Danny Lee

Biography

Danny Lee Sau-Yin, was born in 1952 in Shanghai. Lee did not do so well in school and sometimes dropped out to help support his family by working. While growing up, he held policemen in high regard and so, upon graduating high school, he tried entering the police academy, but could not complete the courses. He entered the TVB acting school in 1970, and got his first big film role in the 1972 film Water Margin. The following year, Lee made his starring debut with River of Fury. He then went on to star in Shaw Brothers' 1975 Hong Kong Tokusatsu-style superhero movie and camp classic The Super Inframan playing the Chinese superhero himself. After superstar Bruce Lee's death in the same year, almost every star in Hong Kong was pushed in to fill "The Dragon's" shoes, and Lee was no exception, even going as far as to actually portray the legend himself in Bruce Lee and I. By the late 1970s, Lee had begun to tire of Kung Fu movies and thus tried his hand at different fare, such as 1977's The Mighty Peking Man (a King Kong ripoff now considered a camp classic). Still being offered roles in Kung Fu movies, in 1978 he decided to form his own production company. One of the earliest products from his company, 1981's The Executor (aka Heroic Cops) was largely nondescript, except for the fact that it was the first on-screen pairing with Lee and future superstar Yun-Fat Chow. In 1982, Lee directed his first movie, Funny Boys, and then followed it up in 1984 with the movie that would cement his image in the consciousness of Hong Kong, Law With Two Phases. The violent movie (for which Lee won both the Hong Kong Film Award and Taiwanese Golden Horse for his acting) featured Lee as a hot-headed but just policeman, a role that he reprises to this day. Law With Two Phases also inspired…