Shoving a mechanic into a locker, Sammo again asks him about Lee Hei, and learns that Lee Hei has gone to Los Angeles, California. In response, the men attack Sammo, who soundly defeats them with incredible martial arts skills. Sammo asks the lead mechanic about the whereabouts of a gangster named Lee Hei. The man's name is Sammo Law, and he is a captain in the Shanghai police. In the city of Shanghai, China, a rather portly man in plain clothing enters a garage where mechanics are working on cars. "Chinese detective Sammo Law arrives in Los Angeles to find a missing colleague, and teams up with two local cops in pursuit of an international mobster." on CBS, beginning this week."Shanghai Express" is the first episode of the short-lived show Martial Law. “Martial Law” will air Saturdays at 9 p.m. Indeed, it was Hung who suggested that when his partners first meet him and ask what he wants to drink-coffee, tea?-he replies emphatically: “Diet Coke.” While jokes are made in “Martial Law” of Law’s girth, the likelihood is that you won’t laugh at him but rather root for him. I sit in the cinema, and the audience, they clap their hands-oh, my heart is very happy.” “This is a team job,” Hung says of his colleagues on “Martial Law.” “Actually the one thing I really hope is that the audience-they like it. So Cuse had to do “a crash 36-hour rewrite to tailor it to Sammo,” who “didn’t exactly look like Tom Selleck.” Still, there was “something very appealing in the idea of someone who looked more like the common man possessed all these incredible skills.” Tong revealed that Chan was first choice, but he declined because he felt he couldn’t work as quickly on executing martial-arts moves as TV production demands. But Hung was not the lead they had in mind. Within 24 hours, executive producer Carlton Cuse, creator of “Nash Bridges,” said he was asked to write a pilot script. “He liked the tone,” said Tong, one of the series’ three executive producers. In March, with other networks making pilots on martial arts themes-none got picked up-CBS Television President Les Moonves met with director Stanley Tong, who made three hit movies with Chan. The series arose about as fast as a good karate chop. Nice Guy,” done in English, directing Jackie Chan.īi-continental, with homes in Hong Kong, New Jersey and Los Angeles, Hung had intended to focus on directing-until “Martial Law” beckoned. “Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind” (1981), which Hung directed and starred in, established his reputation as a master of horror kung-fu comedy. He fought opposite Bruce Lee at the start of “Enter the Dragon” (1973). In the 30 years since, Hung made his own mark with 140 movies, going “one step, one step, one step” from stuntman to stunt choreographer, actor, leading man, director. “Everything open, my nose and my mouth.” He points to his eye, then his neck, and shakes his head. His face bears a deep scar, running from the side of his nose to the top of his lip, the result of being slashed with a cracked soda bottle in a street fight with what he said were “gangsters” when he was 16. Whatever I do-action, acting-I do my best.” I don’t care about, ‘Am I fat? Am I ugly?’. I actually just care about what I’m doing-my voice and my character. The emotions on his face tell all.Īs for being an unlikely leading man, Hung smiles: “I never think about my face. In an early scene in the first episode, he’s sitting on his suitcase at LAX, waiting to be picked up, then realizes no one is showing up. With a wide array of jumps, kicks, somersaults and dives through car windows, plus the ability and acuity to use handy objects such as a chalk-filled eraser, a garbage can or a hospital gurney to overcome opponents, Hung certainly grabs attention. To his new partners (played by Tammy Lauren and Louis Mandylor), Law is described as “the top cop in a country of 1.2 billion people senior training officer for all of China in hand-to-hand combat and martial arts.” to catch the leader of an international car-theft ring and find Law’s young protege, Chen Pei Pei (Kelly Hu), who had gone undercover. On “Martial Law,” billed as a “comedy action-drama,” Law (a common Chinese surname), who is from from Shanghai, joins forces with the Los Angeles Police Dept. And yet there is something about Hung, as he makes this transition from Asian superstar to American TV actor that is, as a police officer says of his character Sammo Law, “pretty damn impressive.” Hung has charisma.
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