Leong Po-Chih

Biography

Leong Po-Chih was born in 1939 in Northampton, United Kingdom and raised in Britain. He studied philosophy at the University of Exeter and later attended the London Film School to study cinema. After graduation, he joined the BBC as a trainee film editor for two years, assisting in the production of television programmes. In 1967 he moved to Hong Kong to work as a director and trainer at TVB, and in 1969 co-founded an advertising production company with photographer Tony Hope. He began directing films in 1976 with "Long Arm of the Law" (跳灰), co-directed with actress Sylvia Chang, which revolutionised Hong Kong crime cinema and became the second highest-grossing film of the year, regarded as a forerunner of the Hong Kong New Wave. He subsequently directed a diverse range of works including "Waiting for the Dawn" (等待黎明), which launched actor Chow Yun-fat to stardom and won Best Actor at the Golden Horse Awards and Asia-Pacific Film Festival, while his film "Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind" won Best Cinematography at the Hong Kong Film Awards. In 1991 he directed the English-language film "Shanghai 1920" starring John Lone, and later co-produced a lengthy documentary about Hong Kong before the handover with his daughter in 1995. He continued directing English-language works in Britain and the United States before returning to Chinese-language cinema in 2013 with the film "The Baby". His films are noted for exploring themes of hybrid cultural identity in Hong Kong and the experiences of overseas Chinese.