Although Hong Kong cinema has often used shocks to attract audiences, proper Cantonese-language ghost films didn't start being produced until the 1980s, when the genre was combined with kung fu and comedy in hit films like Sammo Hung Kam-bo's Encounter of the Spooky Kind. As for horror, cheap copies of American movies were produced in the early 1970s to ride.
After dominating the Hong Kong Film Awards race with 14 nominations – and winning in four categories – earlier this year, Hong Kong crime thriller Limbo leads the field at the 59th Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan with 14 nominations, including best film, best director, best actor (for Lam Ka Tung) and best actress (Cya Liu Ya-se). Soi Cheang Pou.
It was in the mid-1990s that Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan became a member of the unofficial stock company at director Johnnie To Kei Fung's innovative Milkyway Image production house. "In a city that often pigeon-holes its performers, Lau Ching Wan has become noted for his versatility. "Action, drama, romance, comedy, he has done the lot," effused the Post.
Hong Kong films had ruled the roost at the local box office until the mid-1990s, when Hollywood films started to outdo them in popularity. By the end of the millennium, Hong Kong filmmakers were feeling desperate, wondering whether the city’s film industry could survive. The Infernal Affairs trilogy will screen from Aug 22 to 24 and Aug 27 as part.