Jimmy Wang-Yu
Sometimes being the top star at a major studio can be more of a curse than a blessing (he was also the first kung-fu star to become a full-fledged millionaire). Wanting to call your own shots is nothing new, but after making Shaw Bros' their first $1 million movie, he seemed to have more pressure on him to do better than the previous films he had starred in, even if it cost him his artistic freedom. After Chang Cheh's One-Armed Swordsman made him a star, he was granted the chance to direct his very first feature film. In fact, his film Chinese Boxer was one of the first films that dealt with Unarmed Combat, helping to usher in the craze from Hong Kong.
When he felt he was being held back by Shaw Brothers, he sought to break his contract. He, eventually, worked for rival film company Golden Harvest and starring in (and directing) the hit The One-Armed Boxer. This film set into motion films that had the Hero up against various martial-arts styles that were foreign to him and a new trend had emerged. Soon we saw more vicious fighting, more hardcore villains with just about every conceivable weapon known to man, and the deadly skills to use them. He was one of the innovators, of the "pulling-your-guts-out" types of films, that would saturate the market in the early 70's.
He was the first Kung-fu superstar, eclipsing newcomer - Bruce Lee, while laying the foundation to which Lee would later dominate. After Lee's death, his pace picked back up as he would make a number of groundbreaking films such as Beach Of The War Gods and Master Of The Flying Guillotine (which is probably one of his best known films to date). Though Hong Kong filmmakers had been using Japanese samurai films as a springboard for their own Swordplay films, he gave us our first look at a true blend of both Japanese and Chinese cinema with the film Zatoichi Meets The One-Armed Swordsman.
One of my favorites - The Screaming Tiger (as well as Blood Of The Dragon), helped him to continue his winning ways, as he became one of Asia's most famous personalities. He was very popular in Taiwan as well, having filmed a number of his films there. It seemed that whatever the newest trend was, he was capable of taking that trend, putting his own spin on it, and making it better than it originally was. Though many "hardcore" fans don't particularly care for them, he has also helped to make "Special Effects" a part of the mainstream martial-arts genre. When we saw him walking on 1-Finger(!) in the Chinese Professionals, we didn't really care, because at that time, we were just "blown away" by the concept of what he was doing.
He did it again by being the first to truly show a martial-artist in a Modern setting - kicking, punching, driving, hang gliding, using and fighting against guns in the International hit The Man From Hong Kong. While many will cite Lee's Way Of The Dragon or Game Of Death (the original version) as possible fore-runners, those films never went into detail (in the Modern sense) when it came to the Gun-play, car-chases, and so on. He's worked for probably more studios than anyone else in kung-fu cinema and still managed to get a smash hit anywhere he planted his feet. Still active in movies to this day, this man has done more with one hand than most people have with two. It's easy to list his accomplishments and contributions in the genre, but (much) harder to try and top them - with both of your hands.