The men tried to pull the attacker away from Ms Kim. During the struggle the robber shouted, 'I have a gun,' and drew a revolver from under his shirt.

But Mr Wong, a taekwondo black belt and instructor, jabbed his finger beneath the trigger, preventing the gun from discharging.

Though the attacker continued to struggle, biting the hands of Mr Wong and Mr Hui, they eventually wrestled him to the ground and forced him to drop the gun, at which point a policeman arrived.

The 58-year-old unemployed man has been charged with armed robbery.

'The consul-general wishes to thank the three brave men. The bravery they showed last week in Sheung Wan was the stuff of heroes,' said a Korean consulate spokeswoman.

She added that the consul-general had initially decided to invite only Mr Wong, but since the three men worked for the same stockbroking firm, they invited them all.

They urged the government to consider Mr Wong for the Good Citizen of the Year Award, given to a member of the public for helping thwart a crime.

Mr Wong said he may have taken his cue from the local movie scene. 'Maybe I have seen too many action movies, but my first thought was to stick my finger under the trigger to stop the gun from firing.

'However, the man was very strong and very agitated and I wasn't able to use my taekwondo. We struggled for several minutes, and he started biting our hands, but eventually we were able to get the gun away and the police arrived,' he told Chinese-language papers.

A police spokesman said it was too late to consider Mr Wong for the June Good Citizen of the Year Award, but the force was confident he would be in contention in December.