Johnny Wang Lung-wai, born in 1949 with family roots in Shandong, was a Hong Kong martial artist, actor, action director and occasional director and writer active from the 1970s to the 1990s. He trained in martial arts as a child but had little interest in school, changed schools repeatedly and was expelled after a fight shortly before graduating. He worked briefly in an office, found the routine unbearable and became a professional guitarist, marrying and having a daughter and a son in that period. In his mid-twenties he quit the band and was taken on by the director Chang Cheh, making his screen debut in 1974 as the traitor Ma Fu Yi in Five Shaolin Masters; he became a lifelong friend of the fellow newcomer Bryan Leung. Between 1974 and 1981 he appeared in more than a dozen of Chang Cheh's films, then signed with Shaw Brothers as an action actor, working mostly on Chang Cheh's and Lau Kar-leung's pictures as a villain, often the mortal enemy of Alexander Fu Sheng's characters, and later turning to action choreography. He appeared in more than eighty films at Shaw Brothers, mostly kung fu and martial-arts pictures, including Chang's Two Champions of Shaolin (1978). In 1985 Mona Fong promoted him to director; when the writer of his debut, San Dung Whang Yan, died, he took on directing, writing, choreography and acting himself. He directed several more films, among them Hong Kong Godfather, before leaving the industry around 2009. He had trained in Hung Gar, karate to third dan, muay thai and western boxing.
Wang was a familiar villain in Shaw Brothers kung fu films of the 1970s and 80s, appearing in more than eighty martial-arts pictures; on San Dung Whang Yan and later films he doubled as director, writer and action choreographer, an example of the studio system's path from performer to director. His grounding in Hung Gar and karate shaped his screen fights.
Achievements
- 1974 · Made his screen debut in 1974 as the traitor Ma Fu Yi in Chang Cheh's Five Shaolin Masters.
- 1979 · Appeared in Chang Cheh's Life Gamble in 1979.
- 1985 · Made his directorial debut with San Dung Whang Yan in 1985, also writing, choreographing and acting in it.