Joseph Kuo Nan-hung was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1935, with the original name Kuo Ching-chi and the aliases Kuo Hung-ting, Jiang Bing-han and Hua Jiang. After graduating from Kaohsiung Industrial High School in 1950, he studied screenwriting and directing at Asia Film Company's training course in Taipei from 1955, then worked as a continuity man and assistant director on Taiwanese-language films. Hired by Ying Du Film in 1956, he wrote and directed his first Taiwanese-dialect feature, Hatred in the Ancient City (1958), starting his early career in that genre. Called up for military service in 1959, he was discharged two years later and set up Hong Ya Company in 1962. He directed twenty-three Taiwanese-dialect films, among them the popular Please Take Care (1964). He then paused to study film at the World College of Journalism. In 1965 Li Han-hsiang invited him to join Grand Motion Picture, where he made two colour widescreen Mandarin romances adapted from Chiung Yao novels, When Will the Moon Be Full (1969) and Deep Love (1967). He moved to Union Film, and his first martial-arts picture, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (1968), was a hit in both Taiwan and Hong Kong, which led Shaw Brothers to hire him to direct in Hong Kong. For Shaw he made The Ghostly Sword (1971) and The Young Boxer (1972), and while there he founded the Hong Wah company in Hong Kong and directed The Devil's Treasure (1970), named after its villain, which took over a million at the box office. Through the 1970s he worked between Hong Kong and Taiwan on martial-arts and kung fu films including the sequel The Vengeance (1971), The Big Battle with the Mirror Man (1971), The Iron Triangle (1972) and Return of the 18 Bronzemen (1976), the last of which opened simultaneously in more than a hundred first-run Japanese cinemas. Directing less in the 1980s, he held posts as chairman of the Chinese-language Filmmakers Association from 1982 and of the Hong Kong Film Production and Distribution Association from 1987. He settled in Kaohsiung in 2000, taught at Hong Kong Baptist University, and has since trained new film directors in Taiwan.
Joseph Kuo moved from Taiwanese-dialect romances into martial-arts and kung fu pictures; the success of The Swordsman of All Swordsmen brought him to Shaw Brothers, while Return of the 18 Bronzemen and its run in over a hundred Japanese cinemas carried Taiwan's martial-arts cinema to international audiences. He also served as an industry organiser and a teacher of new directors.
Achievements
- 1958 · Wrote and directed his first Taiwanese-dialect feature, Hatred in the Ancient City, beginning his directing career.
- 1968 · Directed the martial-arts hit The Swordsman of All Swordsmen, a success in Taiwan and Hong Kong that led Shaw Brothers to hire him.
- 1976 · Directed Return of the 18 Bronzemen, which shaped the Shaolin bronzemen image and opened simultaneously in over a hundred first-run Japanese cinemas.