Chor Yuen, born Cheung Po-kin in Guangzhou on 8 October 1934, was the son of the Cantonese-film actor Cheung Wood-yau, one of the four leading men of Cantonese cinema and a shareholder in Union Film Enterprise. He studied chemistry at Sun Yat-sen University but came to Hong Kong in 1955 to be treated for a stomach ulcer and stayed to work. Moved by Sang Hu's 1949 film and by his father's example, he joined the Cantonese film industry in 1956, serving as assistant director and screenwriter under Ng Wui and Chun Kim of Kong Ngee and writing under the pen names Chun Yu and Cheung Po-jai. His first screenplay was Ng Wui's A Flake of Flying Flowers (1956), and he helped Ng Wui direct The Lotus Lamp (1956). In 1957 he assisted Chun Kim on Blood Stains the Valley of Love and The Moon of the Coconut Grove and Chan Man on The Sister-in-law from Nanyang, the three forming the 'Nanyang Trilogy'. In 1958 he assisted Chun Kim on Autumn at Violet Garden and then began directing for himself in 1959. In 1960 he wrote and directed for the Shantung Film Company formed by his father with Ng Wui and Pak Yin, and came to prominence with the realistic The Great Devotion. In 1962 he and his wife Nam Hung founded Rose Film Company, whose first production was The Rose of Tears (1963). His 1960s output was prolific and varied: melodramas such as Sin Deep in the Sea of Love (1962), The Mad Woman (1964) and Winter Love (1968); comedies such as The Pregnancy (1968); and modern swordplay films including The Black Rose (1965) and The Black Rose and the Black Rose (1966), the latter Hong Kong's first colour Cantonese film. By the time Cantonese cinema declined in the late 1960s he had directed more than seventy Cantonese pictures. Invited by the executive Yang Manyee, he joined Cathay in 1968 and turned to Mandarin films in 1970 with Firebird No. 1 and his first martial-arts film, Dragon of the Fragrant Wood, whose style set the tone for his later romantic swordplay. Pavilion of Dreams (1970) won Best Art Direction at the 16th Asian Film Festival. In November 1970 he moved to Shaw Brothers, where his first film, The Duel (1971), won the approval of Run Run Shaw. Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972), written by Chiu Kang-chien, was visually beautiful and strange and was much admired; The House of 72 Tenants (1973), filmed in Cantonese and satirising social abuses, broke Hong Kong box-office records, became the year's top earner and helped revive Cantonese cinema. From 1976 he drew on Gu Long's novels for a string of romantic martial-arts films, among them Killer Clans, The Magic Blade, The Sentimental Swordsman and Death Duel (1977), which launched the newcomer Derek Yee, and the cycle sparked a craze for Gu Long adaptations in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 1979 his historical swordplay film won Best Action-Film Director at the 25th Asian Film Festival. With Li Han-hsiang, King Hu and Chang Cheh he was counted among Shaw Brothers' 'Four Great Masters'. In November 1984 his Shaw Brothers contract expired, and in December he and friends formed the Leko Production Company, thereafter filming for various companies; his last film as director was released in 1990. From the 1980s he also acted, notably as the villain Chu To in Jackie Chan's Police Story (1985) and Police Story Part II (1988), and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 4th Hong Kong Film Awards. In 1991 he joined TVB to fulfil a wish to appear in long-running dramas, becoming well known as the 'White-haired' Wong in the sitcom Family Squad, as the Dato' in A Kindred Spirit, and as the Buddha in Journey to the West. He directed more than 120 films in all, received the Hong Kong Film Awards' Professional Spirit Award in 1998 and its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018, and died in Hong Kong on 21 February 2022.
With The House of 72 Tenants (1973) Chor Yuen broke Hong Kong box-office records and helped revive Cantonese cinema. He went on to adapt Gu Long's novels in a romantic, stylised vein, setting off a craze for such adaptations across Hong Kong and Taiwan. He directed more than 120 films spanning melodrama, comedy and martial arts.
Achievements
- 1973 · Directed The House of 72 Tenants, which broke Hong Kong box-office records and helped revive Cantonese cinema.
- 1979 · Won Best Action-Film Director at the 25th Asian Film Festival for his 1979 historical swordplay film.
- 1998 · Received the Professional Spirit Award at the 17th Hong Kong Film Awards.
- 2018 · Received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards after some sixty years in film.