Wong Jing, the prolific Hong Kong film director and guru of the gambling movie genre, returned to the gaming tables last month with the theatre release of From Vegas to Macau. Previously labelled “the king of crappy cinema”, Wong has defended his cinematic style, often described as loud and crass, saying he gives the audience what they want and not what he thinks they should want. Simply wishing to entertain the masses, the sweet-talking filmmaker once asked, “Who wants to watch the autobiography of a fat woman?”, in reference to the acclaimed 1990 drama Song of the Exile, directed by Ann Hui On-wah …
As one of the most critically acclaimed of Hong Kong’s “new wave” filmmakers, Hui is known for socially conscious and challenging projects. Her Night and Fog addresses the problem of domestic violence and depicts the family struggles faced by new immigrants to Hong Kong. The film was based on a real-life murder case in 2004, in which a man in Tin Shui Wai killed himself after stabbing to death his wife and two daughters. In 1987, Hui directed a two-part wuxia adaptation of The Book and the Sword, the debut novel of Jin Yong, the nom de plume of journalist Louis Cha Leung-yung …
The Hong Kong novelist, who has sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, spent more than HK$14 million in 1996 to create a library promoting literature and culture. Set in a sprawling garden beside West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, the Cloudy Pine Sanctum drew criticism after its management converted it into a luxury clubhouse for expensive banquets for businessmen and government officials. Part of Cha’s Condor trilogy, The Legend of the Condor Heroes sees one of the novel’s protagonists grow up in Mongolia under the care of infamous leader Genghis Khan …
The “Universal Ruler” was one of the world’s most prolific fathers. Recent studies from the Russian Academy of Sciences suggest Khan, who reigned in the 13th century, may have more than 16 million male descendants alive today, meaning he could have fathered thousands of children. Khan has been depicted several times in modern culture, perhaps most notably in the 1956 Howard Hughes-produced movie The Conqueror, the Mongolian warlord being played by a grossly miscast John Wayne …
The all-American icon died in 1979 after losing his battle with stomach cancer. Although Wayne had a six-pack-a-day smoking habit, it was widely alleged “The Duke” contracted his cancer, along with 90 other cast and crew members of The Conqueror, from the nuclear fallout caused by United States government weapons tests held close to the film set. A vocal anti-communist and right-wing conservative, Wayne was infuriated by the 1966 cold war satire The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. “John Wayne didn’t like me. The drunker he got the more he wanted to punch me out,” said the film’s director, Norman Jewison …
The Canadian filmmaker travelled across the American south in 1944, aged 18. Once, when sitting down next to an open window at the back of a bus to stay cool, the driver stopped and pointed to a sign stating, “Coloured people to the rear”. This introduction to racism drove him to direct the groundbreaking In the Heat of the Night. Jewison’s classic 1965 poker movie, The Cincinnati Kid, has been hailed as the “gambling movie bible” by devoted fan Wong Jing.