Chang Cheh ( pinyin : Zhāng Chè ; 10 February 1923 – 22 June 2002) was a Chinese filmmaker, screenwriter, lyricist and producer active in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Chang Cheh directed more than 90 films in Greater China , the majority of them with the Shaw Brothers Studio in Hong Kong. Most of his films are action films, especially wuxia and kung fu films filled with violence.
25-562: Cheh is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Chang Cheh (1923–2002), Hong Kong filmmaker, screenwriter, lyricist, and producer Mary Cheh (born 1950), American politician Lee Chin Cheh , Malaysian politician and businessman See also [ edit ] Che (surname) Chen (surname) Cholesterol-5,6-oxide hydrolase , an enzyme [REDACTED] Name list This page or section lists people that share
50-433: A heavy influence from the wuxia movie genre, and are considered his most popular films in the west – not counting 1982's Five Element Ninjas , aka Chinese Superninjas . Chang was a pioneer of what is known by some as " heroic bloodshed "; films that emphasize brotherhood, loyalty and honor, and several of his films, including Vengeance , Boxer From Shantung and Chinatown Kid , can be seen as clear influences on
75-456: A new generation of wuxia films in the late 1960s. The Harvard Film Archive described Hu a “one of the most influential and important Chinese directors in the history of cinema.” Hu Jinquan ( simplified Chinese : 胡金铨 ; traditional Chinese : 胡金銓 ) was born in Beijing to a well-established family originating from Handan , Hebei . His grandfather was the governor of Henan in
100-603: Is a particularly famous song in the Sinophone world. King Hu King Hu Jinquan ( Chinese : 胡金銓 , 29 April 1932 – 14 January 1997) was a Chinese filmmaker and actor, based in Hong Kong and Taiwan . He is known for directing various wuxia films in the 1960s and 1970s, which brought Hong Kong and Taiwanese cinema to new technical and artistic heights. His films Come Drink with Me (1966), Dragon Inn (1967), and A Touch of Zen (1970–1971) inaugurated
125-523: The Golden Arm ) to more modern period dramas ( Chinatown Kid , Boxer From Shantung , The Generation Gap ) to lavish costume epics ( The Water Margin , The Heroic Ones , Boxer Rebellion ). After graduating from National Central University ( Nanjing University ) in Chongqing , where he studied politics, Chang moved to Hong Kong , where he became a film critic. Chang got his start in
150-493: The Hollywood musical. While Kurosawa had a direct influence on Hu, the comparison with Minnelli is equally apt since both men were highly cultured aesthetes who paid special attention to the décor and art direction of their films and who reveled in the ability of mise-en-scène, movement and the spatial composition of the frame to express character and the relations between characters.” The British Film Institute wrote that "Hu
175-567: The King's Men , he moved to California in the early 1980s. Late in his life, he made a brief return from semi-retirement in The Swordsman (1990) and Painted Skin (1992), but neither achieved the renown of his first two, financially successful wuxia films. Hu loved Peking Opera and was a trustee of a Peking Opera institution. He promoted many young Peking Opera pupils into the film industry, such as Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung . Hu
200-584: The Shaw Brothers Studio in 1966, Hu travelled to Taiwan, where he made another wuxia movie, Dragon Inn . Dragon Inn broke box office records and became a phenomenal hit and cult classic , especially in Southeast Asia . This tense tale of highly skilled martial artists hidden in an inn was said to be the inspiration for Ang Lee 's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Zhang Yimou 's House of Flying Daggers (2004). In 2003,
225-751: The award-winning Malaysian-born Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang made Goodbye, Dragon Inn , a tribute to Hu, in which all the action takes place during a closing cinema's last show of Dragon Inn . Chief among the films which exemplify Hu's blend of Chan (Zen) Buddhism and unique Chinese aesthetics is A Touch of Zen , which won the Grand Prix de la Commission Superieur Technique in 1975 Cannes Film Festival , and which many regard as his masterpiece. After releasing A Touch of Zen , Hu started his own production company and shot The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) and The Valiant Ones (1975) back to back on tight finances. The action choreography in both these films
250-635: The classic 1959 film The Kingdom and the Beauty . Under the influence of Taiwanese director Li Han-Hsiang , Hu embarked on a directorial career, helping him on the phenomenally successful The Love Eterne (1963). Hu's first film as a full-fledged director was Sons of the Good Earth (1965), a film set in the Second Sino-Japanese War , but he is better remembered for his next film, Come Drink with Me (1966). Come Drink with Me
275-665: The early 1970s he frequently cast actors David Chiang and Ti Lung in his films. In the late 1970s he mainly worked with a group of actors known as the Venom Mob . Chang Cheh is also known for his long-time collaboration with writer Ni Kuang . Referred to as "The Godfather of Hong Kong cinema", Chang directed nearly 100 films in his illustrious career at Shaw Brothers, which ran the gamut from swordplay films ( One-Armed Swordsman , The Assassin , Golden Swallow ) to kung fu films ( Five Shaolin Masters , Five Venoms , Kid with
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#1732801963546300-586: The film industry as a screenwriter; his first script was Girl's Mask , a movie from Shanghai which was released in 1947. He wrote several more scripts before making his directorial debut in 1949 with Happenings in Ali Shan . His first big hit came with 1967's One-Armed Swordsman , the first film in Hong Kong history to gross HK$ 1 million. The film catapulted actor Jimmy Wang Yu to stardom and cemented Chang's status as one of Hong Kong's top directors. In
325-404: The genre. In the early 1970s Chang began making kung fu films (including Five Shaolin Masters and Five Venoms ) sometimes filming four or five movies in a single year. His earlier kung fu movies were often done in collaboration with choreographer (and future director) Lau Kar Leung , who Chang had worked with, along with choreographer Tong Gaai, on earlier films. After falling out with Lau on
350-665: The last decade of his life in Los Angeles . He died in Taipei of complications from angioplasty . At the time of his death, Hu was attached to direct The Battle of Ono , a project he had spent decades working on. He is buried in Whittier , California. In a 2013 retrospective, the Harvard Film Archive Hu's influence on the wuxia genre as “[what] Kurosawa would do with the samurai film and Minnelli with
375-711: The late Qing dynasty . His father had studied in Japan and was the owner of the local coal mine, and his mother was a concubine. His uncle was a high-ranking official in the Republican government. Several of his brothers held high positions in the Communist government. Hu grew up in Beijing as a child, and emigrated to British Hong Kong in 1949. at first he wanted to study in the United States, but could not raise
400-614: The later work of directors such as John Woo and Ringo Lam . His influence on future filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino (who listed Chang as a dedicatee in the end credits of Kill Bill: Volume 2 ), Robert Rodriguez and Zhang Yimou is unquestionable. John Woo , who lists Cheh as his chief filmmaking inspiration, worked as assistant director on many of the master's films, including Boxer From Shantung , The Water Margin and The Blood Brothers . In 1992, Chang produced Taiwan Television 's Ma's Assassination (刺馬), which tells
425-480: The money for tuition. He then worked for the local Voice of America in Hong Kong. After moving to Hong Kong, Hu worked in a variety of occupations, such as advertising consultant, artistic designer and producer for a number of media companies, as well as a part-time English tutor. In 1958, he joined the Shaw Brothers Studio as a set decorator, actor, scriptwriter and assistant director. He acted in
450-477: The same given name or the same family name . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cheh&oldid=1189642233 " Categories : Given names Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata All set index articles Chang Cheh In
475-473: The same story as his 1973 film The Blood Brothers . The series is directed by Lu Feng and stars, among other actors, David Chiang . Chang Cheh wrote the lyrics of more than 70 Chinese songs that have appeared in his films. The theme song of his directorial debut Happenings in Ali Shan ( Chinese : 阿里山的姑娘 ; pinyin : Ālǐ shān de gūniáng ; lit. ' Alishan Range 's Girls'), also known as "Gao Shan Qing" (高山青; "The Green High Mountain"),
500-559: The same year, he released The Assassin , another early Chang classic, and in 1968 he followed up with Golden Swallow , a sequel to King Hu 's classic wuxia picture Come Drink With Me . Chang often co-wrote scripts with fellow screenwriter Ni Kuang , and occasionally co-directed films with directors such as Baau Hok-li , Wu Ma and Gwai Chi-hung . He even occasionally wrote and co-wrote music for his films. In addition to his film related work, he also wrote novels, poetry and non-film related articles under numerous pseudonyms. Chang
525-403: The set of Disciples of Shaolin , Chang started featuring a troupe of actors made up of Sun Chien , Chiang Sheng , Philip Kwok , Lo Meng , Lu Feng , Wei Pai (and Yu Tai Ping ), who would come to be known as " The Venoms ", as actors and choreographers in his films. His films from this period, including Five Deadly Venoms , Kid with the Golden Arm , and Crippled Avengers , feature
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#1732801963546550-624: Was multilingual , and was known to be fluent in Mandarin , Cantonese , and English, and adept in Korean and Japanese . In 1981, Hu reunited with his nephew in the United States . He asked his nephew where his mother and father were and was told that his mother has not been heard from and his father was in a labor camp in Shanxi , but had since been in a car accident and died. Hu spent
575-466: Was heavily influenced by directors Akira Kurosawa , Hideo Gosha , Sergio Leone , and Sam Peckinpah , Cheh brought elements from these movies into his own work, revolutionizing Hong Kong filmmaking. His swordplay films of the 1960s (including One Armed Swordsman ), filled with bloody scenes of the hero cutting his way through a roomful of opponents, were considered at the time by Westerners to be violent trash but are now looked back on as masterpieces of
600-400: Was his first success and remains a classic of the wuxia genre, catapulting the then 20-year-old starlet Cheng Pei-pei to fame. Blending Japanese samurai film traditions with Western editing techniques and Chinese aesthetic philosophy borrowed from Chinese music and operatics , Hu began the trend of a new school of wuxia films and his perpetual use of strong, valiant heroines. Leaving
625-694: Was the work of a young Sammo Hung . Other films include Raining in the Mountain and Legend of the Mountain (both dating from 1979, and shot in South Korea ), which were loosely based on stories from Pu Songling 's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio . The reason was that the government of South Korea would help sponsor the budgeting should he produce at least two films in the area. Both are now considered classics. Though critically hailed, Hu's later films were less commercially successful than his first two films. After his late comedy masterpiece All
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