wallach and Christopher Lee were big in Europe.

As for Jeff Cooper, he was a Canadian actor who had recently starred in two successful, big budget Spanish-language films, and also a friend of Carradine.
Did Bruce Lee fans like Circle of Iron?
Carradine had been saying for the past five years that he was possessed by Bruce, and that didn’t endear him to readers of magazines like Fighting Stars. Maybe fans of the Kung Fu series liked it, but I don’t think Bruce fans warmed to it.
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.
Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook


Meet Anthony Ippolito, who stars as Sylvester Stallone in upcoming biopic I Play Rocky

Meet Brooks Nader’s parents Holland and Breaux – as the Baywatch star defends going topless around them in Italy

Student Academy Awards 2026: Oscars body champions emerging film talent at TIFF

How Jet Li’s trainer Wu Bin, 89, ages well and still nurtures martial arts talent

American cinema

Why the kung fu in Circle of Iron, from an idea by Bruce Lee, would have left him unhappy

David Carradine (left) and Jeff Cooper in a still from Circle of Iron. The 1978 movie was based on a script Bruce Lee abandoned before his death, but ended up a bizarre mix of inadequate kung fu scenes and faux Eastern mysticism. 

Lee and James Coburn in April 1973. Photo: SCMP

Lee and Stirling Silliphant at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport in April 1972. Photo: SCMP

Cooper and Erica Creer in a still from Circle of Iron.

Cooper in a still from Circle of Iron.

Carradine (left) and Cooper in a still from Circle of Iron. The latter trained for the movie with a cage fighter who claimed to have learned martial arts from an astral projection named Grandmaster Leong.

Carradine (right) in Kung Fu: The Movie (1986). Photo: Warner Bros

Cooper (left) and Christopher Lee in a still from Circle of Iron.

How Hong Kong star Aaron Kwok went from ‘gormless’ to ‘adequate’ to ‘terrific’ in movies

Aaron Kwok in a still from Somebody Up There Likes Me (1996).

Aaron Kwok Fu-shing in a still from The Bare-footed Kid (1993). Kwok’s early films garnered mixed reviews. We take a look at some of them.

Aaron Kwok won the best actor prize for his role in Port of Call at the 35th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2016. Photo: Edward Wong

Once Upon a Time in China movies and the rip-offs rated

Jet Li as Cantonese martial arts legend Wong Fei-hung in a still from Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992), directed by Tsui Hark. Photo: Golden Harvest

How Anita Mui held her own in films with popular male stars like Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow

Tony Leung Ka-fai, Chow Yun-fat and Anita Mui in a still from A Better Tomorrow III. Photo: Fortune Star Media Limited

Anita Mui and Stephen Chow in a still from comedy Justice, My Foot!. Mui’s remarkable versatility made her characters captivating to watch. Photo: Celestial Pictures Limited

How Leslie Cheung excelled in Chen Kaige films Farewell My Concubine and Temptress Moon

Zhang Fengyi (left) and Leslie Cheung in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Tomson Films

Leslie Cheung as Peking opera singer Cheng Dieyi in Farewell My Concubine, one of his greatest performances as an actor. Photo: SCMP

Cheung (right) and Chen Kaige on the set of Farewell My Concubine, in July 1992. Photo: SCMP

Cheung (left) and Fengyi Zhang in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Beijing Film Studio

(From left) Cheung, producer Hsu Feng and Chen Kaige at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport with the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for Farewell My Concubine. Photo: SCMP

Zhang and Cheung in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Tomson Films

Cheung in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Tomson Films

Cheung and Gong Li in a still from Temptress Moon. Photo: Tomson Films

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

Chinese culture

Classic Hong Kong cinema

Classic Hong Kong cinema: John Woo on action, violence, influences, growing up in poverty and working in Hollywood in 1997 interview

Legendary Hong Kong action film director John Woo in 1990. Photo: SCMP

Famous Hong Kong action film director John Woo talks about his life and work in a 1997 interview. Photo: SCMP

John Travolta (top) and Nicolas Cage in a still from Face/Off.

John Woo during an interview in 1996. Photo: SCMP

Tony Leung (left) and Chow Yun-fat in a still from Hard Boiled (1991), directed by Woo.

Woo (left) shakes hands with actor Tom Cruise at a photo call in Tsim Sha Tsui in 2000.

Danny Lee (left) and Chow Yun-fat in a still from The Killer, a 1989 film directed by John Woo.

Woo in his office in 1993. Photo: SCMP

Woo on the set of Red Cliff, with actor Takeshi Kaneshiro.

How Ringo Lam crime thriller Full Alert mixed realistic action on Hong Kong streets with premonition of 1997 handover

Lau Ching-wan in a still from Full Alert.

Lau Ching-wan hunting down an escaped robber in the mean streets (Bird Street) of Mong Kok in Ringo Lam’s 1997 movie Full Alert.

Ringo Lam, pictured in 1995. Photo: SCMP

Lau Ching-wan (left) and Francis Ng in a still from Full Alert.

Amanda Lee (front) in a still from Full Alert. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Francis Ng in a still from Full Alert.

Ringo Lam in an interview with the Post in 1997. Photo: SCMP

Hong Kong’s first art-house film, Cecille Tong Shu-shuen’s The Arch, starring Crazy Rich Asians’ Lisa Lu Yan, was ahead of its time

Lisa Lu in a still from Cecille Tong Shu-shuen’s The Arch (1970), considered to be Hong Kong’s first art-house film.

Cecille Tong and members of her staff at Joss, the Chinese restaurant she runs on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Lisa Lu, who starred in The Arch and The Empress Dowager, poses with her daughter Lucia Hwong in 1978. Photo: SCMP

Lisa Lu in a still from The Arch.

Promotional stills for Sup Sap Bup Dup (1975), directed by Tong.

A scene from the 1974 film China Behind, directed by Tong.

How Bruce Lee’s Way of the Dragon made Chuck Norris a star with their fight in Rome’s Colosseum, and what the film showed about Lee’s directing

Bruce Lee in a still from The Way of the Dragon (1972). Photo: Criterion Collection

Bruce Lee in a still from The Way of the Dragon (1972), which he starred in and directed. Photo: Criterion Collection

Bruce Lee as Ah Lung (front) and Nora Miao as Chen Ching Hua in a still from The Way of the Dragon. Photo: Golden Harvest

Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee in a still from The Way of the Dragon. Photo: LCSD

Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in a still from The Way of the Dragon. Photo: Criterion Collection

Maggie Cheung in her own words, on Wong Kar-wai and In the Mood for Love, marrying Olivier Assayas and being an actress, not just a film star

Interview with award-winning actress Maggie Cheung Man-yuk at Grand Hyatt Hotel.

Maggie Cheung at an interview with the Post in 2001. Photo: SCMP.

Maggie Cheung (left) and Cherie Chung in a still from Prince Charming (1984).

Maggie Cheung (left) and Andy Lau in a still from As Tears Go By (1988).

Maggie Cheung in a still from the 1996 film Irma Vep.

Maggie Cheung (left) and Tony Leung in a still from In the Mood for Love (2000).

Peter Chan’s early films, featuring the two Tony Leungs and Maggie Cheung, were a breath of fresh air in Hong Kong

Anita Yuen (left) and Leslie Cheung in a still from He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (1994).

A promotional image of He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father (1993), starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai (first from right) and Tony Leung Ka-fai (second from right). Peter Chan Ho-sun’s early films “have an international, almost placeless feel” despite their local issues and references.

Film director Peter Chan Ho-sun in 1995. Photo: SCMP

Eric Tsang (left) and Leslie Cheung in a still from He’s a Woman, She’s a Man, the 1994 film directed by Peter Chan.

Fallen Angels: Wong Kar-wai on casting Leon Lai, Michele Reis, Charlie Yeung and Karen Mok against type in 1995 film

Michele Reis and Takeshi Kaneshiro in a still from Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels. Photo: Block 2 Pictures and Jet Tone Contents

Leon Lai in a still from Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels, the 1995 film that was almost part of Chungking Express.

Wong Kar-wai in front of a promotional poster for Fallen Angels in 1995. Photo: SCMP

Takeshi Kaneshiro in a still from Fallen Angels.

Leon Lai (left) and Michele Reis in a still from Fallen Angels.

Michele Reis in a still from Fallen Angels.

(Clockwise from top left) Charlie Yeung, Michele Reis, Leon Lai and Takeshi Kaneshiro in a still from Fallen Angels.

Leon Lai plays a hitman in a still from Fallen Angels.

How Running Out of Time, starring Andy Lau and Lau Ching-wan, helped shape the ‘Johnnie To Cinematic Universe’

Andy Lau in a still from Johnnie To’s Running Out of Time (1999).

Andy Lau, pictured with Helena Law at the 19th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2000, where he was named best actor for his role in Running Out of Time. Photo: SCMP

A still from The Mission (1999).

Lau Ching-wan (left) and Andy Lau in a still from Running Out of Time (1999).

Johnnie To in his Kwun Tong office in 1999. Photo: SCMP

Ekin Cheng in a still from Running Out of Time 2.

Likened to Hollywood hit Love Story, this film beat Jackie Chan, Jet Li at the Hong Kong box office in 1993

Anita Yuen (left) and Lau Ching-wan in a still from C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri.

Anita Yuen (left) and Lau Ching-wan in a still from C’est la Vie, Mon Cheri. It beat films starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li to become a box-office hit in 1993. Photo: courtesy of LCSD 

Film director Derek Yee Tung-sing giving a thank-you speech after being awarded the best director prize at the 13th Hong Kong Film Awards for his film, “C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri”. Photo: SCMP

Lau Ching-wan (left) and Anita Yuen in a still from C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri.

Winners at the 13th Hong Kong Film Awards pose for a group picture. From left in the first row are best supporting actor Paul Chun Pui, best actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang, best actress Anita Yuen Wing-yee, best supporting actress Fung Bo-bo and best director Derek Yee Tung-shing. With the exception of Wong, all the others worked on C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri. Photo: SCMP

Brigitte Lin’s first gender-neutral role, Sally Yeh’s butch Beijing Opera performer make Tsui Hark’s 1986 period comedy Peking Opera Blues highly enjoyable

Peking Opera Blues starring Brigitte Lin remains an enjoyable tale of espionage, Chinese opera and gender bending. Mark Cheng (left) and Brigitte Lin in a still from Peking Opera Blues. Photo: Peking Opera Blues

Playwright Raymond To Kwok-wai, pictured in 1994, was the screenwriter behind both Shanghai Blues and Peking Opera Blues. Photo: SCMP

Sally Yeh (left) in a still from Shanghai Blues, which was released two years before Peking Opera Blues. Photo: Hong Kong Film Archive

(From left) Brigitte Lin, Cherie Chung and Sally Yeh in a still from Peking Opera Blues. Photo: Peking Opera Blues

Tsui Hark, posing beside the poster for another of his movies, A Better Tomorrow III, in 1989. Photo: SCMP

Brigitte Lin (right) in a still from Peking Opera Blues. Photo: Peking Opera Blues

A change from Jackie Chan and Jet Li – Beast Cops’ Gordon Chan on how directing the Hong Kong gangs vs police film was not like his previous work

A still from Beast Cops. Photo: Handout

(From left) Sam Lee, Anthony Wong and Michael Wong in a still from Beast Cops, a Mong Kok-set gangs vs police action drama directed by Gordon Chan.

Best actress Sandra Ng Kwan-yu (left) and best actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang with their awards at the 18th annual Hong Kong Film Awards in 1999. Ng starred in Portland Street Blues and Wong in Beast Cops. Photo: SCMP

Jet Li in a still from Fist of Legend, the 1994 film directed by Gordon Chan.

Michael Wong (front) in a still from Beast Cops.

Directors Gordon Chan (left) and Dante Lam, pictured in 2006. Photo: SCMP

(From left) Anthony Wong, Kathy Chow and Michael Wong in a still from Beast Cops.

Anthony Wong in a still from Beast Cops.

Romance meets ghost story in Hong Kong movie masterpiece Rouge, starring Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung and directed by Stanley Kwan

Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung in a still from Rouge.

Leslie Cheung and Anita in a still from Rouge (1988), directed by Stanley Kwan, in which she plays a 1930s courtesan who returns 50 years later as a ghost seeking her lover, played by Cheung.

Anita Mui (centre) alongside Alex Man (left) and Elaine Chu in a still from Rouge.

Stanley Kwan in an interview with the Post in 1988. Photo: SCMP.

Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung in Rouge.

Made in Hong Kong, Fruit Chan’s take on grim reality of 1997 for many in the city, and how the groundbreaking independent film was conceived

Sam Lee in a still from Made in Hong Kong. Photo: Focus Films Limited

Sam Lee in a still from Made in Hong Kong, Fruit Chan’s 1997 film about the grim reality of life for many people in Hong Kong. Photo: Golden Scene

(From left) Wenders Li, Sam Lee and Neiky Yim in a still from Made in Hong Kong.

Fruit Chan (centre), winner of Best Director and Best Picture at the 3rd Golden Bauhinia Awards Ceremony, alongside actors Neiky Yim (left) and Sam Lee, in 1998. Photo: SCMP

Sam Lee and Neiky Yim in a still from Made in Hong Kong. Photo: Golden Scene

Sam Lee and Neiky Yim in Made in Hong Kong. Photo: Nicetop Independent

Why Boat People, starring Andy Lau and George Lam, Ann Hui’s hit film about post-war Vietnam, displeased the Chinese and French authorities

Andy Lau as To Minh in a still from Boat People (1982). Ann Hui intended the film to tell a human story that explained why refugees were fleeing Vietnam. Hong Kong film-goers saw it as an allegory of the city’s future under Chinese rule. Photo: Bluebird Film Company

George Lam (left) and Season Ma in a still from Boat People. Photo: Bluebird Film Company

Ann Hui won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 77th Venice Film Festival in 2020. Photo: Reuters

A still from Boat People showing Vietnamese military personnel in the streets.

Andy Lau as To Minh (left) and George Lam as Akutagawa in a still from Boat People.

Andy Lau as To Minh in a still from Boat People.

What they said about In the Mood For Love: director Wong Kar-wai and stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung on filming the romantic drama

Maggie Cheung in a still from In The Mood For Love. Photo: Jet Tone Films

Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Tony Leung Chiu-wai in a still from In the Mood for Love, directed by Wong Kar-wai. Photo: Jet Tone Films

Tony Leung (left), Maggie Cheung and director Wong Kar-wai during the promotion for In the Mood For Love in Cannes, in 2000. Photo: AFP/Jack Guez

Maggie Cheung in a still from In the Mood For Love. Photo: Jet Tone Films

Tony Leung in a still from In The Mood For Love. Photo: Jet Tone Films

Tony Leung (left) and Zhang Ziyi in a still from 2046. Photo: Block 2 Pictures and Jet Tone Contents

Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in a still from In the Mood For Love. Photo: Jet Tone Films

Jackie Chan focused on ‘real kung fu’ in Drunken Master II in reaction to shoddy ‘wire fu’ martial arts films of the early 90s

Jackie Chan in a still from Drunken Master II (1994). The movie focused heavily on real kung fu by real martial artists, as an antidote to the slew of shoddy ‘wire fu’ movies in the early 1990s.

Jackie Chan at an interview with the Post in 1994. Photo: SCMP

Jackie Chan in a still from Drunken Master (1978). Photo: Golden Harvest

Jackie Chan (left) on the set of Drunken Master II.

Jackie Chan (right) and Felix Wong in a still from Drunken Master II (1994).

Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle were not the films that made the Hong Kong comedian famous – so which ones did?

Stephen Chow as Trinket in a still from the film Royal Tramp.

Stephen Chow (left) and Ng Man-tat in a still from Royal Tramp. Critics called Chow 
 “the finest Hong Kong comedian of his generation” and “Hong Kong’s hottest actor” of the 1990s.

Stephen Chow at an interview with the Post in 1989. Photo: SCMP

Stephen Chow at a film shoot in 1989. Photo: SCMP

Ng Man-tat (left) and Stephen Chow in a still from All for the Winner.

Stephen Chow (left) and Anita Yuen in a still from From Beijing with Love.

Gong Li (left) and Stephen Chow pose for photographers to promote The Flirting Scholar in 1993. Photo: SCMP

Stephen Chow in a still from Shaolin Soccer.

‘I am not Jackie Chan or Chow Yun-fat’: Hong Kong actor Lau Ching-wan on why Hollywood doesn’t need him, bad guy roles, and The Godfather

Lau Ching-wan during an interview with the Post in 1996. Photo: SCMP

Lau Ching-wan during an interview with the Post in 1996. He reveals why he measures his English comprehension against The Godfather and why Hollywood does not need him. Photo: SCMP.

Leon Lai (left) and Lau Ching-wan in a still from A Hero Never Dies (1998).

Lau Ching-wan in a still from Full Alert (1997).

Lau Ching-wan (left) and Anita Yuen in a still from C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri (1993).

Lau Ching-wan in a still from Too Many Ways to be Number One.

Lau Ching-wan (third from left) in a still from Big Bullet (1996), directed by Benny Chan.

Lau Ching-wan in a still from Lifeline (1997).

Lau Ching-wan and his wife, Amy Kwok, pose for photographers on the red carpet of the 32nd Hong Kong Film Awards at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui in 2013. Photo: SCMP

What they said about The Killer: director John Woo and stars Chow Yun-fat and Sally Yeh on shooting the classic Hong Kong action movie

Chow Yun-fat and Danny Lee in a still from The Killer (1989), directed by John Woo.

Chow Yun-fat (right) as the hitman Ah Jong and Danny Lee as Detective Li Ying in a still from The Killer (1989), directed by John Woo.

Chow Yun-fat plays hitman Ah Jong in a still from The Killer.

John Woo in his Hong Kong office, pictured in 1993. Photo: SCMP.

Sally Yeh as Jennie the nightclub singer and Danny Lee as Detective Li Ying in a still from The Killer.

Chow Yun-fat (left) and Danny Lee in a still from The Killer.

Chow Yun-fat in a still from The Killer.

Hong Kong horror cinema, from kung fu ghost movies to adults-only shockers like the human flesh eaters of The Untold Story

A still from Mr Vampire (1985). Produced by Sammo Hung, the film about reanimated corpses spawned a series of sequels and imitators. Photo: Golden Harvest

A still from Encounter of the Spooky Kind (1980). The Sammo Hung film was one of the first Cantonese-language productions to successfully blend comedy, kung fu and Chinese superstition. Photo: Fortune Star Media

Why the kung fu in Circle of Iron, from an idea by Bruce Lee, would have left him unhappy

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Based on a script Lee abandoned, the 1978 film ended up a bizarre mix of poor martial arts and mysticism. An expert dissects what went wrong

Based on a script Lee abandoned, the 1978 film ended up a bizarre mix of poor martial arts and mysticism. An expert dissects what went wrong