Kinetic martial arts spectaculars, loveable period comedy, charismatic hero sagas, amorous demons and seductive snake spirits – consider Hong Kong cinema’s most sensational offerings since the 1980s and the name Tsui Hark is bound to come up. Whether as director or producer, or even serving as a genre’s guiding light, Tsui has been the standard bearer for cinematic adventure since arriving in film as a Hong Kong New Wave firebrand.
Born in 1950, Tsui studied filmmaking at the University of Texas before going to New York where he worked on documentaries with filmmaker Christine Choy. In 1977 he returned to Hong Kong and joined broadcaster TVB as a director and producer for soaps and sitcoms. But Tsui soon shifted to rival CTV under producer Selina Chow – known for nurturing emerging talents who’d soon be heralded as New Wave filmmakers. It’s at CTV that Tsui made a name for himself, directing the 1978 wuxia fantasy The Gold Dagger Romance – a six-part adaptation of Taiwan writer Gu Long’s work that Tsui electrified with bravura staging and criss-crossing genre elements.
The serial scored Tsui the invitation to direct his first feature, The Butterfly Murders (1979) – a Taiwan-shot wuxia film cut through with influences of detective, western and sci-fi cinema. Next for Tsui were the cannibal horror-comedy satire We’re Going to Eat You (1980) and the searing teenage-delinquent thriller Dangerous Encounter – 1st Kind (also 1980), the latter falling foul of censors in its first cut yet still shocking in amended form. Critics hailed Tsui’s radical filmmaking and social comment, but none of the films so far were box office successes. Tsui would instead get a taste of hitmaking at the Cinema City production house. There he joined a brains trust busy devising blockbusters, and for his part helmed the popular comedy Alll the Wrong Clues for the Right Solution (1981), a nimble period crime spoof that prompted a follow-up in Teddy Robin’s All the Wrong Spies (1983), counting Tsui among its cast.
Long a fan of comics and wuxia stories, Tsui flexed his muscles as a visionary moderniser with the supernatural fantasy Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983). Making the film for the powerhouse Golden Harvest studio, Tsui called in Hollywood special effects experts to help snazz up an already bonkers brew of Chinese mythology and martial arts cinema. Little can prepare one for the film’s onslaught in a cinema, where its breathtaking plot and staging hurtle along at astonishing speed.
A turning point came when he and Nansun Shi founded Film Workshop. The production company launched with Tsui’s delightful postwar comedy-drama Shanghai Blues (1984), which saw the director build hallmarks of his now extensive filmography: a cross-genre approach that swings between extremes of mood and character, and pushing women to the fore of his storytelling with rich characterisation and gender dynamics.
Tsui’s subsequent filmography as director, producer and writer with Film Workshop has been prolific, innovative and accomplished, providing trend-setting hits as well as signature works of stars like Brigitte Lin, Chow Yun-fat and Joey Wong. It’s impossible to list every key work in a short introduction, so instead, and at risk of infuriating readers by omitting much-loved films, here’s a snapshot covering some of the greatest hits.
In 1986, as producer Tsui saw John Woo’s gangster epic A Better Tomorrow through to release and had a box office smash on his hands. The film was based on Lung Kong’s Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967), elevated themes of friendship and honour in times of upheaval, and set the mould for subsequent crime cinema. A month later the Tsui-directed Peking Opera Blues hit screens, thrilling audiences with an extravagant action-comedy-drama concoction following three women through Republican-era turmoil.
The next year, Tsui struck gold as producer with A Chinese Ghost Story, directed by Ching Siu-tung and based off Li Han-hsiang’s The Enchanting Shadow (1960) and the supernatural tales of ancient Chinese writer Pu Songling. The film would become another landmark, defining its genre for modern audiences and sparking popular sequels. Another major film for Tsui as producer was The Killer (1989), the stylish John Woo-directed story of a cop and a hit man that pushed codes of honour into emotional overdrive.
In 1990, Tsui circled back to wuxia with Swordsman, drawn from the writing of martial arts novelist Jin Yong. Master director King Hu was on board, but fell ill during production; the film was completed by a team of directors including Ching Siu-tung, producer Tsui and Ann Hui. The dizzying saga of a young swordsman seeking a sacred scroll set off a cycle of follow-ups (among them the breathtaking, gender-bending Swordsman 2 [1992, d. Ching Siu-tung]) and emulators. The next breakthrough for Tsui was directing Once Upon a Time in China (1991) – a period kung fu dazzler centred on Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. Tsui elevated nationalistic themes in both the hero’s Chinese principles and a plot of Wong tackling human traffickers, and delivered kinetic action staged with extraordinarily elaborate wire-fu that would be de rigueur for action epics in years to come (among them were yet more Film Workshop attractions like Raymond Lee’s brilliant Dragon Inn [1992]). The action-comedy-drama film brought in more success at the box office, and Film Workshop would have a fifth instalment of the Once Upon a Time in China series out by 1994.
Fantasy had already popped up in The Butterfly Murders and Zu, but Tsui’s Green Snake (1993), based on the “Legend of the White Snake”, pushed the genre into a sensuous and richly hued realm of eroticism and female-centred storytelling. 1994’s period drama The Lovers plunged into legend too with Tsui’s retelling of The Butterfly Lovers’ story of ill-fated love, then spun the classic tale into a tear-jerking youth smash. And Tsui threw his fantasy leanings as well as his love of manga and technology into A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation. The 1997 film, produced in Tsui’s own workshop by a team of just 20 and with post-production handled in Japan, pioneered in bringing advanced animation techniques into the Hong Kong film industry and showering moviegoers with the unexpected. Tsui’s The Legend of Zu (2001) would likewise update his past material for a new era with cutting-edge computer effects, and he also produced Herman Yau’s comic-based live action and 3D animation hybrid Master Q 2001 (2001).
Along the way, Tsui found time to give Hollywood a shot. Double Team (1997) and Knock Off (1998) saw Tsui working with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme in overseas shoots, and later, back in Hong Kong, he worked with Columbia Pictures to helm the intense local thriller Time and Tide (2000). But the 2000s saw Tsui become a leading exponent of ever grander Chinese epics fuelled by Hong Kong-mainland China co-production. After revisiting wuxia with Seven Swords (2005), Tsui coupled the genre with detective cinema for an all-new experience in Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010). With megastar Andy Lau in the lead, the lavish production veered into complex psychology while stunning with its action choreography, art direction and world building. Tsui would follow it with two popular prequels, and craft more high-end extravaganzas including Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011), remaking King Hu’s 1967 film Dragon Inn and his own 1992 production, and wartime thriller The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014).
Tsui’s latest release is the Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, a prime attraction in the 2025 Lunar New Year box office rush. The fusion of fantasy, romance and action saw Tsui return to the celebrated writing of Jin Yong and set up a new cinematic universe of rival martial arts schools and battlefield intrigue. This year Udine Far East Film is hosting the international festival premiere of that film, as well as showcasing Film Workshop’s Shanghai Blues restoration and presenting the ravishing Green Snake in a survey of legendary creatures in Asian cinema. On this occasion, Far East Film is proud to welcome director Tsui Hark to Udine and award him the Golden Mulberry for Lifetime Achievement, celebrating his groundbreaking contributions to cinema and unrelenting pursuit of new big-screen wonders.
Tim Youngs