Beyond Our Ken: Toe to toe with Ken Lo

Like most fans of martial arts action cinema, I first became aware of Ken Lo (AKA Lo Wai-kong) due to his final reel duel with Jackie Chan in Drunken Master 2. In this fight, Lo displays his legendary 180 degree kick amid a display of boot work that harks back to the glory days of Korean bad guys Wong Jang Lee and Hwang In-shik. I actually met him on the set of that film. Back in the day, you could pretty much walk onto the Golden Harvest back lot unhindered and watch them shoot, and I used to do just that.

I learned that, besides being an actor, Ken was also a key member of Jackie Chan’s team, serving as the Chan man’s personal trainer and bodyguard. He’s a constant presence in Jackie’s films, including Police Story 3 AKA Supercop, which is being prepared, as we speak, for a re-release on my Dragon Dynasty label. It was a great pleasure to catch up with Ken to record his reminiscences about this film, and about his work on a another forthcoming DD title, the Jet Li action classic My Father Is A Hero.

After our initial meeting on the Drunken Master 2 set, I got to work with Ken on my first kung fu movie (as an actor!). In this lost classic, Circus Kids, I play a vicious drug dealing white guy (is there any other kind in Hong Kong actioners?) and Lo is my bodyguard. In the final reel, I go fist to toe with Donnie Yen and Ken goes foot to face with Yuen Biao. The shoot entailed us being marooned in the Chinese coastal town of Shanwei for weeks at a time. You get to know your co-workers pretty well on a film like Circus Kids, and I came away from the experience knowing that Ken was as sweet a guy in reality as he was a bad ass on-screen.

On evening, I was relaxing in my hotel room when I got what sounded like an urgent call from Ken. Fearing the worst, I rushed to his room. Had he 180 degreed an overzealous fan and needed help hiding the body? As it turned out, he was on the ‘phone (kind of) with an American girlfriend. She spoke no Chinese and he spoke very little English, so I guess his body language must have been very convincing... I ended up doing my best Cyrano for them, “he says you’re so cute, she says she misses you etc…” During this shoot, by the way, I endeavored to learn more Cantonese and Ken to learn more English. I’m not saying which one of us came out ahead…

Ken was a constant and welcome presence when we were making the documentaries Jackie Chan: My Story and Jackie Chan: My Stunts. I’m especially proud of the latter; a lot of American stuntmen have told me that this docu became a bible for them, in terms of offering insight into the Jackie Chan method of screen action. I got to observe the bond between Jackie and Ken. They are genuinely like brothers (with Jackie, of course, being ‘dai gor’!).

I remember running into Ken in Hung Hom, when my eldest son, Ryan, was about three. He painstakingly gave my then-wife and I directions to a near-by kid’s playground we would otherwise never have found. Ryan, who has somehow mysteriously become eleven years old, came along for our video interview, and badgered the good-natured Ken with questions. ‘Who is the tallest man you ever kicked in the head?’ On-camera, Ken offered some great insights into the respective challenges of shooting Supercop and My Father Is A Hero, and provided a unique perspective on the contrast between the two great kung fu heroes Jackie Chan and Jet Li. 

Given his varied and memorable contribution to the industry, I was happy we got to record Ken’s experiences for the Supercop and My Father Is A Hero DVDs. It’s one more unsung hero we get to give his due!