Meet Jimmy Wang Yu, the real-life gangster that inspired Bruce Lee

[boingboing]

Originally published at: Meet Jimmy Wang Yu, the real-life gangster that inspired Bruce Lee | Boing Boing

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[1000YearBan]

Check out Golden Swallow, One-Armed Swordsman and Master of the Flying Guillotine

[dalgoda7]

Later in his career, he made an absolutely bonkers film as a hybrid HK/Australian production called The Man from Hong Kong, with George Lazenby as the scenery-chewing villain. Highly entertaining. Bonus: Sammo Hung makes an early-career cameo.

[euansmith]

@boingboing

but I like to imagine my gangsters with a refined cultural palate, equivalent to an Austrian Archduke in the 1500s.

You little button-eater!

[Yri]

@boingboing

It’s fascinating how interwoven the worlds of organized crime and entertainment are.

I knew this amazing musician who played stuff for our synagogue; he was the first pianist I knew of that could instantly transpose on the fly - whatever key we started singing in, he could jump in and accompany. If it was a song he hadn’t heard before, he could figure out the chords along the way.

One day I asked him why he quit the professional music scene, and his reply was “I got tired of dealing with the goddam Mafia”. That was my first exposure to that organized crime / entertainment industry connection, and it is indeed fascinating.

[Mister44]

Hmm - that set up on the thumbnail, I wonder if it influenced the creation of the toy that became the G1 Megatron?

[anon61221983]

@Yri

and his reply was “I got tired of dealing with the goddam Mafia”. That was my first exposure to that organized crime / entertainment industry connection, and it is indeed fascinating.

One interesting question is whether the corruption is from the organized crime being involved in the entertainment industry, or if they are drawn to the entertainment industry because its ripe for corruption…