It’s a rainy Wednesday evening when we finally met Billy Wong in the byzantine suburbs bordering Dehiwala. A happy man in a black Adidas tracksuit greets us with a wave and takes us three storeys up a narrow spiral staircase to his studio apartment. “Is this part of your Kung Fu training?” we ask and he heartily replies, “yes”. We only wish someone rang a gong when he threw open the doors to a home hung with Chinese tapestries, stocked wall-to-wall with nunchucks, swords and spears.
International Kung Fu
Star Billy Wong
Billy Wong (Chinese – Wong Pee Li) is more than what meets the eye. He is known to audiences as “International Kung Fu Star – Billy Wong”. The man’s career spans four decades; making movies in Chennai, Colombo, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Hong Kong. In Sri Lanka, he has worked with silver screen greats such as Vijaya Kumaratunga and has trained local stunt veterans such as Alexander Fernando. “Sri Lanka is my second home,” Wong says with a smile while serving Thai coffee.
He first explains why he likes the “International” moniker. “My inspiration, Bruce Lee was born in the United States, but he was Chinese. When he became famous, he chose to be called an international star rather than American or Chinese.
Wedded life
Wong met his wife Nipa several years ago while shooting films in Thailand. “She has been such a positive impact on my life,” he says while showing their wedding pictures. Nipa is also a martial artist like Billy and he says how she changed his whole outlook on life. At first, my opinion on marriage is that it was a dull meal with a delicious dessert at the beginning, he says quoting a previous interview.
He also says how Nipa came to him during his hour of need after a near fatal accident in Malaysia back in 2017. “I was doing a stunt for this movie and I was supposed to jump from a high place. The safety guy who was supposed to push the mattress under me to break the fall was busy on his phone and didn’t place it the right way and I ended up fracturing my knee. Nipa came to me at my bedside and she was a huge strength”.
A local newspaper lauds Wong for winning the MGR award
Wong shows us a photo where he and Nipa are facing off each other in a Kung Fu pose wearing Adidas tracksuits; Wong with white stripes on black and Nipa wearing black stripes on black. We ask him if this is supposed to be Ying and Yang – a symbol in Taoism representing the opposing but interconnected masculine and feminine forces and he said this is exactly why Nipa is so special to him. “We are both Kung Fu practitioners, and Kung Fu owes so much to Taoist principals”.
“Cine” Kung Fu vs regular Kung Fu
Nipa and Wong are planning on establishing a Cine Kung Fu school in Sri Lanka and we asked more about this. Wong explains that Kung Fu stars are not born in a daochang (Kung Fu school), but are moulded in the rigour of Chinese opera school. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeouh and Wong all had their start in Chinese Opera. “Kung Fu theatre is about fighting pretty. There is difference between Kung Fu star and Kung Fu master.
Cine Kung Fu or “Cinema Kung Fu” has its origins in Chinese Opera. If real Kung Fu is brought to the screen, the fight can be finished in one punch. Similarly, audiences will forget the name of the Kung Fu master who breaks hundred bricks. It’s the flashy Kung Fu stars that you take back home in your hearts after the show.” There are so many Kung Fu schools in Sri Lanka, but there is none that produces Kung Fu stars and stuntmen, he said.
In Opera school, it is said, performers need to reach the three realms of ‘being accurate’, ‘being beautiful’, and ‘having a lingering charm’. What is being accurate? A performer needs to learn basic skills every minute, every moment over and over again until his movements, postures, eye expression and body language are judged to meet the required accuracy, in another word finding his individuality.
Family at the wedding
An actor who doesn’t have ‘individuality’ is not regarded as a good one. ‘What is being beautiful?’ This refers to a performer, armed with a fine artistic perception, being able to portray the personalities of characters accurately. This requires a performer to have artistic skills and creativity. The third realm is that performance should have a “lingering charm.” What is charm, which is invisible. But audiences savour its aftertaste long after the stars have left the theatre. This also applies to recitation, postures, dance movements and acrobatic fighting.
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow
Wong relates the importance of Cine Kung Fu using an anecdote. Golden Harvest Studio was making this new movie Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow which was story of a battle between the snake style school of Kung Fu versus the eagle style. “They wanted to keep it authentic and brought an actual master of snake style to the studio.
Even though the man was excellent in his form, he was virtually expression-less. The director took a break and one of the camera guys saw a cat in the studio playing with a prop snake and was making jokes about “cat-style” Kung Fu. Jackie got an idea and asked for a re-shoot instead of the old master. Jackie incorporated the snake and this new “cat-style” with flair and this made into the final cut,” Wong said.
Philosophy
Billy Wong and wife Nipa
Wong majored in Chinese philosophy at the Confucius Institute in Hong Kong when he was young, a passion he continues to nurture today. His book rack is filled with titles such as the Tao Te Ching, the Analects and Art of War.
He described his personal philosophy. “I always have a personal obligation to be the best at whatever I do and express myself in the highest degree. Ever since I was a child, the word ‘quality’ had meant a great deal to me. The greatest satisfaction in life is to hear another unbiased human being say ‘hey, here is someone real. Moreover, I spend my time lifting people up, not putting them down.
Regarding the demands of being a stuntman, Wong said that the job is demanding on and off-screen. “If you’re not in good shape, you’re not going to make it. The moment you meet a prospective client, they are going to judge you by what they see or feel.”
