Cheng Ching
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Biography
One of a few kung-fu villains who would stoop to using Camera Tricks, since he couldn't overshadow the Hero with sheer talent to make himself look good (The Fighting Ace (1979)). Guess what? It didn't work. Camera tricks only show a lack of talent (especially when it's overdone). An exception being Jimmy Wang-Yu. He was a fine actor who chose to enhance certain aspects of his films. But when he started overdoing it, people started saying that he could only used camera tricks to look good on film (which wasn't true).
I liked him in the film The Wandering Monk (1980). Here, he played an evil monk, who ate meat. drank wine, and lusted after women !! As everyone stared at him as he ate a piece of chicken, he said that he view all meat as Vegetables !! In this film he looked particularly sharp (skill-wise) and this helped to make his fight-scenes look much better. I [also] liked him in the action-packed Shaolin Invincible Sticks (1978), where he played one of Chang Yi's henchmen.
He could be as menacing as the next "2nd class" villains, but, if he would have shown the type of intensity he did in War Of The Shaolin Temple (1981), he could have elevated his status as a screen villain. Not the type of villain who could stand up against the likes of Wang Jang Li or Dragon Lee for that matter, he was regulated to playing secondary roles as a villain. It just seemed like he fell into that group of actors who wouldn't work hard enough at his craft to elevate himself or his star potential. He just didn't have the dedication (or the skill) of some of the genre's "top-notched" villains, but hey, we all can't be like Tommy Lee.