Biography for
Hark Tsui More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

15 February 1950, Saigon, Vietnam (now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)

Birth Name

Tsui Man-Kong

Height

5' 9" (1.75 m)

Mini Biography

Tsui Hark recently became the fourth Chinese film director to join the board of judges for the 57th Cannes Film Festival in the feature films category this year.

An internationally acclaimed visionary director, Hark started making experimental movies with 8mm film when he was only 13. After graduating from the University of Texas in Austin, majoring in film, he returned to Hong Kong in 1977 and landed a job working in television. In 1979 he directed his film debut, Die bian (1979). It raised a lot of attention, and was hailed by many as the start of a new wave in Hong Kong cinema. After making numerous critically and successful films, he co-founded his own production house, Film Workshop, with his wife, Nansun Shi, in 1984. Although the company was intended to be contemporary, it went on to become one of the most successful production companies in Hong Kong, having produced such classics of Hong Kong cinema as _Sinnui yauwan (1987)_ and A Better Tomorrow (1986), which was directed by John Woo and starred the amazing Yun-Fat Chow.

Considered the master of kung-fu action films, Tsui Hark's The Swordsman (1990), _Xiao ao jiang hu zhi dong fang bu bai (1991)_, Dragon Inn (1992) and Once Upon a Time in China (1991) created a new era and standard for the "wuxia" genre that has now become a trend in filmmaking.

IMDb Mini Biography By: FB

Spouse

Nansun Shi

(? - present)

Trivia

Name is pronounced "Choy Hock"

Studied film at the University of Texas at Austin.

He was the fourth Chinese film director (after Kaige Chen, Jiang Wen and Edward Yang) to join the board of judges for the 57th Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Another Chinese film director joined the board of judges after him in the 58th Cannes Film Festival in 2005: John Woo, with whom Hark had a falling-out out during production of _Die xue shuang xiong (1989)_.

Was originally attached to the live-action adaptations of Lupin the Third, Tetsujin 28 (Gigantor), and Initial D, but has since vacated those projects.

Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004

The director with the second highest number of films (five, all made between 1979 to 1991) selected among the Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures by Hong Kong Film Awards in celebration of 100 years of movies, after Kar Wai Wong, with six.

Born in Vietnam, moved to Hong Kong at the age of fourteen

He worked on American TV projects in New York from 1975-1977

He changed his calling name from Man-Kong to Hark ("overcoming") when his fellow students at the University of Texas at Austin used to tease him by calling him "KingKong"

Tsui Hark received the Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 New York Asian Film Festival.

Personal Quotes

Wuxia culture is like another dimension that provides us with strong emotion, strong passion. I have always been a fan of Wuxia movies. They give us a refreshed view of what we had before, of the values and of the way we looked at life.