Al Leong Spotlight

This week on Hollywood Hangout. David focuses on actor and stuntman, Al Leong. Listen as we go through his younger days, how he got into stunt work and acting, and his extensive career as a henchman.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, down to business. I got my wild cherry dying
PEPSI and uh, I got my black jack come here,
and I got that feeling, Yeah, that familiar feeling that
something rank is going down out there. I'm funny, how

(00:36):
I mean funny, like I'm a clowny amuse you, I
make you laugh. I'm here to fucking amuse you. How
the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is so
funny about me? Tell me? Tell me what's fun Oh me, sir?
God damn it. Brothers, don't shake ye, brother who's got

(01:01):
a fuck? Come over the cols. We'll get together, have
a few lifts. As far back as I can remember,
I always wanted to be a gangster. Have you ever

(01:21):
seen a grown man naked away? Can anybody move out?
Flow your fucking head off? And the medicat said, oh
my god, I'm a huckleb I advice to you just

(01:42):
start drinking heavily. Put that coffee down. Well, any of
this calls the old billy brule. Have to do with Vince.
The royal penis is clean, your highness? Hey, where are
the white women? A yippikay? Motherfucker? It's over, Johnny, it's over. Oh, alright, folks, Yes, yes, yes,

(02:30):
I know it's Monday. I couldn't do the show last night.
It's very hard to do a show when you have
no power. I'm sorry, but it's hard to do. I
am David Richardson. This is Hollywood Hangout. I hope everyone's
doing good. I'm pretty excited about this one tonight right here. Actually,
we're gonna be talking a stuntman an actor A I mean,

(02:55):
I guess you could call him a character actor, but
he's definitely a stunt man and an actor in most
of the movies that he does the stunts in. This
guy is known for his martial arts skills including northern
Shao Lynn northern shellin kung fu, taekwondo, collie and jiu jitsu.
He's got the long wavy hair, the long fu man chew,

(03:17):
and he's had a ton of memorable roles as a
henchman in some of the biggest action films, which means
his character also usually dies. But this guy has worked
with John Carpenter on two movies, Big Trouble in Little
China and They Live. He's kind of getting a cult

(03:40):
following over the time, me being included in that following
of his I've actually put him put him over in
another movie, which I'll talk about in just a minute.
But he's notable for his role as gangs Khan and
Bill and Said's excellent Adventure and for stealing candy in
uh In die Hard. So I'm talking of about al
Leon that as we'll be talking about tonight. Like I said,

(04:04):
you have seen this guy in so many movies. Really,
he's only he's been in seventy five movies. He's done
stunts for a lot of the movies he's been in,
but this guy is just I mean for eighties and nineties,
in two thousands, this guy was in all the movies.
If you're lucky enough to be watching the scene on YouTube,

(04:25):
I've got a picture of him right here. But you
have seen this guy and I put him over. When
we talked about Last Action Hero, me and Anthony talked
about that movie, he had gotten blown up in the
pickup truck. I do have a little bit of a
part that we'll play in here. I'm not gonna play
any parts obviously. Last week I got a little too

(04:46):
over excited with the the clips and the show was
taken down mid show. The hackers one I'll tell y'all
what I'm gonna redo that. I have not gotten rid
of any of my material picture or anything. Actually, I
will get it and I will redo it for this

(05:07):
right here, for the for the YouTube, I'll redo it
so it is back up on there, because I really
like that movie, and I really, like I said, I
had those backstage photographs I really wanted to share with everybody,
so we'll get those. I will redo that, But we
are definitely going to be talking, like I said about
ali On tonight. The picture I showed you was obviously

(05:29):
a little bit older of a picture. This would be
a little more what he looks like now. Obviously age
does the Fu Manchu, still has the long hair. I
will talk to everyone about that long hair. In just
a few minutes. Here, I'm gonna give you a few
facts on old ali On anyway, before we get to
get too far into what actually gonna give you the

(05:51):
facts right in the beginning. Then we'll go through some
of his early life. But this is a little more
of what he'd look like now. Really hasn't done much
acting since right around two thousand and five ish. Actually, no,
hasn't done stunt since around two thousand and five. He
has done some acting. He was just in Deadwood and
a couple other shows. We'll get into all those as

(06:13):
we as we're talking about all the all the movies
and roles he's played. But this guy, like I said,
is very very known for being a henchman. He tortured
Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. We'll get to all that
where he played endo, but we're gonna get to all that.
Like I said, this guy, I put him over really

(06:34):
well when we were talking about Last Action Hero. He's
just been in a ton of things. But I do
have some facts on al Leong that aren't really well known.
But let's go ahead and get into a few of those. Now.
I said, he's been on a ton of in a

(06:56):
ton of movies and all that stuff, and he definitely has.
Now I mentioned as Harry grew his hair long after
seeing the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show, and
he's had it long ever since. So it's been that
long where he has been had that long hair. Now.
He was a kung fu student of the legendary art

(07:17):
Yui Wong, who passed away in nineteen eighty seven at
eighty seven years of age. Now I can give you
a little picture here, wrong picture. I apologize. This is
a little picture I meant to show you right here
right in the middle there is that is that teacher
and you can see how young al Leng is in
this picture. But got that long hair. Most definitely has

(07:38):
that long hair. So there's that right there. And he's
got that long hair going all the time, still has
it today as you saw. Now, he's, like I said,
expert in kung fu. He's won multiple martial arts tournaments
throughout the mid seventies. Nineteen eighty he kind of came
out out of retirement and world silver medal, silver cup

(08:02):
in the Martial Arts Champion Championship. He's also an accomplished
Chinese lion dancer. That's yeah, you guys know what that is,
the long lion. In fact, he was. He was the
founding member of a lion dance team called the Four Seas,
which performed regularly at Chinese New Year celebrations, cultural festivals,

(08:24):
restaurant openings, and he's credited with kind of introducing the
Guang Gung style, the kind of red faced Antonese lion
to la and was a part of the first two
Lion teams to dance in LA's Chinatown, so he he's
got a lot of history over there in La. He

(08:44):
was his family moved there when he was very early.
I'll get into all that later. One of his nicknames
is Kabong al Kabong Leong, So that's one of his
nicknames right there. I got another one we'll get into
in a little while. That was given to him by
one of his brother's friends, a man named Chuck Wagner.

(09:04):
Leong says, I believe it just rhymed, so it's stuck.
So that's really how it was. He's collected stuffed animals
all his life. I know it's always the tough guys.
It's always the tough guys, isn't it. He has more
than one hundred and fifty. All of them have names,
even names his stuff animals. His favorite is one he

(09:29):
calls Wolfman. It was even a member of his wedding
party and it wore a custom made suit. Hmm interesting.
Let's just keep rolling with that. Big motorcycle enthusias enthusiast.
This guy has ridden motorcycles on and off road most
of his life. Before even getting into movies, he worked

(09:51):
as a motorcycle mechanic. Not only that, but he owned
a body shop. We'll get in all that too. Really
all he's not really doing that much nowadays, but he
also did survive brain cancer in nineteen ninety three, had
a stroke in two thousand and five, sustained Here you
go as an action star, you do get torn up.

(10:13):
Brandon Fraser will be one to tell you that, matter
of fact. He said in one of his interviews. That's
why he had to stop acting for a while. He
was so beat up after doing all these scenes that
he had to stop for a while and get his
body healed and fixed. Sylvestre Stallone is beat up more
than a fucking professional wrestler. He is beat to hell.

(10:35):
He has broken so many bones. He's also got like
six hundred fucking films to his credit, so take that
what you will. But he's got He's had three broken
collar bones, twenty five fractured ribs, several torn ligaments in
his left angle, my multiple knee surgeries, broken fingers, broken arms, legs,

(11:00):
and one failed marriage. So one of those too, he said.
The one thing I haven't done is I haven't broke
my back, he says, But then again, life is an
over Now we did say he was in martial arts.
He does have a favorite weapon. That weapon is called
the kwan Do. Now, I'll take a little show you

(11:22):
guys what that looks like. Right here, you can see
it's kind of the long ey. It's basically a sword
with like a machete on the end of it, a
curved machety blade almost at the end of it. But
he's actually performed at the Ed Parker Long Beach Internationals

(11:44):
and for one of the films that he's done, he's
actually used this. The villain actually in Billains Has Excellent Adventure,
he used this where he played Ganghis Khan. This was
the thing he used. That's why he was swinging it
so wonderfully because it's his favorite weapon. He's used it
before and he's actually now The Ed Parker Long Beach
thing we actually talked about another time. We talked about

(12:05):
that when we were doing Bruce Lee. When we were
kind of comparing Dragon the Bruce Lee story to tell
what was, you know, fact and fiction, we actually talked
about the Ed Parker Long Beach Internationals. That's actually one
of the one of those is where Bruce Lee made
his comeback and introduced g cun Do to the world
to the basically to La at the time, but basically

(12:27):
he was introducing that to the world because no one
had ever seen uh that style before Bruce Lee. I
mean that style, the g Kundo style was basically he
basically picked all the styles he knew and he took
what he thought was over traditionally. He took what he
thought didn't fit here, didn't fit there, He stripped them down,

(12:49):
put them all together and made g Kundo. That's pretty
much what Gkunda was in a nutshell, probably a little oversimplified,
but I mean he took all the martial arts, he
took grappling, he put that in there. He I mean basically,
ge Kundo was the first mixed martial arts. It really was.

(13:12):
And if you watch some of the Bruce Lee movies,
especially Enter the Dragon, he's doing some of those grappling
moves and he's also doing trapping. You'll see him when
he goes up against the I forget the guy's name,
the big blonde guy. He traps one arm as he
does the backfist to his face. That was also part
of his style. Enter the Dragon was basically him really

(13:34):
introducing his style to the world through movies. Really, I
think a lot of us wish he had lived to
see that movie. Like three weeks before the opening, he
passed away. So we'll be talking about another We're talking
about Brandonlely in here too. He actually did do a
couple of movies with Brandon Lee. One of those movies
being Rapid Fire on Hulu right now, if you're in

(13:56):
the US, you can check that out right there on Hulu.
Rapid Fire, good movie. Before Brandon Lee did The Crow.
He did that movie and a few more, but that
was one of them he did was Rapid Fire, and
aliong was one of the guys in that movie. That's
pretty much a lot of the actual like might not

(14:20):
know facts that I kind of dug up when I
was doing this. That was actually in a article in
black Belt Magazine, that article on al leng And all right, folks,
I need a quick drink, quick cheers too. Everyone out
there listening, thank you very much for listening. Only have

(14:41):
three of these. I had eight of these last night.
Didn't realize that these big beers. It's almost a twelve pack.
I wonder I was hung over today anyway. I gotta
stop that shit. But anyway, I guess we could start
getting into a little bit more of his life and
a few other things. But like I said, most known,
he is most known for playing some sort of henchman

(15:05):
and usually he dies. Wasn't always what he wanted to be.
Like I said, he grew his hair when he saw
the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and when asked in an
interview what he really wanted to be, he said, actually,
I wanted to be a rock star. Leon told HDN,
I truly wanted to be a rock star, and then

(15:27):
my son ended up doing it. Then after that, I
wanted to be a motocross guy, but somehow I got
stuck doing this. He tells how he did it, and
he was a grip for three years behind camera, and
that's where he thought he was going to stay. He
thought he was very happy doing it. Then all of
a sudden, he gets asked to teach some girls some
martial arts in a movie. They asked if he knew

(15:49):
martial arts, obviously a stereotypical question asking an Asian American,
but it was asked back then. He said yes. They
asked if he'd like to teach these four girls. He said, sure,
I will. Then they said, hey, I want you get
up on camera with them, and that was the start
of him getting in front of the camera. After that,

(16:11):
he ended up doing stunts. And obviously we've seen him
on camera many times. Most of the movies he did
stunts for he was also in somehow, some way. They
really wanted him in there. They liked the way he died,
They just liked his look. He looks like the kind
of henchman you would want in your movie, so why
wouldn't you bring him in there? But he also says

(16:34):
he's not an actor, doesn't feel like he's an actor.
And he said, I know nothing about acting. All I
do is stunts. That's all I'm interested in, just doing
the fights and all that stuff. So that's pretty cool. Really,
he's definitely, I mean, he really doesn't have there's not

(16:57):
many movies he has words speaking roles in. I would
assume he speaks just fine. I would assume. I mean,
he's been in America very long, was born here, so
I'm assuming. But I did say earlier he worked with
John Carpenter on actually more than two films, three films

(17:19):
actually I said two before it's actually three. Big Trouble
in Little China they live and escape from La John said,
John Carpenter is great. He's unreal because I like people people,
and he's that type. He's a real person and that
I like very much about him. So really enjoyed working
with him. And basically pretty much every interview this guy does,

(17:44):
he does get asked, why are you always hired to die?
And he said, I think I'm hired to die because
they've seen me on another show and said, we want
to bring this guy in. We really like the way
he dies, and it probably is because I mean, like
I said, if you fade in every movie he's in,
he dies, whether it's Diehard well, I mean, Jesus Christ

(18:07):
Bell Gibson kills him, Bruce Willis kills them. He's died
in a lot of very big movies. Like I said,
this guy is really a very big name when it
comes to like I said, you can call him a
character actor, which I would definitely put him as a
character actor, even more than over a stuntman. I mean

(18:28):
he's done stunts for a ton of movies. Yes, that's
more of a behind the scenes thing when I don't
really get those names. But this guy is more than
a stunt man. He's in a lot of the movies.
They want him in the movies. I consider him more
of a character actor than a stunt man. He wants
to be a stunt man. I totally get it now.
I did say that he had the name al Cabong

(18:52):
Leong and they also call him Mahomei Bruce. Now it's
spelled m ah m a homie mahone. So say that quick.
Mahomie Bruce. Pretty badass nickname. I'll give him that. Born
September thirtieth, nineteen fifty two in Saint Louis, Missouri, youngster

(19:17):
of three children. His parents owned a laundry and his
father spent a lot of time and a lot of
working years there, which, like I said, just kind of
got him involved in a lot of different things. At
ten years old in nineteen sixty two, they moved out
to They moved the business and him out to la

(19:41):
and basically that's pretty much all he did. He really
never got into trouble as a kid. Spent a lot
of time working in the laundry with his family, and
that was kind of his way to stay out of trouble.
He saw a lot of his friends that were there
getting in trouble, and that was his way of staying
out of it, kept himself is he working and obviously

(20:01):
learning martial arts. It's very very good at martial arts obviously,
So that's just kind of how he kept himself out
of trouble and kept himself busy. Obviously, he was hooked
on learning the arts of not only the martial arts,
but he was also into the starting to learn about film,

(20:24):
and he did attend Hollywood High School, kept doing the
martial arts training, and basically started talking as he was
describing his grand master one day, he refers to him
as old man. First of all, he calls him old Man,

(20:45):
and he always said every time I basically he said
he there were all these times where he thought he
was getting away with something and he and he says,
and I quote he said, and when I thought Master
Wong wasn't watching, he would yell across the floor no.
Then from behind me, he'd pull my shoulders in line,
shoving knee in my back to straight and it hook

(21:07):
his end, step around my ankle to correct my foot position,
then pivot around in front of me to adjust my hands.
So yeah, obviously this teacher was really saw something in
him and wanted to work with him, wanted to make
him better. Obviously this teacher meant a lot to him too,
so but I mean, he really spent a lot of

(21:29):
time doing this. He trained six or seven days a week.
Wouldn't he wouldn't really move to a new kind of
like Basically, he would sit there and do a move
over and over again till he got it right. Then
he would move on to a different one. He'd perfect it,
and then he would move on. He wouldn't stop, though,

(21:51):
until he had perfected the one move. Obviously he has
a very obsessive, compulsive personality. Oh there you go from that.
But after a while, he was just kind of learning
moves and moves, and next thing you know, he'd become
the the student had become the teacher, and he's teaching

(22:15):
at the He's teaching at the same dojo for a while,
like I said to nineteen eighty seven, and after high school?
What Because he did do this during high school and
after that he started taking classes at the LA Trade Tech.
Remember I told you he was also a big motorcycle enthusiast.
It was here he started learning how to fix motorcycles

(22:38):
and another way to keep busy and he wanted to
know everything from motorcycles from how to put them together,
take them apart, ride them, fix the you know, the
whole engine and everything. So he opened up his own
body shop in La He did tons of custom cars,
custom motorcycles. People were really wanting him to do the

(23:03):
work on their on their motorcycles and cars. He eventually
did have to close up shop after about a year.
Basically Osha came in and told him that the chemicals
he had been dealing with were that they shut his

(23:23):
shop down. And basically he found out some of those
chemicals he was dealing with were making him sick. Osha
said that they were actually dangerously toxic to a lot
of people. I guess he didn't have the right ventilation
because that's what you need when you own a paint
and body shop. Ventilation. It's all about ventilation. So that's
definitely something he must not have. When I was working

(23:44):
at the at the Phone Planet Guardian, they had a
little booth where they actually painted stuff and that was
they had a whole thing that they had to put
in because their Osha had certified and all that crazy
crazy stuff that they had to in. But there you go.
You always have to have great ventilation when you're working

(24:06):
with paints or anything like that. Now, he did get
away from running the body shop, but working at that
body shop gave him a little bit of an inn
in that in that kind of world, which also put
him in touch with some people in the Hollywood thing.
Him doing custom work on motorcycles and stuff. And he
was also doing work while doing the body shop. He

(24:28):
was working on stunt equipment, so we got to know
the people that worked in the entertainment business behind the scenes,
as you know, stunt coordinators and stuff like that. A
friend told him to come check out a movie, you know,
behind the scenes that he was working on, and Boom
went decided right there, that's what he wanted to do.

(24:49):
He wanted to do something in the movie and entertainment business.
So he went to Warner Brothers Warner Brothers Studio put
an application basically saying he'll do anything on the lot.
The only thing that was hot at the time was
hiring jobs for grips. I believe those are the guys

(25:10):
that hold the camera. Oh nope, I'm sorry. Grips are
the technicians who build equipment that support the cameras. In
the movies. All right, so there you go. That's the tripods,
the tracks, the cranes, the dollies, all that other camera
stuff that is needed to be all rigged up. Basically,

(25:30):
they're the hard workers behind the scenes, and of course
this was something he threw himself right into. We've kind
of discussed that he's got a little bit of a
of an obsessive compulsive disorder, and that is definitely something
that goes on through here. Basically, he says that his

(25:51):
work ethic was always very strong, and he did had
that same you know, perfected method to every thing he
put his mind to, and this was no different to him.
He wanted to do the best he could, build stuff
the best he could, kept his head down, did his job,
and was just always excited for the opportunity. And I

(26:12):
guess people saw that he really just expected to be
nothing but a grip, just working behind the scenes. And then,
like we said, one day he's on some low budget movie,
the director just approaches him and asks him the question,
we said, you want to do this next thing? You know?
This would that would That was the start of him

(26:34):
just becoming him, becoming the well known henchman and dying
man that he is. He but he also, like I said,
he became the guy that producers were looking for because
of his martial arts moves, because of his look, and
because I'm sure some of them heard his worth at
work ethic was second to none. That's something that people

(26:55):
really fucking look for, you know, whether it's in any
industry you go into, that's definitely something that people look for.
And I'm sure that's something that they were looking for there.
So he just became that guy. And he started out
getting work right in the early eighties, Great American Hero,

(27:17):
night Rider, Magnum p I A Team, Simon and Simon.
We're gonna go through a lot of those. But he
then started working on some of the movies Twilight Zone,
you know the movie, Todd potitzon the movie. He mostly
worked on TV shows for a while, but then he

(27:38):
started getting into the movies. The first henchman role he
did was in nineteen eighty six with a movie We're
Running Scared Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines, and that was
one of the first movies he did. And I gotta
tell you it was hard to find pictures of him.
I don't have many, but in a few minutes here,
we're gonna start going through a few more few things there,

(28:00):
and we're going to go through all that right there. So,
like I said, he's then from there he started getting
into little roles with like I said, Big Trouble, Little China,
they live Escape from La movies like that. But really
what his probably most breakout role was Endo in Lethal Weapon.

(28:23):
I'll bring this up a couple of times, but I
can go ahead and pop this picture up for you
right there now if you don't remember, Endo was the
guy who was torturing him with the car battery and
the jumper cables with little fuzzy wet things on the
end of it. That was Endo. So basically this was

(28:44):
his first breakout performance right here now. He also, believe
it or not, has an uncredited part in Lethal Weapon
for but not as Endo because Endo got killed in
the first one. But he says that was money left
on the table. They could have made more money with this.

(29:07):
But he was also in Diehard and he stole a
candy bar, which I will get to that, and I
can't play that with sound because it's got the booming
music behind it, but I do have it, so I
will talk about it as we go. But once again
he just became known for his look, his Fu Manchu
and like I said, he was Ganghis Khan in Bill

(29:30):
and Ted. I got that picture too. We wouldn't we
could post them more than once. There he is is
Bill and Ted's looking for a baseball bat. So there
he is once again right there. But you know, this
is this movie, obviously, with the new one that just
came out recently, has gotten a little bit of a
resurgence on its own. And that's that's that's pretty good.

(29:52):
He was. I don't think I can't remember if he
was in the sequel. When we go through it, we'll
find out. I think he might have been, so all right,
So here we go. Yeah, he actually said the sequel
was better, but he did like this movie. And there

(30:12):
we go. We'll go ahead and get off. Take Bill
and Ted's off there. Now he does have one regret
in his career, not in his life, but he does
have one regret in his career that is never being
able to work with Sylvester Stallone. In fact, he was
supposed to have a big part in Cobra Stallone. Cobra

(30:34):
that was him. Bridget Nielsen, I forget the guy who
played Buffalo Bill and Joe Dirt. Sorry, folk need a squig.
So who's supposed to be in that? No, he was
gonna do the die Hard. They were gonna pay him
good money. But so basically he was supposed to work

(30:58):
with stallone, oh excuse me, and he was supposed to
do something like I said, on the movie with Cobra,
an Asian group though didn't like the idea of an
Asian villain, so they protested the movie. Now, if you
ever watched that movie, the villain was a bad dude

(31:20):
in that movie. He was basically a fucking cult leader.
So basically this caused him to get removed from that
movie Cobra. So there you go. I mean, obviously he
wasn't upset about it. He didn't feel it was stereotypical.
I don't know why people, even back then, people couldn't
just let people fucking live their lives and make decisions

(31:42):
for themselves. I that remains neither here nor there. So
he had another chance to work with them on stallone three,
or with still oone on Rambo three, but he was
already on die Hard, so he wasn't able to do that,
and hope he was still worth trying to get with
him on expendables or something, but he never could. He

(32:03):
said he was always wanting to work with Stallone and
was supposed to work Rambo three, but he said they
were paying me really good money on Diehard and they
could only use him for two weeks since they were
paying us so damn good, and they're like, no, you
can't go because yeah, I guess he had a fly
to England, but he got stopped twice. But that movie

(32:23):
right there was Stallone never happened and he never got
to work with him, but he did get to work
with Bruce Willis, and like I said, he was basically
the guy that stole the candy bar. Now that was
not a scene that was supposed to be in there.

(32:45):
I'll play that as we're talking here. He goes up,
he's getting his guns ready. He walks behind the he
gets behind the counter to hide the candy counter, and
he kind of takes a peek and next thing you know,
he looks at the candy bars. He's ready, got the
gun in his hand. He looks down and he sees,

(33:07):
I believe it's a Mars bar. Let me see what
he grabs here he does. He grabs a it's a Hershey's.
It's a Hershey's. He grabs a Hershey's and he takes
the Hershey's with him. So he grabs a candy bar. Now,
that was an improv scene, Like I had said, the
quote from him from what I remember, I asked McTurnan.

(33:30):
John McTurnan directed the movie. If it was okay to
take the candy It was definitely not in the script,
but it was a well written story. So he just
decided to grab the candy out of nowhere, and it
became a very memorable scene from the movie and one
that people would like. I said, people really remember him
as that kind of guy and that scene. So we

(33:55):
got a few more here and then we're gonna get
right and we'll go through the movies. Shouldn't take me long,
A good through the movies. You've already been on. He've
only been on thirty minutes. But basically, he really gets
involved with the story in the movies. That's kind of
one thing that's he says is very important to him.
He said, the story is very important. Whenever I can,

(34:15):
I like to get the script read it first, and
if I know the story is good, I'll I'll try
to do it. And you know, he said he's passed
up some money doing scripts that he didn't think were good.
But I mean, he may just be a henchman and
a guy who dies in every movie. But once again,
he throws himself deep into his work and you know

(34:39):
he's he's he's all in. When he gets into something,
he's obviously all in on it. He was also asked
about working with Mel Gibson and Gary Busey on the
Lethal Weapon movie. Pop that picture right back up here,
and he said, both Mel and Gary were great. I
think this might be Gary Busey might remember doing some

(35:00):
of this movie. Probably not. He said. The helicopter in
the air was great because there were two choppers flying
way too close, with one filming us. The pilot asked
me what I was doing and I said, getting ready
to jump if things go wrong. He said, you don't
want to jump, you want to ride it out. It
was exciting when I was bouncing the chopper on top

(35:21):
of the car. The pilot was great. That guy picked
me up after Mel kills me was he said. The
guy that picked me up after Mel kills me kills
me was an LA Hell's Angel member, another great guy
to work with. Well, they seem to get a lot
of Hell's Angels member and some of these movies. Man,
I'm telling you, it seems a little weird to me,

(35:43):
but that's kind of what I mean. We talked about
Beyond the Law, and there were Hell's Angels on that
set too. That was a biker movie though, so it
made more sense on that movie. All right, So we
can get this picture him and Letho upon off and
we'll get back to that in a little while. And
he was also asked kind of asked about Diehard, what

(36:05):
was your impression of Bruce Willis and if he was
concerned with the casting decision because Richard gear was the
first one to be offered that role, And he basically said,
on Diegard, he said Bruce was great. He said, he's
one of these guys that walks in and can memorize
everybody's name. I mean everybody's name, the electrician, the grips,

(36:26):
and I mean everybody else. He said, I have trouble
trying to remember my own name. I had no idea
someone else besides Bruce was supposed to do that part.
He said, I was brought on by Joel Silver after
he used me on Lethal Weapon, which we had just
talked about. I was originally introduced to Joel Silver by
Craig Backsley, who directed a Carl Weathers film. I was
on Action Jackson would have been that film. And as

(36:50):
far as casting someone else in that movie, he had
no clue, absolutely no clue. So now we're going to
talk a little bit and then we'll get to the
real to all the other movies. A little bit about
Rapid Fire, like I said, that's the movie he was
in with Brandon Lee. Not the best picture of it,
but I got what I can for everyone here on YouTube.

(37:12):
Brandon Lee, a young Brandon Lee. Now, there was always
rumor about that movie that the fight scene they shot
at the end, which was an incredible fight with Brandon Lee.
If you've never seen Rapid Fire, like I said, this
is on Hulu and in US, you need to be
watching this. It's a great movie. Now, there was always

(37:35):
rumor that was shot in a single day and pre
choreographed way before they did anything. So he said, yes,
the fight was shot in a single day. He said,
I would say a fight like this would normally take
three to five days to do, and no, it was
not pre setup or pre choreographed. It was put together
on the spot by Jeffy Mada, Brandon, and me. He said,

(37:59):
I was also working with Craig Baxley, who we talked
about a few minutes ago in Hawaii. At the same time,
he was shooting a pilot for TV, a series called Raven.
The producers were nice enough to let me go in
the middle of shooting. It actually became three days because
of flying time. The director for Rapid Fire was great,
so is the crew. Of course, Brandon and Jeff are

(38:20):
always great to work with. The producer was an asshole
at the end. He made sure I didn't get paid
because I didn't make it a point to let the
Screen Actors Guild know I was working another job. It
was a lot of fun doing the fight because a
lot of time you are under control by someone who
knows nothing about fighting and you end up with a

(38:43):
mess of a scene. So obviously we're great working with
Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son, obviously, So there you go.
One day. If you watch that fight scene, you're gonna
go one day. Yeah, one day they did the scene.
It is not a short scene. It is a pretty detailed,

(39:05):
in depth scene actually, and there you go with that.
But that's pretty much all kind of the deep diving.
I'm gonna go ahead and do right there into the
U kind of his his life and just sort of
some interviews and stuff. And again I'm trying to be
very light with what I play on here for you guys.
I don't want to be I don't want to be

(39:28):
kicked off here again. So I don't want the show
out and gone. So let's go ahead and get this.
Get this at Roland. But got a few things. Like
I said, he did do stunts for thirty six movies.
The last movie I would be in two thousand and
five being Hostage. That was the last movie he did
anything for. But I mean he did stunts and Daredevil, Scorpion, King,

(39:50):
Plant of the Apes, Lethal Weapon four. Like I had said,
Escape from La Mortal Kombat uncredited. You're gonna hear the
word un credited a lot. He was in Last Action Hero.
You're gonna see him. I actually have a scene right here, here, here,
Last Action Hero. He's right here, right here, here he goes.

(40:12):
You'll see him in the pickup truck in just a second.
But he's uncredited. You're gonna hear that word from me
a lot uncredited. He is uncredited in so many things
and so many scenes, it's ridiculous. But right after this
guy gets thrown into the you can see you've got

(40:33):
him in the in the vehicle. Aliong and also one
of the guys that we talked about in Beyond the
Lodge a couple of weeks ago, is right beside him.
He played the undercover cop who got his ass kicked.
But yeah, Aliong is right in that scene doing that.
And he was in the replacement Killers. He did stunts,

(40:55):
another one uncredited. But you're gonna hear me say the
words uncredited a lot. When I get to the movies,
he's actually been in and performed in. So let's go
ahead and get to that. Like I said, he had
done a lot of things. TV series The Greatest American
Hero I remember watching that show as a kid, kind

(41:15):
of a cheesy one. Twilight Zone, the movie, he was
in the segment timeout. He was the Vietnamese guy off
the wall, Heart to Heart, great TV show, And he
was in night Rider. I got a little picture of
night Rider for you. Right here there he is right
beside David Hasselhoff. Hasselhoff has the karate stands going look

(41:36):
at that hair, look at that jacket, look at that hair,
and look at that jacket, and look at that fu
manchew On Ali Young Beautiful fucking Beautiful. Also did a
few more TV shows, Magnum p I another one right there,
Protocol my science product, The Equalizer TV series, And this

(41:57):
is where it starts. Actually in the Greatest American here
in nineteen eighty three. He's in it, and he's uncredited.
He plays the Master of Flowers, Ninja Warrior uncredited. We
move up to night Rider uncredited, We move up to
the Equalizer, he plays Chinese Man uncredited. We moved to Hunter.

(42:20):
That was a great TV series. Two series, old cop show,
chain Men one episode uncredited, Airwolf uncredited. Then we get
to the twilight Zone TV series. He's finally credited. He
was in one of those as Albert Leong Fall Guy.
He had two different parts, two different appearances in the

(42:43):
Fall Guy riptide TJ. Hooker, something called Big Trouble, not
Big Trouble, Little China. Now he was in Running Scared.
Remember I had talked about Running Scared as a henchman uncredited. Yeah, uncredited.
Now Big Trouble, Little China not uncredited in that movie
here he was right here. That is another movie also

(43:07):
on Hulu. If you would like to watch it right
there on Hulu, you can check that out. And he
was also in about five episodes of The A Team
over the years, great show, mister t couple other actors
and good guys in that. And he was also in
Simon and Simon. And we come to nineteen eighty seven

(43:28):
and this is where we get him once again in
Lethal Weapon as Endo, which, like even he said, was
kind of a breakout role for him to be a hedgeman.
So he again kind of kept that role going instead
of just being the Chinese guy or the ninja warrior.

(43:50):
That's uncredited, but I mean even in The A Team
uncredited in all one, two, and all five appearances from
nineteen eighty four to nineteen eighty six uncredited. But finally
he's in this movie and he plays Endo, credited Spencer
for Higher another great TV show he was in. I'm

(44:13):
just going to some of these TV shows and I'm
a Broken Angel. Uncredited, They Live uncredited Black Rain if
you've never seen Black Rain with Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia.
It is a really really good movie. Another cop movie.
I know, I know, I love me some cop movies,

(44:36):
but that's a great movie. And he was also, like
I said, he was in Bill and Tied Bill and
Tidd's Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure right here as Genghis Khan.
We had already put that picture up. After that was
Black Rain, like I said, a great movie right there,
and then we're gonna move up to nineteen ninety. I'm

(44:57):
not gonna go through all seventy seventy some films, but
we're going to go to He was also in Death
Warrant with Jean Claude van Dam another great movie. Really
is a good movie. If you haven't checked this out.
He's a police officer who gets sent to jail for

(45:17):
he was in the beginning of it. He was after
a serial killer called Sandman, and he gets him. He
goes to jail undercover to try to find out who's
selling body parts, and basically he gets stuck there when
everyone he knows and everybody who knows anything about the
project gets killed except for the one girl. But he

(45:40):
fights ally on in one part in that movie, a
good little part, good little He gets put through a
dryer door. But anyhow, and then we go to like
I said, we go to Rapid Fire right there. He's
with Brandon Lee right there. And then we go up
a little more. He was in a Hot Hot Shots part. Duh.

(46:02):
That was a Charlie Sheen movie. And I just showed
you with the Last Action Hero. I just showed you
that part not even credited, not even credited. There are
so many parts, this parts and things this guy is
in and he is completely uncredited for him. Beverly Hills
Cop three, he's in there, Real Quick uncredited, Double Dragon,

(46:23):
He's in Deadly Target, the Replacement Killers uncredited. Another great
movie starring Chow Yung Fat and I believe mi A Orveno.
Another one on Hulu if you want to catch it.
It's on Hulu in the United States, So if you
want to catch that, it's right there. But we keep

(46:44):
going through, and we go through what up in the
late nineties, now even did he was even on that
seventies show one episode he played Ninja Warrior. But we
keep going and he was actually even in two thousand
and four he was on Deadwood. There you go right there,
he was in one episode guess what he got killed?

(47:09):
He did he got killed. Of course he did. Of
course he got killed. He's done a couple of things.
He's actually got a couple of things right now that's
in post production, something called The Gathering. He plays al
I don't know the last name, but what the hell.
And he's got something in pre production called Hope, a

(47:33):
Rambo fan film. So not quite sure what he's going
with there. But he did have a little bit of
a span there where he hasn't really done anything. He
kind of took two thousand and five to twenty fourteen off,
didn't really do much in those times, didn't really even
do stunts again. The last thing he did was in

(47:54):
two thousand and five for stunts was Hostage. And if
that's the movie I'm thinking of, it is the Bruce
Willis movie once again, back with Bruce Willis, So yeah,
there you go, one more movie with him in it.
But seriously, like I said, you know, I really like

(48:17):
doing these shows on guys that you've known forever, seen
him in this, seen him in that, don't really know
much about him. I hope right now you guys know
a lot more about this guy. But I've always seen
him in so many movies and you can pick him out.
You can go, oh there he is right there, Oh
there he is right there, or oh man, there's you

(48:38):
know that guy from die Hard, the Candy Steeler, the
guy that tortured Mel Gibson. You've always know where he's
from some other movie, even if he's not credited in
that movie. You know he's from this, he's from that.
So it's always good to see him in in movies.
And like I said, I love doing these shows on

(49:02):
these actors that may not be so well known. Like
I said, you've seen him, you know you've seen him,
but you can't quite place who he is, or can't
quite do this. We have Google now we can always
look it up. But I think this was something that
needed to be done. This is a man that definitely

(49:22):
deserved to be focused on. Like I said, me being
a huge fan of martial arts movies, the martial arts genre,
Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee, me just being a fan of
all the martial arts stuff. I'm a fan of this
guy's I think the first movie I can remember actually
seeing him in was probably Lethal Weapon, which I probably

(49:45):
wasn't supposed to be watching, but my dad probably let
me watch it, but I believe that's probably the first
movie I remember seeing him in was Lethal Weapon. Obviously
saw him in some things before and after that. But again,
you've got a couple of movies there can go right
on Hulu and watch, like I said, Replacement Killers. Look

(50:05):
for him, you'll see him. I believe Big Trouble in
Little China is still on there, may may not be.
I know it might be expiring soon. You can definitely
see him in there Rapid Fire right there on Hulu
in the in the US, and maybe some I don't know,
if you got a VPN and you're another country, check

(50:26):
it out. But there you go. That's really all I
have on this gentleman right here, Ali Young a little
more recent of a picture of him right there, and
that's really all I have on this guy. Just an incredibly,
incredibly talented actor, stuntman. Been very beat up in the business,

(50:51):
and it's good to good to see he's still doing
some stuff. So I guess we'll see what he's doing
with those last two movies or if he done any
more after that. But like I said, I really thought
that this guy deserved this, deserved some time, deserves something
dedicated to him, and there's plenty of interviews out there obviously,

(51:15):
but not surprising, but I thought this still deserved to
be done. But like I said, most of the movies
I mentioned that he was in uncredited. He also did
stunts for probably I would say he got credit for
being a stunt man, but just didn't get credit for
being an actor. But just a very talented guy. And

(51:38):
that's it. That is it for mister al Leong. Folks.
Like I said, I really appreciate you guys stopping on by.
I would have done this last night. I couldn't, but
I had everything ready, so I just needed to come
out here and get it done for you guys. But
I appreciate anybody listening, anybody who joined, definitely definitely appreciate it.
I actually forgot to get the chat room loaded up,

(51:59):
so I don't even know if there was anyone in
the chat Let me find out real quick. Yeah, I
think when I no, doesn't look like it, so that's
not a problem at all. But yeah, I definitely appreciate
everybody who's going to be listening to this. Please, if
you like this, definitely give this video alike. I'd appreciate

(52:21):
that very very much. And if you don't like it,
give it a thumbs down. If you got any way
I can be better. If you got any way I
can improve on this show, please let me know. I
want to make sure you guys are listening to the
Weekly Detour. That's right, check them out. Go to Spotify
check out Weekly Detour. That is Anthony and that is
also Teddy Graham's over there, So go check out those

(52:44):
guys over there. And there you go, folks. I am
David Richardson. This is Hollywood Hangout. I appreciate all y'all
coming on in, and I need to figure out how
to move this because of the chat is now blocking stuff.
And there you go. Thank you again, and I will
see y'all next time. Bye, y'all