Chang Cheh (1923–2002), born Zhang Yiyang in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was a Hong Kong martial-arts film director. He came to Hong Kong from the mainland in the late 1940s and worked as a screenwriter and critic before joining Shaw Brothers in 1962 as chief screenwriter. He returned to directing in 1963, co-directing the huangmei musical The Butterfly Chalice (1965), and in 1966 he made Tiger Boy on his own, now regarded as the starting point of the new-style wuxia film. His 1967 The One-Armed Swordsman, starring Jimmy Wang Yu, was Shaws' first film to take over a million Hong Kong dollars, earned him the nickname the million-dollar director and launched a whole wave of martial-arts cinema. Centred on masculine violence and male bonding, his films made stars of Wang Yu, David Chiang, Ti Lung, Chen Kuan-tai, Alexander Fu Sheng and Danny Lee, and he worked closely with the writer Ni Kuang and the action director Lau Kar-leung. Extremely prolific, he directed dozens of films during his years at Shaws, from The Golden Swallow (1968) and The Heroic Ones (1970) to The New One-Armed Swordsman (1971) and such later landmarks as Vengeance!, The Boxer from Shantung, The Blood Brothers and The Five Venoms, pushing fist-and-leg choreography and a rugged masculinity to their limits. He won Best Director at the 16th Asian Film Festival in 1970 for Vengeance! and again in 1972 for The Boxer from Shantung, which also pioneered the Shanghai-underworld genre. He set up Chang's Film Company in Taiwan in 1974 and returned to Shaws in 1976. In 2002 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards and died in Hong Kong on 22 June that year, aged 79. His early films The Three Heroes of the Border Town and The Assassin had already defined his style, and the stunt-training system he built supplied Shaws with a pool of action talent. He also wrote lyrics for film songs, and his trademark scenes of bloody last stands became a staple of later action cinema; his films were equally popular in Taiwan and among Chinese audiences in Southeast Asia. In his early years he published film criticism and wuxia fiction under pen names, and the director John Woo, who once worked under him as an assistant director, carried on his themes of brotherhood in A Better Tomorrow. David Chiang and Ti Lung, his two leading men, were known as the twin stars, and films such as The Assassin were celebrated for their tales of revenge. During his Taiwan period he made Shaolin films such as The Shaolin Martial Arts, while The Five Venoms and Crippled Avengers (1978) became cult classics for Western fans. His violent wuxia films answered the mood of a turbulent 1960s Hong Kong and were box-office hits year after year; collaborating with action directors Tong Kai and Lau Kar-leung, he devised the trademark scenes of bloody final duels. In the 1990s he worked only occasionally, but his films were repeatedly re-shown and restored.
Chang Cheh reshaped the martial-arts film around masculine violence and male bonding, and launched a whole generation of action stars. The stunt-training system he built in the studio and his two-hero storytelling shaped how later Hong Kong action films were made. His trademark scenes of bloody last stands became a staple of the genre, and his influence reached across Taiwan and Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.
Achievements
- 1967 · Directed The One-Armed Swordsman, Shaws' first million-dollar hit, sparking a new wuxia wave.
- 1970 · Won Best Director at the 16th Asian Film Festival for Vengeance!.
- 2002 · Received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards.