Tang introduced him to director Ng See-Yuen who used him on such films as Mad Killer (his first as a choreographer) and Bloody Fists. He would float from project to project as he increased his skill as a choreographer, even working for director Chu Yuan on the film The Lizard. Seeing how Shaw Bros' pretty much had their own "in-house" choreographers, he worked mostly on Independant film project such as the excellent Fists Of The Double K, Fury of the Black Belt, and Wits To Wits all starring kung-fu dynamo Henry Yu-Yung.

Having added spice to most of Ng See-Yuen's films like Kung Fu - The Invisible Fist, he actually missed the chance to choreograph the film Secret Rivals, which went on to make stars out of basically everyone involved - Wang Tao, John Liu, Wang Jang-Li, and even the films choreographer - Tommy Lee. He worked on Secret Rivals 2 instead of Lee, who would continued the concept of the first film and began a working relationship with director Lee Tso-Nam and came out with The Hot, The Cool, & The Vicious.

After Invincible Armor and working for Golden Harvest on Broken Oath, he's directorial debut was right around the corner. With a finished script and star in mind for the lead role ( Fu Sheng), he felt things were in place to start filming. His biggest hurdle was trying to convince Shaw CEO Run Run Shaw to let make the movie, as he was already extremely popular (and familiar) with audiences. With the refusal to "loan" the actor out because of his contract, they had to find another actor. They would settle on an actor of extreme talent (who wasn't doing to well at the box-office) - Jackie Chan.

Though Jackie was under contract with Lo Wei, his films weren't really making any money, so the director felt the any money received from loaning out Jackie was probably worth all the trouble he was going thru trying to make him a star. With Yuen's over-the-top choreography and Jackie's acrobatic skills to actually pull off what was asked of him, their little film broke all records set by Bruce Lee and anything else that was being put out at that time.

With the success of his follow-up film Drunken Master, Yuen was virtually in a position to call his own shots and begin making the films that he wanted to make. He and his brother began getting work in the industry because of their intense choreography, (he even made a star out of his father Yuen Hsiao-Tien) as it seemed every thing they touched turned to gold. Once Jackie had completed both films, Yuen had a script for part 3 (which was Dance Of The Drunken Mantis), decided against it, instead signing with Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest.