Gordon Chan Kar-seung was born in 1960 to a family from Bao'an, Guangdong, and after secondary school studied in Toronto, Canada, before joining Shaw Brothers in 1982 as an assistant producer; he built the special props for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (1983) and headed the special-effects department, later moving into production and writing the script for Behind the Yellow Line (1984). In 1988 he co-wrote Heart to Hearts with Chan Hing-ka and Yip Kwong-kim and served as its executive director, winning Best Screenplay at the 8th Hong Kong Film Awards the following year. He made his solo directorial mark with The Bachelor's Swan Song (1989), which he also wrote, and then worked with Stephen Chow on hits such as Fight Back to School (1991) and King of Beggars (1992). In 1994 he directed Fist of Legend, starring Jet Li in a remake of Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury, and his 1996 police action film won him the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for Best Director. With Dante Lam he co-directed Beast Cops (1998), which won Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 18th Hong Kong Film Awards. After the industry slump of the late 1990s he stepped back from directing for a time; in 2008 he wrote and directed Painted Skin, which took more than RMB 200 million at the mainland box office, and he later made The Four series. He works as producer and presenter as well and founded Yidian Pictures; he has served as chairman of the Hong Kong Film Awards Association for the 26th to 34th editions, president of the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild and vice-chairman of the Guangdong Film Association, and received the Hong Kong SAR government's Medal of Honour.
Gordon Chan's Fight Back to School series shaped Stephen Chow's school-comedy formula, and Fist of Legend (1994) rewrote the action set pieces of the kung-fu film. In 1999 Beast Cops won him Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the same Hong Kong Film Awards, making him one of the few Hong Kong filmmakers equally at home as writer and director.
Achievements
- 1989 · Won Best Screenplay at the 8th Hong Kong Film Awards for Heart to Hearts
- 1994 · Directed Fist of Legend, starring Jet Li
- 1999 · Won Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 18th Hong Kong Film Awards for Beast Cops