Roy Chow Hin-yeung (born 8 October 1978 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong film director, screenwriter and producer. He graduated with first-class honours from the School of Film and Television at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and worked behind the scenes after leaving school, building up production and on-set experience. In 2009 he directed his first feature, the crime thriller Murderer (released on the mainland as Sin and Punishment), starring Aaron Kwok and written by Christine To, which brought him a Best New Director nomination at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards. His 2012 mystery Nightfall, starring Simon Yam and Nick Cheung and built around a charred-body case that reopens crimes twenty years old, won him Best New Director at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Awards. He followed with Rise of the Legend (2014), a reworking of the Wong Fei-hung legend with Eddie Peng as the young hero, and The Great Detective (2016), a Republican-era detective story, and in 2021 adapted the video game series into the fantasy action film Dynasty Warriors. Chow has long collaborated with the screenwriter Christine To, with whom he has written films since Murderer and whom he later married. His films tend towards crime, action and fantasy, often shot in both Hong Kong and Guangdong and blending realistic locations with genre elements, and he also takes part in the planning of mainland-Hong Kong co-productions, making him one of the more active directors of his generation in the two markets.
Starting out behind the camera, Roy Chow won the Hong Kong Film Awards' Best New Director prize for Nightfall and went on to make large-scale genre pictures such as Rise of the Legend and Dynasty Warriors, making him one of the younger Hong Kong directors who most often works in action and fantasy.
Achievements
- 2009 · Directed his debut feature Murderer, which earned him a Best New Director nomination at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards.
- 2013 · Won Best New Director at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Awards for Nightfall.
- 2021 · Directed Dynasty Warriors, adapted from the video game series.