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Richard James Havis

Some may say Tsui Hark, others may say Wong Jing, but Andrew Lau Wai-keung might be the most representative Hong Kong filmmaker in his prime years.
Lau has always avoided artistic pretentiousness and kept his eye on the market when choosing projects.
Lau, a trained cinematographer who shoots his own films, had big hits like the Young and Dangerous film series, The Storm Riders and the Infernal Affairs trilogy, but has never shied away from taking on potboilers between bigger projects.
Like all successful Hong Kong directors, he has become adept at telling familiar stories in a new way, usually with the young stars of the moment.

Here we look at some of Lau’s lesser known films that demonstrate his wide range.
To Live and Die in Tsimshatsui (1994)
Lau once said he found the triad world, which controlled a good part of the Hong Kong film industry in the early 1990s, to be a good source of dramatic stories for his films.
This early effort is a competent entry in the undercover police officer genre popularised by Alex Cheung Kwok-ming’s New Wave classic Man on the Brink. Jacky Cheung Hok-yau stars as a police spy who enmeshes himself in a triad gang, where he becomes seduced by the brotherliness he finds there.

“Producer Wong Jing’s script may superficially condemn the triads, but any moral outrage is superseded by the picture’s exultation of the gangster lifestyle and the myth of brotherhood among hoods,” said the Post review.
“Director Andrew Lau takes the viewer through the usual assortment of low-life locales, from Thai boxing arenas to seedy game arcades and the cinematically popular Chungking Mansions. And he does so with such slickness and gloss that the movie is more entertaining than the hackneyed script warrants.”
Lover of the Last Empress (1995)
The boom in Category III adults-only films had evaporated a few years before Lau and producer Wong Jing made this distinctly odd historical sex drama about the rise of the Empress Dowager from lowly concubine to powerful dictator.


The otherwise well produced period film features some inept sex scenes that are so tame they would not even have qualified as soft porn in the 1990s.
The idea was to try to cash in on the fame of sex-bomb star Chingmy Yau Suk-ching, and perhaps give her some dramatic exposure – she was Wong Jing’s lover at the time.
Lau said he was influenced by the work of the great Shaw Brothers costume drama director Li Hanxiang, who rejuvenated his career in the early 1970s with mildly erotic period films.
“When I was at Shaw Brothers, I worked with Li Hanxiang as a camera assistant, so I knew how he directed his Qing dynasty films,” Lau told film critic Miles Wood. “We spent a lot of money on the sets, but the production was too rushed, as we had to finish it in a month. But it looks very good.”
Sausalito (2000)

Lau does not usually make love stories, so this light romance between thirtysomethings, set abroad in picturesque Sausalito, California, came as a surprise.
Stars Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Leon Lai Ming had a big hit together with Peter Chan Ho-sun’s Comrades: Almost a Love Story, and the big idea was to reunite them on screen.
“The result is above average for Cantonese cinema, but nowhere in the same league as [Cheung and Lai’s] previous effort,” noted the Post’s Paul Fonoroff.
Initial D (2005)
Lau set this street racing film in Japan, with a smorgasbord of Hong Kong actors playing Japanese characters – all of whom speak Cantonese. It is a super-slick racing drama so well photographed and edited it looks up to date 20 years later.


Based on a famous Japanese manga and anime, and playing like a The Fast and the Furious spin-off, the film exemplifies Lau’s strategy of cramming as many stars, young and old, into a movie as he can.
Initial D, which Lau directed with Alan Mak Siu-fai, features Taiwanese pop superstar Jay Chou in his first major screen appearance, playing a street racer with a once-revered racing driver father, played by Anthony Wong Chau-sang.
Chapman To Man-chat provides some crude humour, while Shawn Yue Man-lok, Edison Chen Koon-hei and Jordan Chan Siu-chun also co-star. There is even room for the older generation’s Kenny Bee – a member of The Wynners, a popular 1970s band.
“Technically, the production is of the high standard usually associated with Mak and Lau, with the racing sequences slickly shot and edited,” noted the Post.

“Fast cars, teen idols, and Japanese youth culture – fans of any of these are in for a blast. But non-aficionados will nod at the wheel of this slick but puerile adaptation,” the Post added.
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)
This movie, set in wartime and scripted by Gordon Chan Kar-seung, a filmmaker who has loved war films since childhood, is a well-executed drama which blends a superhero story with some dramatic intrigue centred on the anti-Japanese resistance in Shanghai.
Unexpectedly, the superhero element plays second fiddle to historical drama, and could have been excised without affecting the overall storyline.


The film is meant to be a remake of Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury. Although the overarching story is very different, there are some references to the earlier film, such as the final bout between Chen Zhen and a vicious Japanese general.
This time Donnie Yen Ji-dan plays Chen Zhen, who, after a spell fighting the Germans in Europe during the first world war, returns to Shanghai to work at the ritzy Casablanca nightclub, run by the lordly Anthony Wong.
Chen Zhen is also part of a fledgling anti-Japanese underground movement and, if that is not enough for one character, he also dons a mask and cap to fight the Japanese as a superhero.
Shu Qi, in one of her best performances, plays a Chinese nightclub singer who is really a Japanese military captain.

“[Legend of the Fist] is a serious attempt to tell a tale rather than just showing off a top-notch fighter,” Lau told the Post. “We made Chen Zhen a more rounded figure, and gave him more space to develop as a character. We wanted him to be an intelligent man who can use his brains to achieve his aims.”
The sequences set in France during the first world war are based on the real-life Chinese Labour Corps.
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.
Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook


Tilda Swinton brings Hollywood star power to a conversation on restoring classic films at Hong Kong’s M+

From Initial D to Sausalito, 5 films that show Hong Kong director Andrew Lau’s range

How a Hong Kong film set in the 1960s inspired the revival of 9 post-war buildings

Kowloon Walled City action movie sets record for Hong Kong film in Japan

Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

Jay Chou in a still from Initial D (2005), one of five lesser known movies of Hong Kong filmmaker Andrew Lau Wai-keung, director of the Infernal Affairs trilogy and the Young and Dangerous film series. 

Film director Andrew Lau Wai-keung pictured at his office in Kwun Tong, in Hong Kong, in 2007. Photo: SCMP

Roy Cheung Yiu-yeung (left) and Jacky Cheung Hok-yau in a still from To Live and Die in Tsimshatsui (1994).

Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Leon Lai Ming in a still from Sausalito (2000).

Edison Chen Koon-hei (left) and Jay Chou in a still from Initial D (2005).

Donnie Yen Ji-dan in a still from Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen (2010).

From Seven Swords to Sword Master, how Chinese wuxia films got an update in 21st century

Lin Gengxin as Third Master in a still from Sword Master. Photo: Bona Film Group

Donnie Yen in a still from Seven Swords, Tsui Hark’s 2005 sword-fighting epic and one of three notable wuxia films shot this century. Photo: Handout

Martial arts master Lau Kar-leung (front) in a still from Seven Swords. Photo: Handout

Charlie Young in a still from Seven Swords. Photo: Handout

Chang Chen in a still from Brotherhood of Blades. 

Wang Qianyuan in a still from Brotherhood of Blades. 

Peter Ho in a still from Sword Master.

From A Better Tomorrow to Bullet in the Head, the 10 best Golden Princess films ranked

Chow Yun-fat in a still from A Better Tomorrow (1986). Photo: Cinema City & Films

Chow Yun-fat in a still from A Better Tomorrow (1986), one of the classic Hong Kong films in the Golden Princess library recently bought by Shout! Studios, which plans to make them available to fans around the world. Photo: ISD Photo

How Hong Kong film Swordsman launched a new era of fantasy martial arts cinema

Sam Hui Koon-kit as Ling-wu Chung in a still from Tsui Hark’s Swordsman (1990), the film adaptation of a Louis Cha wuxia novel that launched and era of fantasy martial arts cinema in Hong Kong. Photo: Fortune Star Media

Cecilia Yip Tung as Kiddo in a still from Swordsman (1990). Photo: Fortune Star Media

Lau Shun in a still from Swordsman (1990). Photo: Fortune Star Media

Sharla Cheung Man in a still from Swordsman (1990). Photo: Fortune Star Media

Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia in a still from Swordsman II (1992). Photo: Golden Princess Film Production

Cecilia Yip Tung as Kiddo and Sam Hui Koon-kit as Ling-wu Chung in a still from Swordsman (1990). Photo: Fortune Star Media

The Last Dance movie review: Dayo Wong, Michael Hui impress in exquisite funeral drama

Dayo Wong (left) and Michael Hui in a still from The Last Dance (category IIB; Cantonese), directed by Anselm Chan. Michelle Wai co-stars. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

Michelle Wai in a still from The Last Dance. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

Chu Pak-hong in a still from The Last Dance. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

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Known for the Infernal Affairs trilogy and Young and Dangerous films, Andrew Lau’s output is wide-ranging. We recall some lesser known films


Known for the Infernal Affairs trilogy and Young and Dangerous films, Andrew Lau’s output is wide-ranging. We recall some lesser known films.
