Po-Chih Leong
{{short description|British-Chinese film director (born 1939)}}
{{Cleanup bare URLs|date=August 2022}}
{{family name hatnote|Liáng|lang=Chinese}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2013}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Po-Chih Leong
|image =
|alt =
|caption =
|birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1939|12|31}}
|birth_place = England
| alma_mater = {{Plainlist|
}}
|native_name = {{zh|t=梁普智}}
|other_names = Leung Po-Chi, Po-Chick Leong, Leong Po-Chih, Pochih Leung, Po-Chih Leong
|occupation = Film director
|spouse = Mary Leong
|relatives = Po Shun Leong (brother)
}}
Leong Po-Chih (born 31 December 1939{{cite web|url=http://www.fandango.com/pochihleong/overview/p99383|title=Po-Chih Leong - Immortality|publisher=Fandango.com|accessdate=2013-07-28}}) is a British-Chinese film director. He has worked in England, Hong Kong, and the United States.
Early life
On 31 December 1939, Leong was born in England to parents from Taishan, Guangdong.{{Cite web|url=https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/18995340/19057018/Leong%2BPo-chih_e.pdf|title=Leong Po-chih|accessdate=8 February 2023}} His father was a seaman who opened a Chinese restaurant in London's West End.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qzn8DwAAQBAJ&dq=Po-Chih+Leong+exeter&pg=PA375|title=Leong, Po-Chih (1939–)|work=Directors in British and Irish Cinema: A Reference Companion|first=Robert|last=Murphy|date=2006|accessdate=8 February 2023|page=375|publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=9781838715335 }} Leong has two siblings; his younger brother is sculptor Po Shun Leong, and his nephew is photographer Sze Tsung Leong.
Leong attended Leighton Park School. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Exeter and studied at the London Film School.{{cite book|author=Roger Garcia|title=Out of the shadows: Asians in American cinema|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QG1ZAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=2001|publisher=Edizioni Olivares|page=253|isbn=9788885982604|quote=LEONG, Po Chih Director, Actor Bom in London, Leong studied philosophy and cinematography in British universities ... Most recently, Leong has explored another double life in his cross-over vampire movie, the British produced The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998). ... }}
Career
Leong began his career as a trainee film editor at the BBC. Leong worked on a variety of productions, including the long-running series Panorama. In 1967, Leong joined TVB and set up its film unit in British Hong Kong. As an executive producer he also directed a number of entertainment programmes, including The Star Show. He left TVB in 1969 to form Adpower, one of the first commercial production companies in Hong Kong.{{cite book|author=Hong Kong. Urban Council|title=第十三屆香港國際電影節: 23.3.89-7.7.89|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ldNLAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1989|publisher=Urban Council|isbn=9789627040279|quote= LEONG Po-chih was born in 1939 in London. He studied at the London Film School in 1958 and Philosophy at Exeter University. After teaching secondary school for a year, he joined BBC to train as a film editor.}}
In 1976, Leong co-directed his first Hong Kong film Jumping Ash, an action film set in a drug underworld, where he also appeared in this film as Tiger's man.{{cite web |url=https://hkmdb.com/db/people/view.mhtml?id=4176&display_set=eng|title=Leung Po-Chi|website=hkmdb.com|accessdate=June 20, 2021}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MkHCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA283 |title=Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema - P283 Leong, Po-Chih (1939-) |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|page=283|first1=Lisa Odham|last1=Stokes|first2=Rachel|last2=Braaten|isbn=9781538120620|date=2020|accessdate=June 20, 2021}}{{cite book|author=Ching-Mei Esther Yau|title=At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World|url=https://archive.org/details/atfullspeedhongk00yauc|url-access=registration|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=2001|publisher=U of Minnesota Press|isbn=978-0-8166-3234-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/atfullspeedhongk00yauc/page/45 45]–|quote=Then, in 1976, the television director Leong Po-chih and the actress Josephine Siao (the latter had just completed her film education in America) codirected their first feature, Jumping Ash (Tiao Hui), which was financed by Bang Bang}} It was one of the two top-grossing films of the season.{{cite book|author1=Botang Zhuo|author2=Pak Tong Cheuk|title=Hong Kong New Wave Cinema: (1978-2000)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tezz-YTGJ00C&pg=PA41|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=2008|publisher=Intellect Books|isbn=978-1-84150-148-2|pages=41–42|quote=The two highest-grossing films were The Private Eyes and Jumping Ash.}} At the 23rd Hong Kong Film Festival, it was described as "the advance guard of the (Hong Kong) New Wave".{{cite book|title=香港電影新浪潮: 二十年後的回顧|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VeRkAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1999|publisher=臨時市政局|isbn=978-962-7040-67-5}} He went on to direct a range of genres from drama to action movies, comedies, horror and satire, in both English and Chinese. Banana Cop (1984){{cite book|author1=Mick Martin|author2=Marsha Porter|title=Video Movie Guide 1995|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LTB-7VWqoJkC|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1994|publisher=Ballantine Books|isbn=978-0-345-39027-1|quote=Engaging comedy about an Anglo-Chinese Scotland Yard inspector assigned to investigate a Chinatown murder. His wisecracking partner is played by Teddy ... }} was the story of a British–Chinese policeman who returns to Hong Kong to seek help with a case. It was the genesis for his first British film Ping Pong (1986),{{cite book|author=New York Media, LLC|title=New York Magazine|website=Newyorkmetro.com|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IeUCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68|accessdate=29 July 2013|date=10 August 1987|publisher=New York Media, LLC|pages=68–|issn=0028-7369}} made for UK's Channel 4, the first English feature film set in Soho's Chinatown.{{cite book|title=British Film Institute Film and Television Yearbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bfvrAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1986|publisher=British Film Institute|page=112|isbn=9780851701929}}
After Banana Cop, Leong turned to history for inspiration and made the award-winning movie Hong Kong 1941 (1984), starring Chow Yun Fat,{{cite book|author=Daniel O'Brien|title=Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XehfPFuFY8C&pg=PA39|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=2003|publisher=Headpress|isbn=978-1-900486-31-6|pages=39–|quote=Ringo Lam received sole directing credit on Esprit d'amour, Leong Po-chih disappearing from the picture. Hopefully, this was at his own request. After bouncing back with Hong Kong 1941, starring a young Chow Yun Fat, Leong made another ...}}{{cite book|author=Daniel O'Brien|title=Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XehfPFuFY8C&pg=PA39|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=2003|publisher=Headpress|isbn=978-1-900486-31-6|pages=39–|quote=Chow Yun-fat as underworld romantic hero in a modern-dress.}} set in Hong Kong during the early days of the Japanese invasion.{{cite book|author=R R Bowker Publishing|title=Variety Film Reviews|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DHNZAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1988|publisher=Garland Pub.|isbn=9780835227995|quote=Director Po-chih Leong was born in London, but has made his previous eight films in Hong Kong, including "Hong Kong 1941," about the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, which played at some festivals a couple of years ago. He's handled ...}}{{cite book|author1=Olivia Khoo|author2=Sean Metzger|title=Futures of Chinese Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Kf0m3Uq3SMC&pg=PA109|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=2009|publisher=Intellect Books|isbn=978-1-84150-274-8|pages=109–|quote= ... There have been Hong Kong movies that deal with a local issue through the representation of Japan, which I call 'boomerang films', for example, 1941 (Deng dai li ming, dir. Leung Po-chi, Hong Kong, 1984) ...}} Hong Kong 1941 was an oblique comment on the 1984 deal between Britain and China about Hong Kong's future.{{cite book|author1=Stephen Teo|author2=British Film Institute|title=Hong Kong cinema: the extra dimensions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xHlZAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1997|publisher=BFI|isbn=978-0-85170-496-8|page=155|quote=Leong Po-chih, who made Jumping Ash (1976), the film which foreshadowed the new wave ... Chinese cop who is sent to Hong Kong to solve a case; Hong Kong 1941 is about the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese - an allegory about Britain's implied betrayal of Hong Kong ...}}{{cite book|author=Edmond Grant|title=The Motion Picture Guide: 1999 Annual (The Films of 1998)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WVAOAQAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1999|publisher=CineBooks|isbn=978-0-933997-43-1|page=176|quote=HONG KONG 1941 is packed with period detail, lending a palpable feeling of desperation: A man tries to sell his granddaughter for potatoes; parents cut their daughter's hair and make her unattractive to save her from Japanese attention; children collect horse dung to pick ... Director Leong Po-Chih, born and schooled in London, worked for the BBC and then HK television before embarking on a film ...}} Leong and his film maker daughter, Sze Wing Leong,http://www.documentary.org/users/cuckoohk directed and filmed the effect of this deal up to and beyond the handover in Riding the Tiger (1997-1998),{{cite web|last=Dakota|first=Alison|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/18/style/18iht-hong.t_2.html|title=Hong Kong's Anti-Hero|work=The New York Times|date=1998-04-18|accessdate=2013-07-30}} an eight part, observational documentary series for the UK's Channel 4.{{cite book|author1=Alan Rosenthal|author2=John Corner|title=New Challenges for Documentary: Second Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z7byAre88gYC&pg=PA357|accessdate=29 July 2013|date=13 May 2005|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-6899-7|pages=357–|quote=Riding the Tiger, produced and directed by Po Chih Leong and Sze Wing Leong, Channel 4 June 1997}}
Further pursuing his interest in history, Leong made a Hong Kong English-language movie, Shanghai 1920 (HK, 1990),{{cite book|title=A. Magazine: The Asian American Quarterly|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BCYaAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1991|publisher=Metro East Publications, Incorporated|page=xxi|quote=The following films have done the festival circuit, and may be headed for a screen near you: Leong Po-chih directs ... in Shanghai 1920, a period gangsta flick that features one scene set in a whites-only club where elaborately coiffed Asian ...}}{{cite book|title=Cinemaya|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fJIHAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1992|publisher=A. Vasudev|quote=I saw Shanghai 1920 afterwards at another festival, and it strikes me that as a somewhat overblown gangster epic, Leong Po-Chih's feature is less representative of the best that the Hong Kong New Wave currently has to offer than }} set in Shanghai and starring John Lone,{{cite book|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=1wQqAAAAYAAJ|title = Film Jahrbuch|publisher = Zweiter Kino Verlag|year = 1993|page = 224|language = German|quote = Shanghai 1920 ONCE UPON A TIME lN SHANGHAl Produktion: Fu Ngai Film (USA 1991) Verleih: Ascot Regie: Leong Po-Chih Besetzung: John Lone (Fong), Adrian Pasdar (Dawson), Keone Young ...|author1 = Dirk Manthey|author2 = Jörg Altendorf|isbn = 9783893240999|accessdate = 29 July 2013}}{{cite book|title=La Revue du cinéma|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cXVZAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1991|publisher=Ligue française de l'enseignement et de l'éducation permanente|language=French|page=11|quote=John Lone (Le dernier empereur) oue les parrains de triade (mafia chinoise) dans Shanghai 1920 de Po Chih Leong ...}} about the rise of the legendary Shanghai gangster Big-Eared Du.{{cite book|author1=Stephen Teo|author2=British Film Institute|title=Hong Kong cinema: the extra dimensions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xHlZAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=29 July 2013|year=1997|publisher=BFI|isbn=978-0-85170-496-8|page=238|quote=The narrative spans a period of over forty years: from 1910 to Du's death in Hong Kong in the 50s, rigorously avoiding any perspective which ... the films may be attributed to their shrewd judgments regarding the film-going public's curiosity about Ng Sik-ho and Du Yuesheng. ... As directed by Leong Po-chih, the staunchest of Hong Kong cinema's bi-cultural representatives, the film featured a bi-cultural ...}}
His second British feature film, was the award-winning 1998 movie, The Wisdom of Crocodiles, starring Jude Law, Timothy Spall, and Kerry Fox, with notable references to Akira Kurosawas opus, especially Rashomon, and to Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï.{{cite book|author=Adam Lukeman|title=Fangoria's 101 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen: A Celebration of the World's Most Unheralded Fright Flicks|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hv1dB-9CfNYC&pg=PT369|accessdate=29 July 2013|date=10 August 2011|publisher=Crown Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-52347-1|pages=369–}} In recent years Leong has made action films starring Steven Seagal,{{cite book|author=Arnaud Niklaus|title=Steven Seagal, dernière légende du film d'action ?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1tFHK0ZYNl0C&pg=PA83|accessdate=30 July 2013|date=December 2012|publisher=BoD - Books on Demand France|language=French|isbn=978-2-322-00486-7|pages=83–}} Wesley Snipes,{{cite book|author=Robert Cettl|title=Terrorism in American Cinema: An Analytical Filmography, 1960-2008|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nV4BvL8AqEwC&pg=PA104|accessdate=30 July 2013|year=2009|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-5442-6|pages=104–|quote=Wesley Snipes brings attitude rather than conviction to the role of an arrogant and ...}} Judd Nelson,{{cite book|author=Tracy Stevens|title=International Television & Video Almanac|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o7UVAQAAMAAJ|accessdate=30 July 2013|year=2003|publisher=Quigley Publishing Company|page=494|isbn=9780900610721}} Joe Mantegna,{{cite book|author1=Eileen S. Quigley|author2=Quigley Publishing|title=International Television & Video Almanac|url=https://archive.org/details/internationaltel2007quig|url-access=registration|accessdate=30 July 2013|year=2007|publisher=Quigley Publishing Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/internationaltel2007quig/page/503 503]|isbn=9780900610813}} and Oscar-winning Marcia Gay Harden.{{cite book|author=Otto Penzler|title=In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9Pgdo9BcXEcC&pg=PT104|accessdate=30 July 2013|date=24 April 2012|publisher=BenBella Books|isbn=978-1-936661-19-0|pages=104–}} He has directed films for US network television and AMC.{{cite web|url=http://www.moviesreviews.tv/review-walking-shadow-2001|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130729224434/http://www.moviesreviews.tv/review-walking-shadow-2001|url-status=dead|archive-date =2013-07-29|title=Search WALKING SHADOW 2001 reviews online. Search online movie reviews and trailers|publisher=Moviesreviews.tv|accessdate=2013-07-29}} In 2012, he reunited with Hong Kong producer Raymond Wong Bak Ming to direct the 3D movie, Baby Blues.{{cite web|author=Mahiwaga|url=http://www.horror-movies.ca/2013/03/teaser-poster-for-hong-kongs-baby-blues-3d/|title=Teaser Poster for Hong Kong's Baby Blues 3D|publisher=HorrorMovies.ca|accessdate=2013-07-29}}
Personal life
Leong is married to Mary Leong.{{cite web|url=http://www.lookupanyone.com/results.php?ReportType=8&qs=CA&qc=West+Hollywood&qf=Po&qn=Leong&recordid=06AG3TS0YSD|title=People Search from Intelius searches billions of public records instantly. Search free now!|publisher=LookupAnyone|accessdate=2013-07-29}} His son James Leong is also a filmmaker.{{cite web|url=http://www.lianainfilms.com/about/|title=About|publisher=Lianain Films|date=2012-01-20|accessdate=2013-07-29}}
Filmography
= Films =
= Television series =
| class="wikitable sortable" | |||
| Year
!Film title !Role !class="unsortable"| Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Wolf Lake | Director | Episode Excitable Boy |
| 2001 | Night Visions | Director | Episode: If a Tree Falls... |
Awards
His movies have won multiple awards and have been shown at the Venice, London, Toronto, Locarno, Hong Kong and Edinburgh film festivals, amongst others.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{portal|Biography}}
- {{IMDb name |0502987}}
- {{Rotten-tomatoes-person|pochih_leong|Po-Chih Leong}}
- {{Hkmdb name|4176|Leung Po-Chi}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leong, Po-Chih}}
Category:Alumni of the London Film School
Category:Alumni of the University of Exeter
Category:British film directors
Category:English people of Chinese descent