I saw this old issue of Asian Trash Cinema that had an interview with Ching Siu-Tung, veteran martial arts choreographer, prolific wire-fu practicioner, Jackie Chan Chinese Opera schoolmate, and director of Steven Seagal’s weirdest movie (BELLY OF THE BEAST). Of course the interview covered alot of his most legendary work: he directed the SWORDSMAN trilogy, EXECUTIONERS and NAKED WEAPON, he was stunt coordinator for A BETTER TOMORROW II and action director for HERO. But I was even more interested in the weird little tidbits I’d never heard about his brief flirtations with Hollywood after THE MATRIX exploded and Yuen Woo Ping was all booked up.
The craziest one was a story about “the director and producer” of SPIDER-MAN coming to Ching, unhappy with how their action scenes were coming out, and wanting him to redo them. Of course it never ended up happening, he seems unclear why and doesn’t go into details. But it’s an intriguing story. Raimi was always up on the Hong Kong guys, he executive produced HARD TARGET after all. It makes sense he would know about the top wire-fighting guy and think of him for a movie about a guy swinging on webs.
