Bolo Yeung
The Chinese Hercules


Bruce Lee and Bolo Yeung on set during the filming of
"Enter the Dragon"

Bolo Yeung was born in the suburbs of Canton in mainland China. He studied martial arts since his youngest age from local great masters. However contrarily to many others, he is also interested in developing his physical strength through intensive muscular training. During the 60s, he is forced to run away from communism, and leaves to take refuge in Hong Kong,where he first becomes a body-building teacher. In 1970, he is even consecrated as Mister Hong Kong. He held the title for ten years.

His strong corpulence and his obvious martial skills quickly attracted the attention of the big studios, particularly the Shaw Brothers that offered him a role in 1969 to act in Cheh Chang's "The Heroic Ones". Once his career started, Bolo did some more movies with Chang Cheh ("Wandering Swordsman","Deadly Duo","Angry Guest") before leaving the Shaw Brothers studios in 1971.

Concurrently to his cinematographic adventures, he acted in a few TV ads, including one for the Winston cigarettes brand. It is this occasion that lead him to meet with Bruce Lee.

In 1973 he was chosen by Bruce Lee to act in his new film "Enter The Dragon". Yang starred as "Bolo"- a very bad guy and Shih Kien's enforcer in this film. Unfortunately, Bolo Yeung was once more reduced to a brainless character, whose only goal seems to bring about the most brutal possible destruction of his opponent. Worse, the movie does not propose any direct confrontation between Bruce Lee and Bolo Yeung. Even if this would have been planned for "Game Of Death" the death of the "Little Dragon" puts a definite end to the hopes of Bolo. Yang accepted that this was his defining role, adopted the name and has been Bolo Yeung thereafter.


During the 70s and 80s, Bolo Yeung starred in hundreds of movies, most of the time in the role of a monstrous stranger, whose presence mainly serves to put the main character (usually a Bruce Lee clone) in a heroic position. He can be seen being put into pieces, but not without resistance, in such forgotten movies as "Hong Kong Superman", "Bruce's Deadly Fingers", "Big Boss 2", "The Clones Of Bruce Lee", "Image Of Bruce Lee", "Bruce The Super Hero" and many others. Bolo has seen several generations of martial arts icons come and go.

Even though he has played in countless movies, often of a doubtful quality, we have to wait until the end of the 80's to see Bolo Yeung making a name amongst action movies fans. It is in 1988 that he gets the Chong Li role, in "Bloodsport", along with a beginner, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Even after it was filmed, the classical movie was almost never released, but Van Damme helped edit the film so that it could be. France was the first country in the world to release "Bloodsport" in theaters. For many, the true attraction of the movie is Bolo. And we will see him crossing path with Jean-Claude again in "Double Impact", in 1991.

In 1992,Yeung acts as Shingo in "Shootfighter:Fight To Death" where he gets one of his rare good guy roles ("TC 2000" ,"Fearless Tiger").He acted in 1995 in a sequel :"Shootfighter 2 :Kill Or Be Kill" and in 1997 in "Tiger Claws 2".

In real life Bolo is quiet and very nice person. He is proud of his children. Mr.Yeung keeps his private life to himself. After ten years Chinese Hercules returns to the screen.



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syed mohammed zainul: DEAR SIR IT IS NICE TO SEE GREAT PICTURES OF THE GREAT BOLO YEUNG. I JUST WANT TO RESPECT THE GREAT BOLO.
GOOD LUCK AND 1000 ROSES FOR
GREAT BOLO,THE FINEST MARTIAL-ARTS ACTOR OF WORLD MOTION PICTURE.
SENSEI- S.M.ZAINUL
INDIA

Pavel Nyziak: Many thanks for the article. Bolo Yeung is great martial artist and great man.
Visit please: http://www.bolo-yeung.com/

Pavel Nyziak

Eric Hamilton: hey just wanted to pay homage to BOLO..he was always the most convincing villain in his movies...and even a good guy. I grew up watching everything he was in... Bolo u are the MAN!!!!


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