He has summed up his Hong Kong career as “fighting in a narrow lane.”įrom the start of his career, the hands-on Tsui found ways to subvert the mainstream, even as he worked at the epicenter of the world’s most commercially driven film industry. But he earned this comparison while working with far fewer financial and technical resources, under pressure-cooker conditions. He has been called the Asian Steven Spielberg, for his childlike wonder, trendsetting genius, and box-office wizardry. One cannot imagine Hong Kong cinema without Tsui-its golden age would lose its luster. The creative force behind the series, Tsui went on to direct four of the five Once Upon a Time in China films, while presiding over all of them, in addition to the stand-alone Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997), as producer. The film heralded one of the most successful Chinese martial-arts franchises ever made, setting a gold standard in action choreography, and along the way presenting a complex picture of late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chinese history.
Directed by Tsui Hark and top-lined by Jet Li, the epic that follows sustains this stirring spirit. Already at its outset, Once Upon a Time in China (1991) leaves a mark, displaying one of the most iconic images of athletic prowess and national pride in Hong Kong action cinema: a panorama of at least a hundred men, bare chests glistening and queues swinging as they perform martial arts in perfect sync on a seemingly infinite coast.
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