Gordon Liu Chia-hui

The Discipline of the Hung Gar Style

Gordon Liu was not born with the name Gordon Liu. Xian Qixi, his real name, joined the Lau Cham martial arts school at the age of eight to learn a discipline that tolerated no mistakes. He was no ordinary student, because he was eventually adopted by the Lau family, which allowed him to train with Lau Kar-leung, the man who would transform choreography in Hong Kong.

Discipline was the only language allowed.

In his youth he balanced physical training with a clerical job at the port. But cinema came calling when his adoptive brother recruited him for the Shaw Brothers studio. At that time, the studio was looking for faces who could perform real movements without relying on camera tricks or excessive wires.

In 1978, he starred in The 36 Chambers of Shaolin under the direction of Lau Kar-leung. That role as San Te defined his career forever. The film avoided gratuitous fights to the death, focusing instead on the learning process and the physical suffering of training. It sold a philosophy of life that the West bought right away.

And the gamble paid off.

The film's success spawned two direct sequels in which Liu proved he could handle comedy. In Return to the 36 Chamber (1980), he played a con man who pretended to be a monk, reversing the roles of his earlier success. His time at Shaw Brothers ended with more than fifty titles to his name before the studio closed.

The Monk Who Conquered the West

In the late 1980s, Hong Kong martial arts cinema began to lose ground to the modern action films of John Woo. Gordon Liu turned to television, working for the broadcaster TVB. For more than a decade he appeared in period dramas and smaller productions that kept him busy but far from the international spotlight.

Tarantino wasn't looking for an actor but for a symbol.

In 2003, the American director called him to join Kill Bill: Volume 1. Liu accepted the challenge of playing Johnny Mo, the leader of the 88 Maniacs, hidden behind a black mask. It was a strategic decision that let him return to the front lines without having to speak fluent English on screen.

The big breakthrough came in 2004 with Kill Bill: Vol. 2. Tarantino cast him as Pai Mei, the legendary master with a white beard and impossible eyebrows. The character was a direct homage to the films of his youth, and Liu had to shoot his scenes wearing a wig that weighed several pounds, which made it hard to see during the fight scenes.

That comeback put him back on the circuit of international conventions and specialty festivals. In 2008 he took part in the Indian production Chandni Chowk to China, showing that his name still carried weight in Asian markets outside China. He kept training every day to maintain the flexibility his contracts demanded.

The Forced Silence

In August 2011, Liu's life came to an abrupt halt after he suffered a stroke. The stroke left him with paralysis on the right side of his body and took away his ability to speak clearly. His withdrawal from public life was immediate and painful due to the complications that followed.

His family life fell apart after his hospital stay. While the actor was trying to recover in a retirement home, a legal battle over his savings and properties began. His personal assistant and his own children clashed over control of the assets the actor had built up over four decades of work.

In 2013, actress Amy Fan became his legal guardian after seeing the state of neglect the performer was in. Thanks to her intervention, Liu was able to recover part of his estate and focus on a rehabilitation that, though slow, restored some of his mobility. Images of a visibly thin Liu in a wheelchair circulated in the Hong Kong press in 2014.

His last credited appearance in a long-running production was in the series Relic of an Emissary in 2011. Since then he has lived away from film studios and under constant medical care. In 2014, he finally recovered 150,000 euros of his savings after a favorable court ruling in Hong Kong.