Clarence Fok Yiu-leung (10 June 1955 – 1 February 2024) was a Hong Kong film and television director and producer who occasionally took cameo roles. A graduate of the Hong Kong Polytechnic's design school, he was already a keen experimental filmmaker as a student. He joined RTV's six-month director training programme in 1977 and worked as an assistant director on serials including The Three Master's Sword and In Cold Blood (1978); a year later he moved to Television Broadcasts as a director, working on dramas such as Tin Hung, The Passenger, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1979) and The Bund (1980). In 1980, while still at TVB, he shot his first feature, The Man from Vietnam, which was released in 1982; in 1981 he directed the youth drama Job Hunter, starring Danny Chan and Leslie Cheung, his first public release, and was promoted to producer at TVB the same year, overseeing serials including Bean Sprout Dream and Catch Me Now. He left the station in 1984 to devote himself to film. Known for quick thinking and speed, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 1986 for Seven Days' Romance. He directed Iceman Cometh (1989), one of the earliest time-travel pictures, The Dragon from Russia (1990), the first Hong Kong film shot on location in Moscow, and Naked Killer (1992) and Run and Kill (1993), his best-known works; Naked Killer became an internationally celebrated cult classic that the American director James Gunn has cited as a major influence. He also served as creative planner for Johnny Mak's production company, and from 2000 worked mainly on television series in mainland China, including Seven Swords Descend Mount Heaven. He died at Sha Tin Hospital on 1 February 2024, aged 68, of kidney cancer and heart disease; news of his death was only announced in March 2025.
Fok explored time travel early with Iceman Cometh and broke new ground with the first Hong Kong film shot on location in Moscow, The Dragon from Russia. Naked Killer became a cult classic abroad, and his move from television directing to feature films typified the mass production era of 1980s Hong Kong cinema.
Achievements
- 1981 · Directed his first public release, Job Hunter, starring Danny Chan and Leslie Cheung, and was promoted to producer at TVB the same year
- 1990 · Directed The Dragon from Russia, the first Hong Kong film shot on location in Moscow
- 1992 · Directed Naked Killer, which became an internationally celebrated cult classic