Seven Little Fortunes (七小福)

[GeneChing]

We have plenty of threads on Jackie & Sammo, plus a several that mention other members plus the New Seven, but none solely devoted to the original troupe. We are very proud to publish this exclusive story on the the Seven Little Fortunes, the troupe that shaped action cinema as we now know it. Here are the roots of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo-Ping, Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen and many other pioneers in Kung Fu films.

This article is in conjunction with Battle for Harmony: A Visit to the Jackie Chan Film Gallery by Emilio Alpanseque in our SEP+OCT 2016 issue.

Read Painted Faces: A Tribute to the Old "Seven Little Fortunes" by Emilio Alpanseque.

[wolfen]

Good Article and interesting photos. I saw the film about the Seven Little Fortunes when it first came out and just took another look at it. Yu Jim-Yuen didn't pass away til 1997 sometime after the handover.

Wikipedia Entry

Painted Faces is a 1988 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Alex Law and starring Sammo Hung as his mentor, Master Yu Jim-yuen, of the China Drama Academy. For his portrayal as Master Yu, Hung won his second Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor at the 8th Hong Kong Film Awards. The film was selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

There is a good review of the film on Brian Camp's Film and Anime Blog

I found it disconcerting to watch Sammo Hung using a switch to whip the rear end of the boy playing Sammo as a child. He’s beating himself! I wish an older, leaner, more gruff actor had played Master Yu. (Lau Kar Leung maybe?) As good as Sammo is, I have a hard time accepting him in the role. On a similar note, the actor who plays Jackie Chan as a nine-year-old is way too old and tall for the role. He doesn’t look much younger than the actor who plays him as a teenager. However, the actor who plays Sammo as a teenager looks remarkably like him. And Master Yu beats him, too, after he allowed Jackie to go on a date and not get back in time for the next show. This prompts Sammo to run away from the school. Yuen Biao’s character is somewhat overshadowed by the others, kind of reflecting his fate in real life, despite being just as good as his partners. If the other famous members of the troupe, e.g. Corey Yuen, Yuen Wah and Yuen Tak, are represented in the film, they were never identified in the subtitles, as far as I could tell. The actors who play Jackie and Yuen Biao as teens don’t look enough like them, although the one who plays Jackie moves well and has good screen presence.

So Sammo Hung plays the master beating himself and twice from two different ages. A little weird but, well, who would remember it better?

Fortune Favors the Naughty
(Interesting quote)
When asked about his most famous pupil, Master Yu Jim Yuen said that Jackie was "not one of the best, but the naughtiest, yes."

And the film is on youtube from an old VCD , been there for quite a few years and is apparently out-of print (not available for sale). For those interested I would grab it with a downloader while it is still there.

[Jimbo]

I saw it in Taiwan when it was originally released. Pretty good film. I get the impression there was a LOT that was left out of the movie that I would have liked to have seen portrayed.

I remember at the end of the movie at the theater, there was some extra footage included of a then-recent birthday celebration with all the students visiting Master Yu in L.A. It is amazing how many of the KF stars and stuntmen came out of the HK opera school system.

In Taipei, on a couple of occasions in the '80s, I recall seeing a group of young Peking (Beijing) Opera performers being led through some acrobatic training in a park near the kids' playground. They were probably from either the Fu Hsing or Lu Kuang Peking Opera schools in/near Taipei. Those two opera schools also produced many of the famous old-school KF movie stars/performers, including:

Angela Mao Ying
Chia Ling
Robert Tai
Kuo Chui (a.k.a., Philip Kwok)
Chiang Sheng
Lu Feng
Hsia Kuang-Li
Peng Kang
Jack Long
William Yen
Chu Ko
Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi
James Tien
Chang Yi
Li Yi-Min
Li Hsiao-Hua (a.k.a., Li Hai-Shing)
Wang Chi-Sheng
Chia Kai
Sun Jung-Chi
Chin Lung
Yu Tai-Ping
Wang Tai-Lang
And many others...

[GeneChing]

Jul 16, 2021 6:21am PT
Sammo Hung to Head Retelling of Hong Kong’s ‘Seven Little Fortunes’

By Vivienne Chow

Yuen Biao Films Production
Action star Sammo Hung will take the helm of the production of “Seven Little Fortunes,” a feature film re-telling Hung’s childhood story where he and a generation of Hong Kong action movie icons such as Jackie Chan were coached by their mentor, Peking opera master Yu Jim-yuen.

Co-produced by Yuen Biao Films Production, Beijing Renxing Film Media Culture and Quanton Times Pictures, Hung will be the chief director of the film penned by Raymond To (“I Have A Date With Spring”). Yuen Biao, who also trained under master Yu, will executive produce the project.

Starring Tony Leung Ka-fai (“The Taking of Tiger Mountain,” “Cold War”) the film is expected to have a production budget of RMB50-100 million ($7.7 -$15.5 million). Shooting is expected to start in March 2022. International sales have not yet been determined.

Known as a strict teacher, Yu was the master of the China Drama Academy, a Peking opera school in Hong Kong in the 1960s that was famous for producing some of Hong Kong’s top performers including Chan, Hung, Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah (“Kung Fu Hustle,” “Australia”) and action choreographer Corey Yuen (“X-Men,” “The Expendables”).

“Seven Little Fortunes” was initially a name for one of the Peking opera performances featuring seven of Yu’s students, but which was later expanded to include all of Yu’s students. During its peak Yu had a total of more than 70 students, who were taught acrobatic and acting skills. Director and action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping (“Matrix,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and actress Yuen Qiu (“Kung Fu Hustle”) were also among Yu’s students.

The story of Yu and “Seven Little Fortunes” has been featured on the big screen previously, in 1998 drama “Painted Faces,” and in one of the short films directed Hung that featured in 2021 anthology film “Septet: The Story of Hong Kong.”

But the latest reincarnation is a different story, according to Yuen. “It’s not a remake of [“Painted Faces”]. It is a story about us, Seven Little Fortunes, our master and his relationship with us, told from our perspective,” Yuen told Variety.

Xiang Jie, a key investor of the film, said the project has taken years to prepare and the film will feature a young mainland Chinese cast to play the young version of the iconic action stars.

Yuen Was is in Shang-Chi.