King Hu (born Hu Jinquan, 29 April 1932 in Beiping, now Beijing) was a film director, screenwriter and producer, and one of the most influential makers of the Chinese martial-arts film. His family came from Yongnian in Hebei and he grew up in a literary household: his grandfather had been a censor in the late Qing, his father had studied in Japan, and his mother painted in the gongbi style. He studied at Huiwen Middle School in Beiping and arrived alone in Hong Kong in 1949, where he worked as a newspaper proofreader and painted film posters and billboards. He then joined the art department of Great Wall Film Production, working under the Wan brothers, and later moved to the Yonghua studio. In 1958, introduced by Li Han-hsiang, he signed with Shaw Brothers as an actor and screenwriter, appearing in films such as The Kingdom and the Beauty (1959), and in 1963 worked with Li on the Huangmei opera film The Love Eterne. He made his own directorial debut with the anti-war drama Sons of the Good Earth in 1965. Come Drink with Me (1966), built around Cheng Pei-pei's swordswoman, folded Peking-opera movement and rhythm into combat and set the course of his wuxia style. His 1967 Dragon Inn, celebrated for its group staging inside a single inn, set a then-record for the highest box-office take in Hong Kong and won Best Screenplay at the 6th Golden Horse Awards; it is still treated as a textbook of the genre. A Touch of Zen (1971), adapted from Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, is famous for its bamboo-forest duel and Zen-like imagery and won the Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975, the first time the West took Chinese martial-arts cinema seriously. Hu prized historical research and cutting rhythm, holding that fight scenes should breathe like opera. Later films include The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) and The Valiant Ones (1975). In the early 1970s he founded King Hu Film Company, and in 1978 a British film magazine named him one of the world's five leading directors. Raining in the Mountain (1979) opened the Hong Kong International Film Festival, while Legend of the Mountain brought him Best Director at the 16th Golden Horse Awards. His last directed film was Painted Skin (1992). He died in Taipei on 14 January 1997.
King Hu raised the wuxia film from pure action to an auteur cinema of composition, rhythm and Zen, and his staging of inns, bamboo groves and deserts became a model for later filmmakers. A Touch of Zen's prize at Cannes made the West take Chinese martial-arts cinema seriously for the first time. His editing and staging directly influenced directors such as Ang Lee, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsui Hark. He is regarded as one of the masters of the Chinese wuxia film.
Achievements
- 1967 · Directed Dragon Inn, which set a then-record for the highest box-office gross in Hong Kong and won Best Screenplay at the 6th Golden Horse Awards.
- 1975 · Won the Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for A Touch of Zen.
- 1979 · Won Best Director at the 16th Golden Horse Awards for Legend of the Mountain.