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| JACOB CHEUNG Jacob
Cheung Chi-Leung is one of the most well regarded filmmakers in
Hong Kong cinema and is renowned for refusing to compromise his craft. Born in Hong Kong,
Cheung graduated from the Artist Training Centre of Hong Kong Television Broadcasters
Limited (HKVTB). |
| Early in his career, Cheung served as the production manager on films
such as Mr Vampire and My Lucky Stars which featured the combined acting
talents of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao.
Cheung made his directorial debut with Lai Shi, China's Last Eunuch in 1986. His
career as a producer was launched with This Thing Called Love (1990), a Woody
Allenesque comedy on love and marriage. Other notable works including Beyond the
Sunset (1989) and Cageman (1992) both won the Best Film Award at the Hong
Kong Film Awards with the latter also receiving the Best Director Award. |
Jacob Cheung Chi-Leung
Picture from Apple Daily
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| Cheung is also a partner at United Filmmakers Organization
Limited (UFO) and the managing director of Simpson Communication Limited. UFO is an
independent film company which produces feature length films depicting the lives of Hong
Kong people. Cheung established Simpson in April 1993 at a time when the usual
blockbusters with big stars and predictable plots were testing movie audience's patience
and resulting in declining cinema attendance. Cheung believed the industry could be
revived and was determined to turn it around. Simpson launched a series of four low-budget
creative films by filmmakers from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, hoping to create a
new force in Chinese independent films. Each film in the first series was made with a
miniscule budget of HK$2 million (approximately US$250,000). The gamble paid off: The
satirical Mainland feature Back to Back, Face to Face by director Huang
Jian Xin was invited to be the closing film at the Director's Fortnight of the
47th Cannes International Film Festival and won the Best Actor Award at the 7th Tokyo
International Film Festival. Taiwanese director Chang Tso Chi's
screenplay and debut film Midnight Revenge won the Most Outstanding Script Award
by Taiwan's Government Information Office. As a director and producer, Cheung has
enjoyed remarkable success over the course of his distinguished career. In the past
decade, his films have won the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best
Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. His new film The Kid is the
opening film of the 1999 Hong Kong Film Festival in Australia.
Biography reproduced from the Hong Kong Film Festival Official Catalogue (1998),
edited by Marc R. Pomerleau, published by the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office, July
1998. (c) HKETO 1998.
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Qi Qi
Picture from Qiqi
page.
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QI QI Note: Although
advertised as a special guest, unfortunately Qi Qi was unable to attend the festival due
to another commitment.
Qi Qi (pronounced Chee-chee) is known internationally as a model. She
has made her acting debut in Jacob Cheung's film The Kid.
Qi Qi was born in Shanghai, but moved to Vienna with her family when she was 13. It was
there that she received her first offer of a modelling assignment. Her parents agreed, but
only so long as it was during the school holidays! She soon turned heads and graced
magazine covers in Germany and Switzerland, and her holiday job became a full-time
profession. Although she was first famous in Europe, she chose to make Hong Kong her home
base. In 1994 she was signed by Max Factor, making her the first Asian model signed to a
multi-national cosmetics company.
Tremendously popular in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, Qi Qi's foray into movies promises
to be as successful as her stellar modelling career.
(A piece of trivia for Hong Kong film fans: her husband is popular HK actor Simon
Yam, who can be seen at this year's Hong Kong Film Festival in the crime films Expect
the Unexpected and Hitman.)
Information for this bio was found in a Hongkong Life article by Cheryl
Wang. |
| SHAUN TAM (TI LUNG) Quite
possibly one of the most successful martial arts stars of the seventies, Ti Lung (Dik
Lung) is, without question, the elder statesman of Hong Kong cinema. Having
trained in the Tai Chi based martial art Wing Chun, under the well renowned Wing Chun
master Chu Wan, Ti’s initial career prospects were far removed from the field he is
now most respected for. Commencing his working life as an apprentice tailor, he was
noticed by talent scouts from the legendary Shaw Brothers studios, who offered him a
position within an industry that would go on to become his life’s work. Under the
Shaw regime the eighteen year old Ti was trained in the diverse facets of their world,
inclusive of acting, swordplay, fighting, and stunt work, through to horsemanship. |
| By 1968 he had caught the admiring eye of (soon to be) one man film industry, and
martial arts auteur, Chang Cheh who cast him opposite Jimmy Wang
Yu in Return Of The One Armed Boxer (1968). The combination of Ti’s
matinee idol looks and his natural martial arts abilities swiftly brought him to the fore
of seventies kung fu cinema, culminating in the international hit Blood Brothers
(1973). His association with director Chang Cheh assured him a firm
standing in the scattershot world martial arts circuit, seeing him enjoy success after
success in films that would become focal to Hong Kong’s film output of the seventies.
His formidable standing saw him ascend to the director’s chair with his directorial
debut in 1974, Young Lovers On Flying Wheels. However, at the outset of the
early eighties, audience tastes had waned away from the kung fu film, the likes of Jackie
Chan, Michael Hui and Karl Mak having come to
the fore with a vibrant new blend of action and comedy that satisfied the fickle local
market. Outmoded by fresh new faces, Ti slipped into semi-retirement until 1986, when he
was approached by John Woo to appear in A Better Tomorrow. The
box office receipts for the film saw his fading star refuelled to a blistering new
intensity. |
Shaun Tam (Ti Lung)
Picture from the Ti Lung Shrine
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| By the early nineties, he had all but disappeared once again from the
scene. Prior to his role in Jacob Cheung's 1999 film The Kid,
Ti's last cinematic appearance was in Jackie Chan’s Drunken
Master II (1994). In the late 1990s he has opted to ply his trade amidst the highly
lucrative Hong Kong television industry, partaking leading roles in Judge Pao and
ICAC Investigators for TVB. Ti Lung currently lives on the outskirts of Hong Kong
City with his wife and son, but shall undoubtedly remain one of most respected actors of
his generation.
This biography has been kindly supplied by MC Thomason. (c) 1999 Icon in Black
Productions.
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