Chen Kuan-tai (Chinese: 陳觀泰; born 24 September 1945) is a Hong Kong martial arts actor, director, and action choreographer.
Chen rose to fame in the early 1970s for his movies with the Shaw Brothers Studio and is credited as being one of the film company's first professionally trained martial artists.
Released in 1972, The Boxer From Shantung was a commercial success, netting over HK $2 million in ticket sales and launched Chen into stardom overnight.
[4] By the mid-1970s, he had become one of Hong Kong's most famous kung fu stars and achieved several hits including The Teahouse (1974), Heroes Two (1974), Big Brother Cheng (1975), and The Flying Guillotine (1975).
[4] The dispute lasted for nearly two years resulting in him briefly leaving Shaw studio after completing Lau Kar-leung's Challenge of the Masters (1976) and Executioners from Shaolin (1977).
Due to his legal dispute, the five films he made in Taiwan, including his second directional project Iron Monkey (1977), were withheld or frequently pulled from theaters.
The case was eventually settled in 1978 and Chen would return to Shaw Brothers after signing a new four-year contract requiring him to make at maximum two films per year with the company.
[10] In 2012, Chen was expelled from the Tai Sing Pek Kwar Martial Arts Association due to a dispute with his mentor, Chan Sau Chung.