Leong Po-chih was born on 31 December 1939 in Northampton, England, to a family from Taishan, Guangdong. Brought up in Britain, he read philosophy at the University of Exeter and studied film at the London Film School before joining the BBC as an editing trainee in 1963, spending two years there on programmes such as Panorama. He moved to Hong Kong in 1967 to work as a writer-director at Television Broadcasts, and two years later co-founded Adpower, one of the territory's first commercial production houses, with the cinematographer Tony Hope; the commercials he shot won awards in the United States. In 1976 he co-directed, with Josephine Siao, his first feature, Jumping Ash, shot on location with documentary-like detail; it reshaped Hong Kong's crime cinema, finished second at the local box office that year and is regarded as a forerunner of the New Wave. His later films ranged from the action of Foxbat (1977) and the horror of He Lives by Night (1982) to the period drama Hong Kong 1941 (1984), whose star Chow Yun-fat won the Golden Horse Best Actor award; Hong Kong 1941 and The Island (1985) both took Best Cinematography at the Hong Kong Film Awards. He directed Ping Pong for Britain's Channel 4 in 1986 and the English-language Shanghai 1920 in 1991. From 1995 he spent three years making the Channel 4 documentary series Riding the Tiger with his daughter, chronicling the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, and he later directed English features such as The Wisdom of Crocodiles and Out of Reach, before returning to Chinese-language film with Baby Blues (2013) and The Jade Pendant (2017).
Leong Po-chih reshaped Hong Kong crime cinema with the location realism of Jumping Ash and is counted a forerunner of the New Wave. He brought Western film training to local subjects across action, horror and drama, and his Hong Kong 1941 helped make Chow Yun-fat a Golden Horse Best Actor.
Achievements
- 1967 · Came to Hong Kong to join Television Broadcasts as a writer-director
- 1976 · Co-directed his debut feature, Jumping Ash, with Josephine Siao
- 1984 · Directed Waiting for Dawn, for which Chow Yun-fat won the Golden Horse best actor award