Hong Kong actors such as action superstar Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat are well-known to movie goers around the world. International attention was focused on the SAR industry’s many strengths when director Wong Kar-wai became the first SAR director to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999. This was followed a year later by Tony Leung being named the Best Actor at Cannes.

Less known are the SAR’s behind-the-scenes personalities such as directors, stunt choreographers and computer animators. Many of the films they have worked on have won widespread acclaim and are international box-office hits.

John Woo - director

Action auteur John Woo is arguably Hong Kong’s biggest import to Hollywood. He made the leap to Hollywood in 1992 armed with a reputation for making action movies, a smattering of English and business partner Terence Chang, who introduced Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat to Hollywood. Woo received his first international break with Hard Target starring Belgian action star Jean Claude van Damme and went on to direct Broken Arrow which starred John Travolta and Christian Slater. It was Face/Off in 1997 starring John Travolta and Oscar winner Nicholas Cage that finally cast Woo into Hollywood’s A-list and found superstars such as Tom Cruise knocking on his door. The director has been consistently in Hollywood’s Top 100 Power List since directing Cruise in Mission
Impossible 2.

Peter Ho-sun Chan had a modest but promising start in the world of movies as an assistant and translator to director John Woo in Hong Kong production A Better Tomorrow. His big moment came with Comrades, Almost A Love Story which swept the Hong Kong Film Awards in 1996, winning in nine out of its 11 nominated categories. In 1997 Chan made the move to Hollywood, and his international debut as a director came with the Dreamworks’ drama The Love Letter in 1999. Chan is now in pre-production for his second international film, Waiting, which is adapted from the best selling Ha Jin novel of the same name.

Yuen Wo-ping – action
choreographer

After the thrilling fight scenes in
The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon, Yuen Wo-ping’s reputation as the world’s best action choreographer is now cast in stone. His wuxia martial arts brand of versatile wirework established him as one of the top martial arts film directors and stunt choreographers in Hong Kong. However, he still remained a secret to the world until he worked on the Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix. His slick action sequences impressed international audiences and the following year, the 56-year-old showed the world yet another aspect of his versatile style with the runaway hit Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon, which was nominated for 10 awards at last year’s Oscars and focused world attention on Hong Kong’s creative talent, state-of-the-art technology and post-production work.

Raman Hui - animator

Chances are that film-lovers the world over have seen and been enthralled by Raman Hui’s work. While Hong Kong actors, directors and even stunt choreographers are enjoying a high level of visibility these days, Hui remains a behind-the-scenes hero in the world of computer animation where he has designed and brought life to characters from two successful animated features, Antz and the Dreamworks production Shrek. He is the supervising animator on both the films.