Shih Kien passes away

[Trevor]

The IMDB reports that the Chinese actor Shih Kien, forever immortal as the evil Han from Enter The Dragon, passed away at the age of 96.

www.imdb.com

RIP, Mr Han. 

[RCMerchant]

He joins the Dragon. RIP. 

[Doc Daneeka]

That sucks... I checked the IMDb after seeing EtD the first time and was surprised to see him still alive, since then I kept hoping he would make it to 100. At least he got close, hopefully lived good.

[Jim H]

Man there's a lot of spellings of his name.  I've seen at least 4 different ones.

If you see enough HK films, you'll see him pop up a lot.  He is basically the progenitor of Kung Fu villains in the modern era - he was the bad guy in like 90 of the Wong Fei Hung movies in the 50s, 60s and 70s.  His reputation is what led to him getting the villainous role in ETD.  Even after ETD, he still got roles, even some non-villainous ones.  His cameo role in Millionaire's Express is quite amusing (I think he had good comedic timing), and his dramatic turn in Hong Kong 1941 is good.

The last film I'm aware of where he was involved in action scenes is one of Jackie Chan's best films, The Young Master.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEZ6zO_giGg

He's doubled a good deal, but hell, he's 67 in this film.  Looks good too.

For comparison, here's an earlier scene from a 60s film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfJ8xU6refc
According to the poster of that video, he starred in 60 films with this woman.  To say the least, it's next to impossible to find a complete filmography of him - even the HKMDB one is definitely incomplete.

From what I've seen, he remained quite vigorous and healthy into his old age.  I saw a snippet of an interview somewhere where he was probably about 90, and he seemed in good health then.  

His legacy is enormous, as he is one of the most beloved and even imitated actors who played villains in Hong Kong/China, and by extension, the rest of Asia.  It's difficult to overstate his cinematic legacy over there.

RIP.

[Torgo]

Yeah, that really sucks. He lived a long and fruitful life though.

To quote Jim Kelly, he was straight out of a comic book.

[Allhallowsday]

Goodnight SHIH KIEN.