HONG KONG – The baby who co-starred with Chow Yun Fat speaks out for the first time about the making of John Woo classic Hard Boiled.
‘X-rated action,’ says Chow Yun Fat’s super-cop Tequila in the John Woo classic Hard Boiled, covering the eyes of Ling Mi his new born co-star. Now Ling Mi for the first time has spoken out about the making of the classic in an autobiography called ‘Little Piss Pants’. He writes:
A lot of people assume that I was about a few weeks old, a month tops, but alas, due to a strange degenerative disease, I was actually 27 when John Woo cast me in the role of Piss Pants. I was out of college and a little bit at a loss what to do with myself. At the stage Hong Kong’s film industry was thriving and I got a job as a focus puller. I worked on A Better Tomorrow and it was then that I became friends with Chow Yun Fat. We liked drinking and playing cards until late into the night. In fact, I was the one who was nicknamed Tequila for obvious reasons.
When Chow got the script to Hard Boiled and saw it was set in the latter half in a hospital, he had them write me in a role. And John Woo was happy to cast me because I would get around all sorts of union rules about using babies.
All of my scenes were action scenes and so it was very loud. Luckily I had Chow Yun Fat to play against. It helped we were friends but those sets were still dangerous. Even a squib going off or a gun firing blanks can injure you. The gun barrels get hot and there are bits and pieces flying everywhere. I realised quickly that I didn’t actually have much to do. It was Chow who literally carried me. So I’d get drunk. It helped with nerves. And it led to the famous scene where I pissed my diaper. That wasn’t in the script. When John saw what was happening he was furious. He shouted and yelled. But Chow had improvised and an iconic moment was born.
Little Piss Pants is available on Amazon and all good bookshops.