Hark Tsui

Tsui Hark was born in 1950. He became interested in cinema at a young age, shooting 8mm films when he was just 10-years-old. He moved to Hong Kong with his family when he was 13-years-old. He left to study filmmaking in Texas and worked in New York before returning to Hong Kong in 1977 to work for local television station TVB.

Tsui made a striking debut as a director in 1979 with "The Butterfly Murders" for Ng See-yuen's Seasonal Film Corp. Tsui's interest in pushing the boundaries of local cinema's possibilities can already be seen in its impressive special effects. In 1983, his breathtaking "Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain" went one step further, importing Hollywood technicians and stunt teams.

In April 1984, Tsui Hark and Nansun Shi launched their own studio, Film Workshop, and produced such modern classics as "A Better Tomorrow" (1986), "A Chinese Ghost Story" (1987), "The Killer" (1989), "Once Upon a Time in China" (1991) and "The East is Red" (1993), making stars out of Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung and Jet Li as well as reinventing Taiwan actress Brigitte Lin.

Tsui consistently draws from the best of Chinese culture. He adapted Patrick Lung Kong's "Story of a Discharged Prisoner" into "A Better Tomorrow" and Chang Cheh's "One-Armed Swordsman" into "The Blade", he brought Jin Yong's vibrant martial arts novels to life in his "Swordsman" series and returned the heroic Wong Fei-hung to the big screen in the "Once Upon a Time in China" series.

In "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame", Tsui brought one of China's most iconic figures to the big screen for the very first time. Like his debut film, "The Butterfly Murders", it is an action-packed costumed detective story in which science and logic ultimately triumph over superstition and chaos. It demonstrates how the magic of Tsui's filmmaking continues to bewitch.

© 2010 Indomina Releasing