Choi Kwok-kwong

Clifford Choi Kwok-kwong (born 1946) is a Hong Kong film director and screenwriter. He studied in Taiwan and the United States, taking up film at San Francisco State University in 1972, and then worked as a cameraman and director at the KPIX television station in San Francisco. He returned to Hong Kong in 1975 and joined TVB as a director; around 1977 he helped found a Hong Kong film-culture organisation with Law Kar, Ng Ho and others, promoting local film criticism and education. He worked as an assistant director on Game of Death and in 1978 as a screenwriter on Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, the film that made Jackie Chan's name. In 1980 he directed the youth film Encore, produced by Philip Chan and written by Manfred Wong and Lawrence Cheng, which launched newcomers Danny Chan, Leslie Cheung, Paul Chung and Patricia Ha and is regarded as one of the defining Hong Kong youth films of the decade. He directed No U-Turn in 1981, and in 1982 directed Teenage Dreamers for Shaw Brothers, produced by Mona Fong and starring Leslie Cheung and Chow Sau-lan, on which he also served as cinematographer; a sensitive portrait of schoolgirl adolescence regarded as a landmark of the genre. In 1983 he wrote and directed Nomad (Hong Kong Hong Kong), starring Alex Man and Cherie Chung. He continued to direct and produce, including the 1990 film Heart of Steel, and in 2014 directed The Roaring River. He emigrated to Canada in 1990 and, after returning in 1993, taught at the School of Film and Television of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, as well as at Baptist University and Caritas. Choi's work centres largely on youth and urban subjects, and he was a key figure in the 1980s wave of Hong Kong youth cinema.