In the wake of the US release of a certain faux exploitation magnum opus, various publications have run lists of the kind of cinematic guilty pleasures you need to recreate the grindhouse cinema experience. Chief among them has been the 1973 masterpiece Chinese Hercules, starring Mr Han’s right hand man, the beast from the east, the one and only… Bolo Yeung.

A former Mr Hong Kong bodybuilding champion (the size of one of the territory’s outlying islands, he held the title for ten years), Yeung was saved from bit parts in Shaw Brothers movies by Bruce Lee, who cast him as bad guy Shek Kin’s enforcer in Enter The Dragon. In terms of structure and devices, the film was evidently inspired by the James Bond flicks, and Yeung was its Oddjob character: Bolo. Yeung accepted that this was his defining role, adopted the name and has been Bolo Yeung thereafter.

I had first met Bolo when a magazine I was then working for dispatched me to Hong Kong to persuade him to appear at a karate tournament in the UK. In the end, I was stuck between the ‘muscle mad monster of the martial arts’, as the Chinese Hercules trailer describes him, and the publication’s owner, a particularly tight-fisted Northern Englsh businessman. No deal could be done, and I returned to the UK, sadly solo, without Bolo.

When I first came to Hong Kong and wanted to work in the local film industry, I was introduced to a charming young property magnate named Bernard Wong. I met Bernard through Australian martial arts actor Richard Norton. Bernard wants to do a film about Hong Kong 1997, he told me. He’s got the worst script I’ve ever seen. Maybe you can help. Having read the aforementioned screenplay, I had to agree with Richard. It was too bad to be saved by any rewrite. I returned it to Bernard, regretfully, telling him that nothing could be done. His face brightened. I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me that!, he exclaimed. Go and write me a new script. The only conditions are that it has to be a thriller about the Hong Kong Handover, and has to have great roles for my good friends Richard Norton… and Bolo Yeung.

I lived for six months on what Bernard (Saint Bernard, as I dubbed him) paid me to write the script. It never went anywhere, but he liked it enough to pay me some more to write a second one, Vagabond. I lived for a year on this. (The second screenplay had potential. I’d still like to do it one day). It wasn’t until I’d completed my first draft of Vagabond that I met Bolo again. We had an amicable meeting, but the project stalled when Bolo moved to LA, while I stayed to work in Hong Kong.

15 years or so passed, and I met Jalal Merhi, an independent action movie producer, at the American Film Market. Whatever happened to Bolo?, I asked him. Oh, he lives in Monterey Park, he told me. I’m seeing him tomorrow. I asked Jalal to give Bolo my best. After my return to Hong Kong, I received an unexpected ‘phone call: This is Bolo speaking. He then expressed his availability for any appropriate projects we might be developing at TWC. I heard you retired, I replied. Who told you that?, he snapped back, sounding like he planned to give them the same treatment those poor guards got in Enter The Dragon. I briefly contemplated giving him the name of one of my sworn foes, but considered the karmic implications and thought better of it.

A few months later, Bolo called again. When would I be in Beijing? As it happened, I was going the following week to meet the production team on John Woo’s Red Cliff and touch base with various other Chinese projects and companies. He suggested that we meet, as he was working with a Beijing-based producer to put together a Chinese Ong Bak-type project, a slam-bang martial arts actioner which he would both produce and co-star in. Fascinated, I set out for Beijing, and a third professional encounter with the man called Bolo…

The first and most striking impression of Bolo is that he no way looks 60 years old. Now, I know I was saying the exact same thing about Nancy Kwan a couple of columns ago, but, with all respect to Ms. Kwan, Bolo has a way better lat spread. His right forearm is the exact same size as the entire body of my assistant Victoria. I don’t normally relish a man taking his shirt off in my hotel room, but, having seen Mr. Yeung do so, I can attest that he is in the best shape of his life. He puts this down to superior diet, supplements and training equipment available to him since he relocated from Hong Kong to LA. There, he trained, and train alongside, his son David, who is now a bodybuilding champion in his own right.

Bolo outlined for me his plans for a Chinese ‘Ong Bak’, and it sounds like a real deal Dragon Dynasty title. It was also a pleasure to chat about his storied past. Since we first met, Yeung learned English and I learned Cantonese, so communications are much improved. Bolo has seen several generations of martial arts icons come and go. He appeared in the first film of Shaw Brothers idol David Chiang, in Bruce Lee’s only international film, in Van Damme’s breakout movie Bloodsport… My dinner with Bolo allows for some fascinating insights into my favourite film genre.

Yeung seems happy with the fact that everyone wants to know about Bruce Lee. He describes for me in detail each of the challenge matches that Lee fought in Hong Kong, all of which he won, though asks that I not reveal the names of the respective opponents. Before one match, Lee hurried home, saying he had forgotten something. Later, after dispatching his opponent with a kick to the head, he revealed that it was his cheque book. With commendable optimism and attention to detail, Lee wanted to be prepared to pay for his challenger’s medical bills.

When former James Bond George Lazenby came to visit Lee in Hong Kong, Lee took him to lunch with producer Raymond Chow, actress Betty Ting Pei and Bolo. (Lazenby also remembers this occasion.) At the start of the meal, Bruce made an announcement: As Yeung Sze (Bolo) does not speak English, we will speak Cantonese. He then pointed from Raymond to Lazenby. You translate for him.

When rain stopped play on the set of Enter The Dragon, Lee invited Bolo and Shek Kin to take tea at his home in Kowloon Tong. As was his wont, Lee produced an American football kicking shield, asked Shek to hold it, and then proceeded to kick the older man over the sofa. Our conversations reveal some of the sharper edges of Lee’s persona. On another occasion, he chastises his friend Robert Chan, an avid bodybuilder, because Bolo lifts more weight than him (hardly surprising, given the fact he was Mr Hong Kong).

He reveals that Lee’s multi-gym was donated to a Hong Kong school, and later shipped to Bruce Lee uber-fan John Little in the US. However, Bolo retains the barbell Lee kept in his Golden Harvest office, along with a rare business card from Lee’s Hong Kong production company, Concord.

I ask him about the Bruce Lee look-alikes who abounded after the passing of the real thing. Each had to pass a rite of passage before they could claim to be a true clone of the dragon: wear a yellow tracksuit, spin a nunchaku, fight Bolo Yeung. Who was the best of them? Bolo grimaces. None, he mutters. They were all terrible. After that fad faded, Yeung finally got to develop his own style, fighting with remarkable grace, for such a big man, in such films as 10 Magnificent Killers, Fists, Kicks And Evils (his own favourite from this era) and Writing Kung Fu (which he also directed). His martial art of choice is Tai Chi, and he reflects the fluidity of this art in the best of his screen fights.

Wherever we go in Beijing, locals recognize Bolo, mainly from Enter The Dragon. (It seems his subsequent films have had limited distribution here.) They are amazed to see him walking among them. A few years ago, he gave a bodybuilding seminar in China, and is now being asked to endorse a chain of gyms. I accompany him to a Chinese TV interview where he elaborates on his secrets for health and longevity. The lady hostess asks me about my own fitness regimen (ha!). Despite his stern demeanour, Yeung has a wry sense of humour. Do some kung fu, he urges me, a twinkle in his eye. All the girls in China will love you!

Bolo had an early shot at the US market when he was cast in the straight to video Shootfighter films. I observe that they would have worked better if he’d been allowed to show the kind of moves he displayed in the best of his Hong Kong films. The fights in his American movies tended to recycle the moves of his character in Bloodsport and Double Impact. He agrees, and tells me that this is what he plans for his new project, though with himself as the mentor character, and the lead being played by the ‘Chinese Tony Jaa’. I can imagine him finding his rising star, looking him in the eye and delivering his immortal line from Bloodsport: You are next…