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Clarence Tsui

True to its title, TVB’s Superstar Specials featured A-list Hong Kong movie stars making their first forays on television.
The series, comprising 15 stand-alone 45-minute episodes, premiered 50 years ago this week, at a time when Hong Kong’s terrestrial TV industry was on the cusp of a revolution.
The series’ opening episode stars Roy Chiao, then mostly known for playing po-faced swordsmen in King Hu’s films A Touch of Zen and The Valiant Ones.
Titled simply Roy Chiao – but since renamed Treasure Hunt on Hong Kong broadcaster TVB’s streaming platform – the episode revolves around a mysterious man’s search for hidden treasure.

While there is plenty of derring-do as Chiao – or maybe his stunt double – gets into an underwater struggle and a scuffle aboard a propeller plane, the story itself subverted the actor’s usual persona with animal-related absurdities aplenty.
What sets this episode apart from other TV shows of the time is the camerawork. After a fight, Chiao’s unnamed protagonist is shown only as a reflection in a close-up of his fallen adversary’s sunglasses – a mise-en-scène element more commonly found in films than in TV serials back then.
Then there is the now legendary episode Barbara Wang Chuan-ju, aka The Cheating Wife. The titular Taiwanese actress plays a rich and lonely homemaker who is being egged on by her friends to go on a date with a handsome “toy boy”, played by Richard Ng Yiu-hon in his screen debut.
The episode, the work of the director-screenwriter duo Patrick Tam Ka-ming and Joyce Chan Wan-man, is a masterclass in storytelling through subtle gestures, with the woman character’s anxiety and desires represented through elaborate framing and the use of negative, or empty, space.
Superstar Specials was the brainchild of Liu Fang-gang, a Taiwanese journalist turned director who joined TVB in 1971 after a brief stint as a jobbing filmmaker at Hong Kong’s Cathay Studios.
Liu spent the mid-1960s studying at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the Italian film school that counted Michelangelo Antonioni and Lucio Fulci among its alumni. He spurned convention by shooting outdoor scenes with 16mm film stock at a time when TV serials were rarely filmed outside.

After earning critical acclaim in 1972 for The Wrong Path, a police-sponsored 21-episode series about the quotidian lives of the city’s crime busters, Liu was assigned to develop serials for a new generation of viewers who had been exposed to grittier content from abroad.
Working with producer Selina Chow Liang Shuk-yee – who would later become even more of a household name as a legislator – Liu eventually came up with a project to adapt big-screen aesthetics for the small screens in households across Hong Kong.
In more ways than one, Superstar Specials legitimised television’s standing as a proper medium for artistic expression: what were supposed to be one-off turns from film stars such as Chiao, Wang, Hsu Feng and Bai Ying would eventually lead to a deluge of stellar crossovers from cinema to television.
The series would also usher in changes and experimentation going far beyond the realm of terrestrial TV.
After the success of Superstar Specials, Liu was assigned to lead TVB’s Film Unit, where directors would be granted maximum creative leeway through their use of proper film cameras and 16mm stock.
Among those who worked on this team were Tam, Ann Hui On-wah, Tsui Hark, Yim Ho, Allen Fong Yuk-ping and Alex Cheung Kwok-ming – all of whom would eventually become the backbone of the so-called Hong Kong New Wave.
The rest, as they say, is history.


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How TVB’s Superstar Specials changed Hong Kong TV in the 70s with its big-screen aesthetic

Roy Chiao in a still from an episode of Superstar Specials. The 1970s TVB series featured movie stars and big-screen camerawork in a series that heralded a revolution in Hong Kong television. Photo: TVB

Superstar Specials ran for 15 episodes and is available for viewing on TVB’s streaming platform. Photo: TVB

A still from an episode of Superstar Specials. Photo: TVB

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Cheng Pei-pei (left) and Yueh Hua in a still from Dragon Swamp (1969).

(From left) Wang Chung, Ching Li and Yueh Hua in a still from The Web of Death (1976), one of several Chinese fantasy wuxia films to feature weird monsters. 

Angela Yu Chien and Lo Lieh in a still from The Web of Death (1976).

Yueh Hua (left) and Derek Yee Tung-sing in a still from Black Lizard (1981).

Lee Ga-sai in a still from The Devil’s Mirror (1972).

Cheng Pei-pei in a still from Dragon Swamp (1969).

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Liu in a still from Last Breath. Photo: Focus Features

Liu and crew members on the set of Last Breath. Photo: Focus Features

(From left) Finn Cole, Woody Harrelson and Liu in a still from Last Breath. Photo: Focus Features

(From left) Liu, Harrelson, Cole and director Alex Parkinson at the premiere of Last Breath in New York. Photo: Invision/AP

Liu in a still from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Photo: Marvel Studios

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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

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Wang Qianyuan in a still from Brotherhood of Blades. 

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Gillian Chung at an interview with the Post in 2009. Photo: SCMP

Gillian Chung at an interview with the Post in 2010. Chung, one half of Hong Kong’s Cantopop duo Twins, is now thriving as a singer and actress but the road to success – marred by a scandal involving intimate photos – has not been an easy one. Photo: SCMP

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Chung at an interview with the Post in 2009. Photo: SCMP

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Film & TV

With movie stars in their first TV roles and cinematic camerawork, the show marked a new era for Hong Kong TV when it premiered 50 years ago


With movie stars in their first TV roles and cinematic camerawork, the show marked a new era for Hong Kong TV when it premiered 50 years ago.


Television Broadcasts (TVB)

Hong Kong cinema

How TVB’s Superstar Specials changed Hong Kong TV in the 70s with its big-screen aesthetic

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}With movie stars in their first TV roles and cinematic camerawork, the show marked a new era for Hong Kong TV when it premiered 50 years ago

With movie stars in their first TV roles and cinematic camerawork, the show marked a new era for Hong Kong TV when it premiered 50 years ago