Sunday, February 23, 2014

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - The Seven Little Fortunes

One of the I Spy episodes seems to have gained a cult following due to it featuring early on-screen appearances by some of those who went on to become the HK film industry heavyweights (an apt description for at least one of them as we shall soon see).

The episode is No Exchange on Damaged Merchandise and features scenes from a festival that as far as I can tell was one of the Annual Tin Hau festival performances put on in Pat Heung (i.e. 8 villages) area near to Yuen Long. There on display is a small troupe of children performing some acrobatics for the camera. here are the grabs.


Now the hard job of identifying them all. They were known as the 7 Little Fortunes (七小福 - Chat Siu Fuk) and all had stage names of course with the surname Yuen (元) Yuen Long was Sammo Hung, Yuen Lou was Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao was...er...Yuen Biao, Yuen Kwai was Corey Yuen. Yuen Wah also, like Yuen Biao, kept his original stage name. There was also Yuen Tak and Yuen Mo and several more as the group expanded, I suspect. I don't really know enough to identify the latter two but here is my attempt at identifying them in the above pictures. Taking the last picture above we can see Sammo Hung on the left, followed by Jackie Chan. I think it is Yuen Wah with the panda-striped face (in the other pictures). Of course the small one with the yellow costume on is Yuen Biao. I can't work out if Corey Yuen is the one being thrown by Sammo or the one standing next to JC?

Corrections welcome, of course.

By the way, just to remind people how long ago this was filmed, Jackie Chan was probably about 11 years old when this was filmed. He turned 63 in 2017!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Phil,

I believe in the first photo, the one with the back to the camera while looking left is Samo Hung. Pay attention to his eyes and his profile. I believe the one in a monkey suit/makeup should be Jackie Chan. They say he was the smallest among them. Can't identify any of the others at the moment.

T

Phil said...

Hi T, you're correct about Sammo but JC is the one who is second left in the bottom picture. I'm fairly certain it is Yuen Biao in the suit.
Cheers
Phil

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