Lau Family Hung Gar

Lau Kar-Leung was born in 1937 in Guangdong province, China, and was a master of the traditional southern Chinese martial arts system of Hung Gar (洪家; Hóngjiā, Hong Family). The Lau family is well-known for their lineage of Hung Gar. His lineage of Hung Gar directly descends from the famous Wong Fei-hung, as he trained under his father Lau Jaam, who was a student of Lam Sai-wing, who in turn was a student of Wong Fei-hung. He is best known as the director and actor of many classic kung fu movies. In some of his films, he is sometimes credited as “Liu Chia-Liang”, a Romanization of his name in Mandarin, “Liú Jiāliáng” (刘家良). At the beginning of his career, Lau Kar-Leung started out as an extra. He would later earn his fame and recognition as a fight choreographer and director for the aforementioned classic kung fu movies produced by the famous film production company Shaw Brothers. These are the kinds of movies that embodied the chop-socky, anti-Qing themed, and hilariously bad dubbing stereotypes of kung fu movies. However, such films held a certain charm to them from a retrospective standpoint, in the same way, many people look at other old classic films from decades past, and a memorable quality due to their authentic Chinese martial arts content. Such examples of his work include Challenge of the Masters, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (also known as Master Killer or Shaolin Master Killer) starring Gordon Liu, and Drunken Master II starring Jackie Chan. Any true martial arts and kung fu movie fans and enthusiasts would know this man as a magnate of kung fu movies and Hong Kong cinema. The summation of this solidifies Lau Kar-Leung as a master and contributor of Chinese martial arts.