Classic Hong Kong Films Pt. 2

Hong Kong films are renowned across the world for their innovation, artistry and brilliant story-telling. In the second of our series on classics from Hong Kong cinema, we look at three undisputed masterpieces, considered amongst the all-time best films to have come from this liveliest of cinematic hubs.

Boat People (1982) In an awe inspiring career that has spanned the last four decades, Ann Hui has become known as one of the world's most provocative and emotionally intelligent film makers. In the early 1980s, while all around here Hong Kong directors seemed obsessed with aping Hollywood crime film excess, Hui carved out a series of personal, deep and socially challenging films known as her ‘Vietnam Trilogy'. The final instalment of that trilogy was Boat People, an evocative account of the plight of everyday Vietnamese people after the fall of Saigon and the communist takeover. On its release it quickly received worldwide acclaim and a string of awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best New Performer, Best Screenplay, and Best Art Direction at the Hong Kong film awards. The film also attracted its share of controversy and has, over the years been accused of being anti-communist and anti-Vietnamese. Hui refutes both these charges to this day, insisting it is not a political film but a human one.

In the Mood for Love (2000) Set in Hong Kong in the early 1960s, Wong Kar-wai's sumptuous, hypnotic romance In the Mood for Love is perhaps the most acclaimed film ever made in the Chinese language. The story of a chaste love affair between two lonely, married neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung – both awarded at the Hong Kong Film awards), it is a remarkably simple film about complicated emotions. It's a visual treat too, with cinematography by both Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, two of the world's most sought after DOPs of the time.

The Love Eterne (1963) The classic Chinese story The Butterfly Lovers has been adapted many times to the screen but never has it been rendered so beautifully as in Li Han Hsiang's musical telling. The tale of a young girl (Betty Loh Ti) who impersonates a boy to attend a male only school and falls for one of her classmates (Ivy Ling Po), its timeless, rich beauty and sweetness made it one of Southeast Asia's most popular movies of the time.

Classic Hong Kong Films Pt. 1

Hong Kong has long been one of the world's most vibrant hubs for cinema. Thanks to its historical roots as a British colony, Hong Kong enjoyed a greater freedom of expression during the middle part of the last Century than mainland China and so its film making thrived. For decades it sat behind Bollywood and Hollywood as the third biggest producer of motion pictures on the planet.

As you would imagine, Hong Kong has thrown out its fair share of classic movies over the years. This series of articles will look at some of the most famous, beginning with two of Asian cinemas most celebrated and influential crime thrillers.

Hard Boiled (1992) The film that brought the Hong Kong crime genre and its director John Woo to mainstream international attention actually didn't get a warm reception when released in its native Region. The balletic, bullet strewn action of Hard Boiled did not go down as well as Woo's previous hits The Killer and A Better Tomorrow in Hong Kong but when it premiered in the US, the sheer, visceral mayhem of it all had the audience's leaping to their feet and yelling joyously at the screen. The story involved HK police officer ‘Tequila' Yeun, played by Chow Yun Fat, who is determined to take down a violent Triad gang. A must-see movie for fans of OTT, high octane violence, Hard Boiled was a turning point in the history of the action genre.

Infernal Affairs (2002) Telling the tale of a police officer (Tony Leung) sneaking undercover in a Triad gang, while a triad (Andy Lau) infiltrates the cops, this serpentine thriller was considered a ‘box office miracle' on its release and was followed by two, equally gripping, sequels. It's a cerebral tale with a brilliantly muscular narrative and a collection of superb performances from an all-star cast. It also became well known in the West after Martin Scorsese remade it as The Departed in 2006, a film that brought the story to the mean streets of South Boston and ended up awarded Best Film at the Oscars. Scorsese's take was good but it is not a patch on the white-knuckle tension and bravura story telling of the original.

Hong Kong celebrities: Chow Yun-fat

Next to Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat is probably the most famous living Hong Kong actor in the world. Having made his name in hit crime series The Bund in 1980, Chow made the transfer to the big screen as the leading man in John Woo's mid-80s crime/ action flicks that tore up Asian cinema and changed action movies the world over.

The first blast form the Woo/Chow canon was A Better Tomorrow in 1986, an ultra low budget production that, defying all expectations, took the box office by storm and made its leading man and director bona-fide superstars. The duo followed this up with a hugely successful sequel and then the massively influential The Killer in 1989, often cited as the greatest action movie of all time by aficionados.

Chow's later Hong Kong movies continued in the same vein – Hard Boiled, City on Fire, Prison on Fire: high octane, bullet blasted genre pictures referred to in some quarters as ‘gun fu'. Chow's character was generally a tough, dangerous, though honourable guy who, as a cop or criminal, was pushed to violent acts by the madness around him. That is not to say, however, he didn't have range. He also starred in two romantic blockbusters like An Autumn's Tale in 1987 and kid's films like Diary of a Big Man in 1988.

Chow's ability to play a range of different leading men was the central conceit of one of his biggest ever successes, 1989's God of Gamblers, in which he played a character who switched between being a romantic charmer a stoic action hero and a comedic entertainer. The film went on to break box office records all over Asia.

His attempts to launch himself in the West proved, initially unsuccessful, with a string of English language, American-set bombs in the late 90s. Chow turned this around, however, with his phenomenal performance in Ang Lee's martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in 2000, which went on to win Academy Awards and smash the international box office.

Chow Yun-fat has, over the 4 decades of his phenomenal career, marked himself out as one of the world's most consistently watchable, endlessly reinventable and brilliantly charismatic screen presences.