Wong Tao aka Don Wong

[pressureworld]

taekwon-do expert & screen fighter Wong Tao has always been my favorite martial artist Hot Cool Vicious, Challenge of Death, Secret Rivals. He can kick ass but it's the charisma he brings to his films I really like, I always thought he was underrated

[rederror]

Yeah he defo had something about him on screen. Very powerful on screen fighter. I thought he was brilliant in Death Duel of Kung Fu.

[WalkOn]

He's one of my favorites. Always felt he should've been a bigger star. Had the complete package. He just needed a few great films. I read some where he had a serious (leg) injury that prevented him from performing at top level later in his career. Is this true?

[THESHAWMAN]

yes,its true he did have a leg injury,and he could'nt kick properly again......he mentiones this in an interview on one of the soulblade releases....

[Tosh]

I always liked ol' Don, seems he always got overshadowed by his high kicking partners like Tan and Liu, I thought he was great in Phantom Kung Fu, The HC&V has to be one of the best opening scenes ever!

[WalkOn]

Thanks for confirming the injury.I agree HCV has one the best openings! My favorite film of his is Death Duel of KF. He had the complete package, the looks, physique, ma skills but more importantly a lot of charisma! Too bad he wasn't part of bigger classics.

[dragon herb]

When was it approx (or precisely) he had the leg-injury?

[vengeanceofhumanlanterns]

I thought Along Came a Tiger and The Hot, The Cool, And The Vicious were some of his best films. Challenge Of Death is great as well as Warlock Of The Battlefield (a fairly cool example of a kung fu/horror flick -been waitin for this flick to be released with legible eng. subs someday).

His fight with Chuck Norris is awesome (IMO) in, Slaughter In San Francisco (I think that's the title of the film), kick ass fight right there.

[Chinatown Kid]

Slaughter in San Francisco is actually one of my favorite performances from Don Wong fightwise and he really shows more of his kicking off in it more than any other film I've seen him in. The fight with the crooked police chief played by Dan Ivan and the Mafia boss of Frisco played by Norris were highlights. I have no idea how Chuck survived getting beat in the face repeatedly with that broken hoe without even getting a mark on his face though! :lol

Never knew about Wong's leg injury but I guess this explains why he didn't kick much in his later roles....

[pressureworld]

Im embarrassed to say I haven't seen Death Duel of Kung Fu, Along Came a Tiger or Slaughter in San Francisco

[Squid Lips]

Well pressure, of those Death Duel Of Kung Fu is my favorite but Tiger is a big hit on these boards as well.

[shadow kick]

Glad someone has written a piece about this kung fu powerhouse. WONG TAO , unfortunately never got the roles, acclaim nor the promotion he needed to be a star that stood out.........
the guy had the entire package ; looks, physique and genuinine screen presence .His martila arts skill was second to none , and if anyone on this board has seen movies like
DEATH DUEL OF KUNG FU
SHAOLIN DEVIL AND SHAOLIN ANGLE
SNAKE IN THE EAGLES SHADOW 2
EAGLES CLAWS
18 SHAOLIN RIDERS
CHALLENGE OF DEATH aka dragon and snake in spiders web
FATAL NEEDLES , FATAL FISTS
SECRET RIVALS
SHAOLIN IRON CLAWS
Just to name a few, then his film credentila are un-impeachable.........
One wonders what would become of his career if he had ever worked for shaw bros..

He is one of my personal faves and he has squared off with some of the great screen baddies in the genre......
hwang jang lee....secret rivals
chen hsing .....shaolin devil and shaolin angel
chang yi .....challenge of death ; phantom kung fu
lung fei ...snake in the eagles shadow 2
han ying.....death duel of kung fu.

This man is one of my faves of the genre and his name belongs right up there among the very best .


shadowkick

[morgoth]

Yep, this guy had it as an actor and martial arts performer. He even made movies like Eunuch of the Western Palace enjoyable.

[WalkOn]

TRUE!

[stormybman]

I never realized he was adept at the nunchuku as he is until I finally saw Secret Rivals. That film I heard about for years through the late '70's, and I never saw it until around '90-'91.
And it was made in '74. I believe Golden Harvest hired him as an actor to help replace the void Lee left, Signing him to a contract for he was an authentic Martial Artist. They never used him properly with a film like SISF. Ng See Yuen was extremely keen at spotting talent. He signed John Liu, Hwang Cheng Li, and Wong Tao for the Seasonal Film Co. Those men provided us with terrific MA action well into the late '80's.
I thank them all for displaying their wares onscreen.

[Alvin George]

Sadly to say, I thought "Slaughter in San Francisco" was a stupid movie. The final fight between Wong and Norris didn't impress me.

[morgoth]

I just saw Snake in the eagle's Shadow 2. HORRIBLE movie, but good fights. Wong Tao looks great, and Lung Fei is magnificent. Best performance I have seen from him. Better than One-armed Boxer, Death duel of the mantis, Return of the Chinese Boxer and all the rest.

[kungfusamurai]

I didn't know Wong Tao was a TKD practitioner. His kicks don't strike me as being of a TKD style. By that, I mean, he doesn't have the leg extensions with one leg planted on the ground, like HJL, John Liu, Tan Tao Liang, etc... Even Yuen Biao's kicks look more TKDish than Wong Tao's.

KFS

[Chinatown Kid]

Someone on here said that Wong had a leg injury that hampered his kicking ability in later films KFS. I wondered the same thing you did because Wong never seemed to display much kicking in his films. The most I ever saw him kick was in Slaughter in San Francisco and I think that was his first film, evidently this was before his leg injury.

[theportlykicker]

Well check these out then:

youtube.com/watch?v=7GQMVH63_NY (http://youtube.com/watch?v=7GQMVH63_NY)

youtube.com/watch?v=EpFURXFAzUs (http://youtube.com/watch?v=EpFURXFAzUs)

youtube.com/watch?v=dnjbTY-ur6w (http://youtube.com/watch?v=dnjbTY-ur6w)

It was apparently made in 86, but he gets to let loose with some great looking kicks.

[morgoth]

No wonder Wong Tao couldn't work anymore after he injured his leg, that guy had serious hops.

[kungfusamurai]

Nice clips. I like the kicking, but I still wouldn't be able to tell that he was a TKD guy. I guess he must have injured himself early on (pre-Secret Rivals?). Regardless, it's nice to know his background in martial arts.

KFS

[Linn1]

Secret Rivals. The problem was he didn't have long legs, so his kicks didn't look as good as some. But he was an excellent kicker.

[Beat TG]

I haven't seen much from this dude but he was great in Drunken Tai Chi fighting Donnie Yen.

[morgoth]

Wong Tao had maybe the best jump kick in the biz.

[shadow kick]

Not sure what the standards for judging a movie is on this particular board...
But a movie that has WANG TAO ; CHEN HSING; LUNG FEI ; ALAN HSU and CARTER WONG in addition to the comedic talents of LEE KUN..........
Klassik stuff !!

I think too much shaws have tainted the ability of many to be objective......I think LIU YUNG changing outfits for every scene in just about every shaw flick he apears in (when he has no suitcase) and DAVID CHIANG in shaolin mantis for example coming out of the middle of the woods with new clothes shoes and hairdo to go with it ;when he had no access to any of the above ...
There are always shortcomings in all movies ......
the scene in snake in the egales shadow 2 showing wong tao having a flashback is still hard to figure out......it bears no relevence to the film, but otherwise the movie rocks....some pretty good fight scenes in this flick.

Anyway, one man's trash is another man's treasure........

luv kung fu 24 / 7....

shadowkick

[Brigadier Chow]

Agreed Shadow Kick, Snaky Knight Fight Against Mantis aka SITES2 is a sleeper hit. Shapes galore, up there with the best of them IMO. Lung Fei steals the show! This movie is tops, just should not have been marketed the way it was. It is hard to go wrong with a Wang Tao movie.

[morgoth]

The problem I had with Snake in eagle's Shadow 2 is that the story was horrible and the directing was very poor. I did like the fights, but the cat's claw kind of ruined the end of the fights. Still, Lung Fei was awesome in his 3 main fights and Alan Hsu has 2 minutes of good action. Not a total loss.

[kungfood]

Wang Tao as many of you know was discovered by Lo Wei hoping to find the new Bruce Lee-level superstar, unfortunately, the only film Lo did with him was Yellow-Faced Tiger (Slaughter in San Francisco due to the film's poor public reception. Prior to that, he had been a university student in Texas.

I heard Wang Tao's father had appeared in some Italian spaghetti westerns. Wang was born in HK, but apparently spent many years in Italy where his family lived, prior to his studying in the States.

I heard that early on in Wang's career, he had a lack of control and would hit people on the set. He had to practice punching at people and slowing his punches before contact to eventually develop better control.

Wang Tao was actually in a LOT of films in Taiwan. I can't count the number of films he co-starred in with Chang Yi as the villain. I think at one point he might've had more films under his belt than almost any other Taiwan-based kung fu star. Late in his career, he fought a young Donnie Yen in Drunken Tai Chi, which was Yen's first movie. He also played a Taekwondo coach in a 1988 movie directed by Corey Yuen, starring Collin Chou and with Alexander Lo Rei as villain, but Wang didn't fight in the film, only got kicked by Lo Rei.

My favorite Wang Tao performances include:
Death-Duel of Kung Fu.
The Hot, the Cool, and the Vicious.
Fatal Needles, Fatal Fists.
Bandits, Prostitutes, and Silver (a.k.a., The Damned).
Along Comes the Tiger.
Challenge of Death.

You can see him land a full-powered flying side kick on Han Ying (or a Han Ying stand-in),in Death-Duel of Kung Fu; I'm not sure if he was actually supposed to make full contact on that or if they kept a "mistake" in because it looked so perfect.

[AlbertV]

Wong Tao also had a great cameo in the otherwise lackluster finale to the YOUNG AND DANGEROUS series, BORN TO BE KING (2000) as a Triad boss named Dragon.

I didn't know about his leg injury, but he sure could kick when it came to SECRET RIVALS.

I also liked his mostly non-MA role in DRUNKEN TAI CHI as the man who hires Eagle Yuen Shun-Yi to kill Donnie Yen and his family. He did have a few seconds of action against Yen before Yen takes on Yuen.

My favorites of his films:
SECRET RIVALS
THE HOT, THE COOL, AND THE VICIOUS
DEATH DUEL OF KUNG FU
SNAKY KNIGHT FIGHTS AGAINST MANTIS (aka SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW 2)
SHAOLIN INVINCIBLE STICKS

He also appeared in a 2004 Mainland film, THE LOVE WINNER, according to Hong Kong Movie Database

[Chinatown Kid]

The film where Wong plays the TKD coach is Promising Young Man, a pity he doesn't get in on any action but Lo Rei really gets to show off his kicks as the badass Korean Villain in a black Gi.

[The Dragon]

This guy was the real deal... GH execs. obviously didn't know how to use his talents. He could have filled the void Lee left at their studio had they simply given him quality roles, and choreography with the likes of Sammo. He could have carried some of the leading roles that Angela was given, or like minded hero type roles...