Benz Kong Tao-hoi, born in Hong Kong on 9 July 1956 to a family from Jurong in Jiangsu, is a Hong Kong action choreographer, actor, director and screenwriter who has repeatedly been nominated for the Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film Awards. He grew up in a family of acrobats and magicians: his grandfather Kong Fun-yu was a strongman who performed in Hong Kong from the 1950s, and his parents ran the No. 7 theatre of the Lai Yuen amusement park, training successors through their own troupe. Third of six children, he practised acrobatics while studying and appeared at Lai Yuen from childhood alongside performers such as Cheung Tak-lan, Anita Mui and Mui Oi-fong. He entered the film industry in 1975 as a stunt double taking small parts, his first screen appearance coming in 1979, and became a full action director in 1983. His skill in card magic and sleight of hand made him a sought-after gambling-technique adviser, and a stand-in for gambling scenes, during the poker-film boom of the late 1980s and 1990s, on films such as God of Gamblers and All for the Winner. He worked for years with Tung Wai or Poon Kin-kwan on action design, followed Sammo Hung into the field, and also worked with Wong Kar-wai, making cameo appearances in his films. In 1991 he co-founded a production company with Cheung Tung-jo and Tung Wai. He earned his first Golden Horse nomination for action choreography with The True Hero in 1994 and another with A World Without Thieves in 2004, for which he devised the pickpockets' duel including a scene of shelling boiled eggs. He was nominated at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards for his directorial debut Twins Mission, and designed the magic for The Great Magician (2012). In 2024, with Leung Pok-yan, he was nominated at the 61st Golden Horse Awards for Stuntman.
Kong Tao-hoi wove magic and sleight of hand into action design, serving as gambling-technique adviser on films such as God of Gamblers and opening up a visual language unique to Hong Kong's gambling pictures; he has also passed on the stuntman's craft, and in 2024 was still nominated at the Golden Horse Awards for Stuntman.
Achievements
- 1994 · First Golden Horse Best Action Choreography nomination for The True Hero
- 2007 · Directed his first feature, Twins Mission
- 2024 · Golden Horse Best Action Choreography nomination for Stuntman