Pilgrimages to Queens Restaurant to Honor Lady Kung Fu
By ALEX VADUKULJAN. 24, 2017
Angela Mao in Bayside, Queens, last fall. Credit An Rong Xu for The New York Times
The tale of Angela Mao, from worldwide fame to quiet anonymity, is a kind of quintessential New York story. In the 1970s, she was Lady Kung Fu, possibly the most famous martial arts actress of her time, positioned by Hong Kong studios as a female Bruce Lee. She vanished a decade later only to recently resurface in Queens where she is running Taiwanese restaurants.
A New York Times article in November found Ms. Mao, now 66, living quietly in the borough with her family, and with almost no hint of her glamorous past. And it was quite remarkable: Quentin Tarantino has cited her as an influence; she was in “Enter the Dragon”; a teenage Jackie Chan appeared in her early films; and she has been hailed as an unsung feminist icon.
But for more than 30 years, only faint rumors circulated about her life in New York. In that interview, Ms. Mao was baffled to learn that people still had any interest in her at all and was also indifferent toward her legacy. But since then, the oldest of her three restaurants, Nan Bei Ho, has become something of a bucket-list destination for kung-fu fans.
“They come every weekend,” Ms. Mao’s son, George King, said recently. “They arrive the minute we open and they sit there until my mom gets there. Some guy even flew in from L.A.”
Autograph requests and fan mail from around the world have arrived at the restaurant, Mr. King said, and his mother is finally acknowledging her past by allowing some memorabilia from her acting days to hang in one of her restaurants, Guo Ba Inc in Bayside.
“All these years later, she didn’t realize she still had a fan base,” he said. “She’s not used to the attention, but she’s thrilled.”
Ms. Mao with Ji Han-Jae, a Korean martial artist who taught her as a young woman and appeared alongside her in the film “Hapkido.” Credit Vincent Lyn
Late last year, one fan took it upon himself to reunite Ms. Mao with Ji Han-Jae, a revered Korean martial artist who taught her as a young woman and appeared alongside her in the film “Hapkido.” Mr. Ji, 80, has been living in New Jersey since the mid-1990s. The intrepid fan looking to bring the two together, Hector Martinez, 55, is an avid collector of Bruce Lee memorabilia.
“He’s old and frail, but when I told him about the restaurant he just lit up,” recalled Mr. Martinez, who is the director of fire safety for a building in Midtown Manhattan. “He said: ‘I must go see Angela. It is very important.’”
Mr. Martinez contacted Ms. Mao, he said, and she reacted similarly. “I decided they had to come together.”
Mr. Han-Jae wore a suit and arrived at the restaurant with flowers. Ms. Mao offered him a Taiwanese feast. And according to Mr. Martinez, her famously cool indifference seemed to fall away.
“They were hugging and kissing and reliving memories from the ’70s,” he said. “She was tearing up. She told me, ‘I would have never become Angela Mao if it were not for this man.’”
But for Mr. Martinez, simply seeing Ms. Mao in person was satisfying.
“When I first went to the restaurant, she was behind the counter serving some food,” he said. “You’d think she’d be sitting on a throne or something but there I was: face-to-face with Lady Kung Fu.”
“She just smiled,” he said. “She knew that I knew who she was.”
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