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Po-Chih Leong
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| Chinese: 梁普智 | |
| Born | (1939-12-31) 31 December 1939 (age 84)
England
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| Other names | Leung Po-Chi, Po-Chick Leong, Leong Po-Chih, Pochih Leung, Po-Chih Leong |
| Alma mater |
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| Occupation | Film director |
| Spouse | Mary Leong |
| Relatives | Po Shun Leong (brother) |
Leong Po-Chih (born 31 December 1939[1]) is a British-Chinese film director. He has worked in England, Hong Kong, and the United States.
On 31 December 1939, Leong was born in England to parents from Taishan, Guangdong.[2] His father was a seaman who opened a Chinese restaurant in London's West End.[3] Leong has two siblings; his younger brother is sculptor Po Shun Leong, and his nephew is photographer Sze Tsung Leong.
Leong attended Leighton Park School.[4] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Exeter and studied at the London Film School.[4][5]
Leong began his career as a trainee film editor at the BBC. Leong worked on a variety of productions, including the long-running series Panorama. In 1967, Leong joined TVB and set up its film unit in British Hong Kong. As an executive producer he also directed a number of entertainment programmes, including The Star Show. He left TVB in 1969 to form Adpower, one of the first commercial production companies in Hong Kong.[6]
In 1976, Leong co-directed his first Hong Kong film Jumping Ash, an action film set in a drug underworld, where he also appeared in this film as Tiger's man.[7][4][8] It was one of the two top-grossing films of the season.[9] At the 23rd Hong Kong Film Festival, it was described as "the advance guard of the (Hong Kong) New Wave".[10] He went on to direct a range of genres from drama to action movies, comedies, horror and satire, in both English and Chinese. Banana Cop (1984)[11] was the story of a British–Chinese policeman who returns to Hong Kong to seek help with a case. It was the genesis for his first British film Ping Pong (1986),[12] made for UK's Channel 4, the first English feature film set in Soho's Chinatown.[13]
After Banana Cop, Leong turned to history for inspiration and made the award-winning movie Hong Kong 1941 (1984), starring Chow Yun Fat,[14][15] set in Hong Kong during the early days of the Japanese invasion.[16][17] Hong Kong 1941 was an oblique comment on the 1984 deal between Britain and China about Hong Kong's future.[18][19] Leong and his film maker daughter, Sze Wing Leong,[20] directed and filmed the effect of this deal up to and beyond the handover in Riding the Tiger (1997-1998),[21] an eight part, observational documentary series for the UK's Channel 4.[22]
Further pursuing his interest in history, Leong made a Hong Kong English-language movie, Shanghai 1920 (HK, 1990),[23][24] set in Shanghai and starring John Lone,[25][26] about the rise of the legendary Shanghai gangster Big-Eared Du.[27]
His second British feature film, was the award-winning 1998 movie, The Wisdom of Crocodiles, starring Jude Law, Timothy Spall, and Kerry Fox, with notable references to Akira Kurosawas opus, especially Rashomon, and to Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï.[28] In recent years Leong has made action films starring Steven Seagal,[29] Wesley Snipes,[30] Judd Nelson,[31] Joe Mantegna,[32] and Oscar-winning Marcia Gay Harden.[33] He has directed films for US network television and AMC.[34] In 2012, he reunited with Hong Kong producer Raymond Wong Bak Ming to direct the 3D movie, Baby Blues.[35]
Leong is married to Mary Leong.[36] His son James Leong is also a filmmaker.[37]
| Year | Film title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Jumping Ash (Chinese: 跳灰 | Tiger's man, also as Co-director | [4] |
| 1977 | Foxbat (Chinese: 狐蝠) | Director, writer | |
| 1979 | Itchy Fingers Chinese: 神偷妙探手多多 | Director, writer | |
| 1980 | Dangerous Encounter - 1st Kind | Interpol officer | |
| 1980 | No Big Deal Chinese: 有你冇你 | Director | |
| 1981 | Super Fool Chinese: 龍咁威 | Director, writer | |
| 1982 | He Lives by Night (Chinese: 夜驚魂) | Director | |
| 1984 | Hong Kong 1941(Chinese: 等待黎明) | Director, actor | Nominated – Hong Kong Film Award Best Director |
| 1984 | Banana Cop (Chinese: 英倫琵琶 | Director | |
| 1985 | The Island (Chinese: 生死線) | Director | |
| 1986 | Welcome (Chinese: 補鑊英雄 | Director, writer | |
| 1986 | Ping Pong (Chinese: 乒乓) | Director | [38] |
| 1988 | Keep on Dancing (Chinese: 繼續跳舞) | Director | [39][40] |
| 1988 | Fatal Love (Chinese: 殺之戀) | Director, actor | |
| 1991 | Shanghai 1920 (Chinese: 上海1920) | Director | Nominated – Chicago International Film Festival Best Feature |
| 1997 | Riding the Tiger: The Hong Kong Handover Years 1 | Director, producer, writer, cinematographer | |
| 1998 | Riding the Tiger: The Hong Kong Handover Years 2 | Director, writer, cinematographer | |
| 1998 | The Wisdom of Crocodiles | Director | Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver [41] Gérardmer Film Festival Special Jury Prize[42] Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films Audience Award[43] Nominated – Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Gold[44] |
| 2000 | Cabin by the Lake | Director | |
| 2000 | The Darkling | Director | |
| 2001 | Return to Cabin by the Lake | Director | [45] |
| 2001 | Walking Shadow | Director | [46][34] |
| 2004 | Out of Reach | Director | |
| 2006 | The Detonator | Director | |
| 2013 | Baby Blues | Director | |
| 2014 | Bounty Hunter (Chinese: 賞金獵人 | Director | [47] |
| 2017 | The Jade Pendant | Director | [48] |
| Year | Film title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Wolf Lake | Director | Episode Excitable Boy |
| 2001 | Night Visions | Director | Episode: If a Tree Falls... |
His movies have won multiple awards and have been shown at the Venice, London, Toronto, Locarno, Hong Kong and Edinburgh film festivals, amongst others.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
LEONG, Po Chih Director, Actor Bom in London, Leong studied philosophy and cinematography in British universities ... Most recently, Leong has explored another double life in his cross-over vampire movie, the British produced The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998). ...
LEONG Po-chih was born in 1939 in London. He studied at the London Film School in 1958 and Philosophy at Exeter University. After teaching secondary school for a year, he joined BBC to train as a film editor.
Then, in 1976, the television director Leong Po-chih and the actress Josephine Siao (the latter had just completed her film education in America) codirected their first feature, Jumping Ash (Tiao Hui), which was financed by Bang Bang
The two highest-grossing films were The Private Eyes and Jumping Ash.
Engaging comedy about an Anglo-Chinese Scotland Yard inspector assigned to investigate a Chinatown murder. His wisecracking partner is played by Teddy ...
{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
Ringo Lam received sole directing credit on Esprit d'amour, Leong Po-chih disappearing from the picture. Hopefully, this was at his own request. After bouncing back with Hong Kong 1941, starring a young Chow Yun Fat, Leong made another ...
Chow Yun-fat as underworld romantic hero in a modern-dress.
Director Po-chih Leong was born in London, but has made his previous eight films in Hong Kong, including "Hong Kong 1941," about the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, which played at some festivals a couple of years ago. He's handled ...
... There have been Hong Kong movies that deal with a local issue through the representation of Japan, which I call 'boomerang films', for example, 1941 (Deng dai li ming, dir. Leung Po-chi, Hong Kong, 1984) ...
Leong Po-chih, who made Jumping Ash (1976), the film which foreshadowed the new wave ... Chinese cop who is sent to Hong Kong to solve a case; Hong Kong 1941 is about the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese - an allegory about Britain's implied betrayal of Hong Kong ...
HONG KONG 1941 is packed with period detail, lending a palpable feeling of desperation: A man tries to sell his granddaughter for potatoes; parents cut their daughter's hair and make her unattractive to save her from Japanese attention; children collect horse dung to pick ... Director Leong Po-Chih, born and schooled in London, worked for the BBC and then HK television before embarking on a film ...
Riding the Tiger, produced and directed by Po Chih Leong and Sze Wing Leong, Channel 4 June 1997
The following films have done the festival circuit, and may be headed for a screen near you: Leong Po-chih directs ... in Shanghai 1920, a period gangsta flick that features one scene set in a whites-only club where elaborately coiffed Asian ...
I saw Shanghai 1920 afterwards at another festival, and it strikes me that as a somewhat overblown gangster epic, Leong Po-Chih's feature is less representative of the best that the Hong Kong New Wave currently has to offer than
Shanghai 1920 ONCE UPON A TIME lN SHANGHAl Produktion: Fu Ngai Film (USA 1991) Verleih: Ascot Regie: Leong Po-Chih Besetzung: John Lone (Fong), Adrian Pasdar (Dawson), Keone Young ...
John Lone (Le dernier empereur) oue les parrains de triade (mafia chinoise) dans Shanghai 1920 de Po Chih Leong ...
The narrative spans a period of over forty years: from 1910 to Du's death in Hong Kong in the 50s, rigorously avoiding any perspective which ... the films may be attributed to their shrewd judgments regarding the film-going public's curiosity about Ng Sik-ho and Du Yuesheng. ... As directed by Leong Po-chih, the staunchest of Hong Kong cinema's bi-cultural representatives, the film featured a bi-cultural ...
Wesley Snipes brings attitude rather than conviction to the role of an arrogant and ...
Leong Po-chih and Kam Kwok-leung's comedy revolving around a pair of quirky twin sisters (both played by Cora Miao Hin-yan) - one committed to a mental asylum by her husband, the other with a fiancé plotting to uncommit - who decide to switch identities and places.
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