Miyaki Yukio (born 1934) is a Japanese cinematographer born in Kanagawa Prefecture who was active in Hong Kong cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, having already spent more than a decade in the Japanese film and television industry. In 1952 he joined Ari Production and worked as an assistant to the cinematographer Inoue Kan. In 1963 he won a television reporters' award in Japan for the programme Kochira wa Shakaibu. Amid a 1960s influx of Japanese technicians into Shaw Brothers, alongside directors such as Inoue Umetsugu and Nakahira Ko, Miyaki was one of those recruited. Accounts differ on how he reached Hong Kong: one has him following the Japanese director Furukawa Takumi to Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Ltd in 1967 to shoot The Black Falcon and Kiss and Kill; another traces the connection to 1968, when he helped Chang Cheh film the outdoor scenes of Golden Swallow (1968) and The Flying Dagger (1969) in Japan; a third says he had signed with Shaw as early as 1965. Until the mid-1970s he worked, under the Chinese pseudonym Gong Muduo, exclusively as cinematographer on Chang Cheh's films, taking part in more than thirty Shaw pictures. Among them are The Singing Thief (1969), Dead End (1969), Have Sword, Will Travel (1969), The Invincible Fist (1969), Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969), Vengeance! (1970), The Heroic Ones (1970), The Anonymous Heroes (1971), The New One-Armed Swordsman (1971), The Deadly Duo (1971), Boxer from Shantung (1972), The Water Margin (1972), The Blood Brothers (1973), Heroes Two (1974), Five Shaolin Masters (1974), Shaolin Martial Arts (1974), The Savage Five (1974), Disciples of Shaolin (1975), 7-Man Army (1976), The Brave Archer (1977), The Five Venoms (1978) and Life Gamble (1979). Chang Cheh once remarked that Miyaki raised the standard of hand-held camerawork in Hong Kong action films.
Filming more than thirty Chang Cheh pictures under the Chinese name Gong Muduo, Miyaki gave action scenes a new immediacy through hand-held camerawork. Chang publicly credited him with raising the technical standard of Hong Kong action cinematography, shaping the look of 1970s Shaw martial-arts films.
Achievements
- 1952 · Joined the Ari studio as an assistant to the cameraman Inoue Kan
- 1963 · Won a television reporters' award for the programme Zhe Li Shi She Hui Bu
- 1969 · Worked as cinematographer, under the pseudonym Gong Muduo, on Chang Cheh's The Singing Thief