1983 version Legend of the Condor Heroes Cast Reunion (中国梦想秀--83版射鵰英雄傳重聚) – PART 3

.>> The next segment was a bit of a break in the show (though they did try to correlate it back to the event at hand). Apparently, there was supposed to be another host of the show (a male host named Wah Shao), however he had gotten hurt prior to the start of the show, so he pretty much wasn’t there for the first half. Well, in the next segment, some video clips were played that showed what had happened to Wah Shao….

Ok, I will admit that I skipped some parts of the video because I really wasn’t too interested in watching how the host helps a guy realize his dreams of being a kung fu star (or something like that). So pretty much all I have to say about this part is that the host invites Mr. Liu to perform a kung fu segment on the reunion show – the “cool” part was that they also invited famous choreographer / director Ching Siu Dong to choreograph and oversee the entire segment (wow, for kungfu fanatics, that is definitely an honor – plus he was the martial arts choreographer for the entire LOTCH series back in the 80s).

.>> After the video segment came the actual kung fu performance (meant to help Mr. Liu realize his dream) – the kung fu segment was choreographed to one of the subtheme songs from LOTCH. Didn’t really watch the performance so can’t comment on it, but it was very nice of the organizers to do that for a complete stranger! I also thought it was great how they gave Mr. Liu a surprise by inviting Ching Siu Dong and Wah Shao (the other host who was supposedly hurt and so couldn’t come on the show) to come on stage and comment on his performance.

.>> Ok, back to the main event. So the next segment started off with both hosts talking to Ching Siu Dong about his memories of choreographing the series.

.>> Ching Siu Dong recounted how he actually hadn’t seen some of the cast for many years, so when they first saw each other again backstage, they were all taking pictures. The hosts then asked him which of the cast members made a lasting impression on him.

His response:

.—Patrick was already a big movie star and drove nice cars and was good looking, so Siu Dong looked up to him as an idol.

.—Paul Gor is a good friend and they actually flew to Hangzhou (where the show was filmed) together from Beijing on the same plane, yet Ching Siu Dong couldn’t recognize him because of his beard. He said that Paul Gor had walked by several times on the plane and he was thinking to himself how cool that person looked and how he didn’t have a bulging belly like he himself did (haha – not! Siu Dong is very fit actually).

.—Chan On Ying will always be a ‘little girl’ to him because of the character she played in LOTCH. On Ying recounted how there was a scene where she did some really good kungfu moves, but Siu Dong told her that ‘good’ doesn’t fit the character of Sor Gu – her moves need to have an element of 傻 in it in order to be convincing.

.—Ching Siu Dong said that the most ‘difficult’ person to work with was Chun Wong – because with his physique, it was difficult for him to fit into costume and choreograph appropriate moves. In some scenes, Siu Dong had to have the martial arts stuntmen do the moves for him. But, Siu Dong praised Chun Wong, saying that he did an excellent job in the series based on his own acting talent, not based on his kungfu moves (so true!).

.—Wong Wan Choi had that cool paper fan weapon thing where as soon as he opened the fan and flicked it at people, they were supposed to fall on the floor – made him look cool and handsome (hehe!).

.—Ching Siu Dong also praised Andy saying that him and all the other actors fought ‘handsomely’ (meaning they still looked good while doing the moves and looked very natural). Andy stood up and told Siu Dong how much they enjoyed working with him because he treated them all so well – Andy expressed how as a newbie at that time, he felt a lot of pressure working with such a famous choreographer, but he actually had nothing to worry about, since Siu Dong was so great to work with. Also, Ching Siu Dong was very understanding of the artists and knew that they weren’t professional martial arts experts, so if there were certain kung fu moves they weren’t able to do, he would tell them as long as they put in the effort, don’t worry about it, as he could have the stuntmen help out – he had high standards, but didn’t force the artists to overexert themselves if he knew they wouldn’t be able to do it.

.>> Siu Dong recounted that all the artists were very professional and they had a lot of fun working together – the whole thing was a group effort and everyone wanted to do a good job, so they were willing to try different things and didn’t worry much about certain moves being dangerous or not. They all worked hard and put in a lot of effort – and they only used stunt doubles when they truly had to…

.>> The host mentioned one memory he had of a scene where Patrick Tse’s character was singing Chinese opera and next thing you knew, he turned around and stuck his spear into one of the soldiers, played by none other than Stephen Chow (an extra at that time). The way Patrick did that move was so cool (“shuai dai le”) according to the host (haha…the recounting of that story was a great comedic moment in the show!)

.>> That segment ended with some guy who comes out and does some dance moves (no clue what that was about or what the correlation was, but oh well….)

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To be continued…