Tsui Hark was born Tsui Wen-kong in Saigon, Vietnam, on 2 February 1950, moved to Hong Kong in the 1960s and studied film at the University of Texas. He returned to Hong Kong in 1977 to join Television Broadcasts, where he worked on drama productions before turning to cinema in 1978; he made his directorial debut with The Butterfly Murders in 1979, a key work of the Hong Kong New Wave, and in 1981 won Best Director at the 18th Golden Horse Awards for the black comedy All the Wrong Clues. In 1984 he founded Film Workshop with his then-wife Nansun Shi, and through films he produced or directed — among them Shanghai Blues (1984), Peking Opera Blues (1986), A Better Tomorrow (1986), A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), the Once Upon a Time in China series and The Blade — he brought special effects and a new visual style into the wuxia and action genres and reshaped them; A Better Tomorrow was directed by John Woo and A Chinese Ghost Story by Ching Siu-tung, with Tsui producing both, showing his role in backing directors. He won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director three times: for Once Upon a Time in China (11th, 1992), Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (30th, 2011) and The Taking of Tiger Mountain (35th, 2016). In 2011 he released The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, billed as the first Chinese-language 3D wuxia film, and later directed Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon. He has directed around 38 films and produced 16, working with figures such as King Hu, Yuen Woo-ping, John Woo, Johnnie To, Ringo Lam, Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Stephen Chow and Brigitte Lin. Other representative works include Dragon Inn, the Swordsman series, Green Snake, Butterfly Lovers and The Legend of Zu. In 2025 he and Nansun Shi jointly received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 43rd Hong Kong Film Awards.
Tsui sparked the New Wave with The Butterfly Murders and then, through A Better Tomorrow, A Chinese Ghost Story and Once Upon a Time in China, brought special effects and a new design sensibility back into the wuxia and action genres, steering the direction of Hong Kong cinema in the 1980s and 1990s and helping take Chinese-language wuxia to the world.
Achievements
- 1979 · He made his directorial debut with The Butterfly Murders, an important work of the Hong Kong New Wave.
- 1992 · He won Best Director at the 11th Hong Kong Film Awards for Once Upon a Time in China.
- 2025 · He and Nansun Shi received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 43rd Hong Kong Film Awards.