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Why director Ann Hui’s rare spins on the martial arts and horror film genres were special
Better known for realistic films about social issues, Hong Kong director Ann Hui also dabbled in other genres. Here we look at two stand-outs.
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Ann Hui On-wah is rightly praised for her realistic films about social issues and Hong Kong society. But the acclaimed director has made films in many genres during her career.
Here we look at her once-lost martial arts masterpiece and a ghostly horror film.
The Romance of Book and Sword / Princess Fragrance (both 1987)
This epic three-hour wuxia film, released in two parts, is still one of Hui’s most ambitious projects to date.
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Shot in the deserts of Xinjiang and the Jiangnan region in mainland China, and featuring a fully mainland Chinese cast, the film is a relatively faithful adaptation of a martial arts novel by Louis Cha Leung-yung, also known as Jin Yong.
Although most Hong Kong New Wave directors railed against martial arts films, feeling that the genre was holding the city’s cinema back, Hui spent three years making the film, including 11 months of difficult location shooting.
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She travelled the length of China looking for locations, negotiated her way through financial storms with the mainland companies investing in the film, shot in forbidding climatic conditions, and took control of a cast list in excess of 1,000 people, noted a report in the Post in 1987.
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