Tony Leung Kar-Fai Movies
Hong Kong-based screen star Tony Kar-Fai Leung (also occasionally translated as "Kar-Fai Leung,") quickly evolved into one of the most bankable and popular leading men in his native country with a remarkable ability to effortlessly segue between genres. Born in the late '50s, Leung grew up as the son of a movie projectionist and thus fell in love with cinema almost by default. As a young man, he received formal dramatic training at Hong Kong's TVB Actors' School, then founded an arts and culture magazine with a group of friends and stepped in front of the cameras courtesy of his debut role in Chinese director Li Han-hsiang's production Burning of the Imperial Palace (1983). Following a rough period that witnessed Leung being blacklisted by Taiwanese distributors for political reasons, he returned with a vengeance in 1987 with a pivotal role in the Ringo Lam-directed, Chow Yun-Fat-headlined action thriller Prison on Fire (1987). This marked the beginning of a prolific period for Kar-Fai, one that found him collaborating with five-star international directors including Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Lover, 1992), Wong Kar-Wai (Ashes of Time, 1994), and Fruit Chan (Three…Extremes, (2004)). With 1986's The Last Emperor (not to be confused with the 1987 Bertolucci production of the same name), Kar-Fai Leung and director Li Han-hsiang teamed up for a second occasion. Kar-Fai Leung is not to be confused with the similarly named actors Tony Siu-hung Leung, Tony Tung-Lei Leung, or Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, who all worked during roughly the same period of time. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- 1986
- R
Focusing on idiosyncratic characters and culture-clash comedy, rather than on the high-tech action its title might suggest, writer-director Peter Wang's The Laserman dramatizes the personal and professional struggles faced by a young Chinese-American scientist. When a bungled experiment leads to the death of his lab assistant, laser specialist Arthur Weiss (Marc Hayashi) is forced to reevaluate his life. His family provides little solace, as his attempts to deal with his mother (Joan Copeland), a Jewish woman obsessed with Chinese culture, and his brother (Tony Leung), a petty thief, lead only to more stress. Things begin to look up for Arthur when he receives a offer from a mysterious company to resume his research, but he soon discovers that his employers hope to use his developments for questionable ends, placing him in a disturbing moral crisis. Wang crowds the film with oddball personalities, opting for a quirkier sort of comedy than in his earlier A Great Wall, a more realistic look at the Chinese-American experience. Although the sheer number of these supporting characters and subplots often threatens to overwhelm the film, it attracted positive critical response for its offbeat humor. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marc Hayashi, Maryann Urbano, (more)
Kin (Tony Leung Ka-Fei) is up to his neck in gambling debts. When he asks his wife May (Brigitte Lin) to embezzle funds from her employer to pay them off, she refuses-but Kin doesn't take no for an answer. He plots to kill her and make her death look like a suicide, but things don't go as planned. May survives, and now she is bent on having her revenge. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, (more)
- 1987
Ringo Lam delivers this two-fisted gritty thriller written by his brother Nam Yin. Timid Lo Ka-yiu (Tony Leung Kar-fai) is thrown in the clink for a three-year stint after being convicted of manslaughter. Possessing none of the requisite instincts to survive in a maximum-security prison, Lo looks like he's going to be easy prey. Yet before you can say, "You dropped the soap," he befriends Chung (Chow Yun-fat) a charismatic con who has charmed every prison guard except security chief Hung (Roy Cheung), a psychotic whose brutalized visage inspired the moniker "Scarface." When Lo snitches on crime boss Micky, the don conspires with Scarface to rub out weedy stool pigeon. When Chung stands up for Lo and tells the warden of Scarface's nefarious acts, Micky gets transferred to another prison and Hung vows revenge. Later, Micky and Scarface frame Chung for a prison protest. Pushed to his psychological limits after days of torture, Chung soon is out for blood. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, (more)
In this stylish Hong Kong thriller, Tony Leung stars as a cop in Shanghai during the 1930s. His department is overrun with corruption, while gangsters rule the city via the opium trade. The young cop recruits the aid of some rickshaw drivers who turn out to be men he served with during the war, and in the tradition of The Untouchables of U.S. television and film, the group leads a crusade against the mob. This is an early work by Kirk Wong, who later directed the 1998 film The Big Hit starring Mark Wahlberg. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide
Tsui Hark takes the reigns of this series following a much-publicized rift between himself and John Woo -- the director of the first two A Better Tomorrow films -- to direct this prequel based around Chow Yun-Fat's memorable Mark character. Set in 1974, Mark ventures to Saigon after his cousin, Cheung Chi-mun (Tony Leung Kar-fai), gets into hot water with the local police. Using a contact in the Vietnamese army, the two soon start trafficking black market weapons with a beautiful female assassin named Chow Ying-kit (Anita Mui). After a deal goes horribly wrong, the three -- along with Ying-kit's father -- try to leave Vietnam, only to have Ying-kit be detained by customs. Back in Hong Kong, Mark and Chi-mun set up a small garage. When Ying-kit returns, her old mobster boyfriend, Ho (Saburo Tokito), also makes an unwelcome appearance. Though Ying-kit has fallen for Mark, he refuses to reciprocate because Chi-mun has fallen for her. Ho hates them both and tries to kill them with a well-placed bomb. Though the attempt fails, Ho promises more if the two don't leave town. Instead, Ho leaves for Saigon with Ying-kit who is quietly plotting revenge. Mark and Chi-mun soon follow them, hoping to save Ying-kit and kill Ho themselves. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chow Yun-Fat, Anita Mui, (more)
Chu Yen-ping directs this all-star cast prison flick about cop Huang Wei (Tony Leung Kar-fai) who goes into the clink undercover to figure out how the fingerprints of a long deceased death-row inmate ended up at the scene of a recent murder. There he quickly runs afoul of gangland powers, making his life a living hell. His fellow inmates include Lung (Jackie Chan) who killed a card sharp to pay for an operation for his girlfriend; Triad (Andy Lau Tak-wah) who looking for the guy who killed his brother in jail; and Lui (Sammo Hung Kam-po) a sadsack con who regularly breaks out to visit his son. Later, Huang kills a prison guard and is sentenced to death. He soon learns that the jail's crazed warden is using supposedly executed criminals to kill crime bosses who are beyond the law. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Chan, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, (more)
Hong Kong filmmaker Clara Law directed this sensitive drama about a young woman named Li Hung (Maggie Cheung), who is granted a student visa after considerable difficulty and travels to America to continue her education. She doesn't have an easy time of it, as she makes plain in her letters to her husband, Nansan (Tony Leung), but he tells her that she has to stay in the interests of their infant child. As her situation worsens, Li Hung asks Nansan for a divorce, but he flatly denies her request, so she cuts off all communication with him. Desperate to re-establish a connection with his wife, Nansan sneaks into the United States and arrives in New York, where he encounters a violent street gang and a friendly teenaged hooker with a heart of gold. The hooker, Jane, gets Nansan a job with her pimp while he frantically searches for Li Hung, whom he learns has managed to divorce him while he was still in Hong Kong. When they are finally reunited, Nansan realizes that his wife has become someone whom he can barely recognize. Hayley Man co-stars with Liu Chin. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, (more)
- 1991
In this romantic melodrama, Wu Mei-yi sings for the guests at her father's nightclub in Shanghai. It's the middle of the Japanese occupation, and her father has just been arrested by the Japanese. She is pregnant, and knows it. Her baby's father is a man she truly loves, but he's not here and may even be dead. Meanwhile, the Japanese are in charge. She responds to the proposal of one of the Japanese officers and marries him. Just after the war, We Mei-yi's long-absent Chinese boyfriend tracks her down in Japan, where she lives with her husband and child. He is heartbroken at the choice she's made and is accusatory, but she defends herself ably. Not only that, but she has come to love her new man and is not prepared to give him up for a past love. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anita Mui, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, (more)
In Taipei, Taiwan, a television executive is helping the emcee of a television show about child prodigies prepare for a segment featuring a young chess prodigy. While he does this, he remembers a visit to the mainland at the time of the Cultural Revolution to visit a cousin. While traveling by train, he encountered another chess player who was on his way to a prison camp. As he wonders what happened to him, the film cuts back and forth between the two different stories. One is about the cutthroat competition the prodigy must face in 1980s Taipei, the other is about tournament competition in Chinese labor camps in the 1960s. This film looks like two films cobbled together, because that's exactly what it is. After the director of the prison-camp chess match film walked off the job, the film sat on the shelf until the producer could think up a way to finish it. His solution was to shoot a parallel, contemporary story and intercut between the two. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Leung Kar-Fai, Yang Lin, (more)
Tsui Hark and Ching Siu-ting spin this adventure yarn inspired by old Hollywood adventure serials. Set in the 1930s when China's last emperor Puyi allies himself with the invading Japanese army, the film centers on aged though wily Dr. Choy (Dean Shek) vows to lend his experience and his medical expertise to the resistance. He teams up with the luckless Lieutenant Mang (Paul Chu Kong) whose ragtag army needs all the help it can get. After a hair-raising encounter with spy WO-1 (Fennie Yuen), the force decide to take out a chemical weapons factory located deep in Japanese held Manchuria and run by the evil Masa (Tony Leung Kar-fai) and legendary secret agent Yoshiko Kawashima (Joyce Godenzi). Corey Yuen and Jacky Cheung also star. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Raymond Lee Wai-man remakes King Hu's 1966 masterpiece about revenge and intrigue between imperial eunuchs during the Ming Dynasty. At the film's outset, the villainous Eunuch Tsao (Donnie Yen Chi-tan) has assassinated one of his primary court rivals and is looking to take out his former rival's right-hand man Chow Wai-on (Tony Leung Kar-fai). Tsao orders that his rival's children be exiled, hoping that Chow will try to rescue them. Instead, Chow's lover Yau Mo-yin (Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia), along with her small band of fighters, saves the children and takes to a desolate tavern called the Dragon Inn, run by the sexy, but wily, Jade (Maggie Cheung man-yuk). Chow soon catches up with Yau at the Inn, catching the eye of Jade. Before the two can move the children to a more secure location, Tsao's henchman pay them an unwelcome visit. While the two sides maneuver, Jade plays both sides of the fence. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, (more)
- 1992
In the 1930s, in China, there was a woman film-actress who was tagged as "the Chinese Garbo." She was a wildly popular performer who made her first film at age 16 and died by her own hand at age 25. Ironically, she was famous for playing tragic heroines, and her own life mirrored the kinds of situations she portrayed onscreen. In this biopic, Ruan Ling-yu (Maggie Cheung) is riding high in her career when the press decides to take her down a notch or two, bitterly criticizing her for an affair with a married man. This situation is unbearable for her, and she kills herself, but not before uttering the words "Gossip is a terrible thing." In addition to the central drama, scenes from actual films starring the actress are included, and the actors in this biopic occasionally step out of character to address the camera, recounting some significant fact about the individuals whose lives they are playing, and the nature of those times in China. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maggie Cheung
The Lover is director Jean-Jacques Annaud's adaptation of Marguerite Duras' minimalist 1984 novel. Set in French Indochina in 1929, the film explores the erotic charge of forbidden love. Jane March plays a French teenager sent to a Saigon boarding school, while Tony Leung is a 32-year Chinese aristocrat. They look at each and they both see a blinding white flash; it's kismet. He offers her a ride in his limousine and soon they meet in his "bachelor room" where they revel in a wide variety of creative sexual encounters. However, they both realize their love is doomed. She comes from a troubled family that includes a mentally-disturbed mother (Frederique Meininger) and drug-addicted brother (Arnaud Giovaninetti). It also appears that her family would not approve of an interracial tryst. But then neither would his family, since in order to inherit his father's wealth, he must not break from a traditional Chinese arranged marriage. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane March, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, (more)
Following his 1990 bid for a more serious sort of filmmaking with A Home Too Far, Taiwanese exploitation director Chu Yen-ping continued the war story which that film began with this stirring appeal to Nationalist sentiment. The Nationalists are preparing to disarm as the story begins, under heavy pressure from the Burmese military. The army raids their camp anyway, killing several of them and causing some others to defect and flee to the mountains for refuge. Most of these men end up fighting for other non-partisan causes, including those who raid military camps for ill-gotten profit. Those who stay behind to fight the Communists end up joining forces with the Thai military. One of the soldiers, Ke Bao-den (Tou Chung Hua), is particularly distraught to hear that the joint force will first do battle with the army of the bandit Lo Huei (Ray Lui), because some of the Nationalist defectors are part of his force, including Bao-den's friend Fan Long (played by popular actor Tony Leung). Fan Long had saved Bao-den's life in a Burmese prison camp, so the soldier decides to return the favor, undertaking a traitorous and potentially fatal mission to warn his friend about the planned attack. Ng Man-tat leads a talented supporting cast including Ko Chuen-hsiang, Yeh Chuan-chen, and veteran actress Rosamund Kwan. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
This is one of maverick Hong Kong director Chu Yun Ping's lesser efforts. A tale of bounty hunters on the trail of a wanted man, it focuses more on Three Stooges-type slapstick comedy than a martial arts action film (as the title implies). It soon becomes basically a collection of sight gags -- and not particularly good ones at that. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- 1993
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The second film adaptation of the epic Chinese novel The Water Margin concerns two friends, an alcoholic monk named Ru Chi-shen (Elvis Tsui) and a buttoned-down military officer called Lin Chung (Tony Leung). Both are martial arts experts and they grow close through their practice of the discipline. Lin has a rival, however, the wicked Kao (Lau Shun), who frames him for a crime and tries to have him executed on the way to his appointment with a military tribunal. Ru saves his friend, but the respite is only temporary as Kao, attended by his dull-witted and obnoxious son (Sin Lap-man), has the Prime Minister (Wu Ma) and Lin's wife (Joey Wang) murdered. Lin prepares for a suicidal revenge mission against Kao, intentionally turning a cold shoulder to his best friend Ru in order to save him from death. Naturally, since this is based on a legend called "All Men Are Brothers," Ru isn't dissuaded so easily. Lam Wai co-stars with Austin Wai. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Clarence Fok Yiu-leung spins this slick action-comedy crime flick featuring an all-star cast. The film centers on Black Cougar (Alan Tang Kwong-wing), a crack thief who gets the job of a lifetime -- a shadowy client is paying him an obscene amount of money to swipe a photograph from a police station. Alan enlists the help of cabal of master criminals including a sexpot weapons specialist named Ching-ching (Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia), a gambling maven (Tony Leung Kar-fai) and an infantile computer geek (Dicky Cheung Wai-kin) who goes berserk if he doesn't have a pacifier to suck on. The group quickly learns that the whole thing is a set up by Black Cougar's evil brother Bloody Wolf (Wah Yuen). While Black Cougar gets captured by a band of villains, the rest of the team is forced to fend off the baddies. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- 1994
Gordon Chan Kar-seung spins this comedy about Lam Chiu-wing (Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing), an ambitious sleazebag who, at the film's outset, loses his job and his girl on the same day. He crashes with his ne'er-do-well musician friend James (Tony Leung Kar-fai) and subsequently takes advantage of him. When James falls for comely businesswoman Winnie Tsang (Rosamund Kwan Chi-lam), Lam leapfrogs over his friend and starts going out with her. He eventually lands a job at her company, impressing the higher-ups with his near-sociopathic ease of lying. Soon, Lam has crawled his way to the top of his profession but realizes that he has trashed all those around him to get there. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, (more)
- 1994
Master Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai directed this lyrical, dream-like martial arts epic. A famously troubled shoot, the film took two years and 40 million dollars to produce (a shocking sum for a national cinema populated with low-budget quickies) and features a virtual who's-who of the Hong Kong film world. Conceived as a prequel to the popular martial arts novel The Eagle-Shooting Hero by Jin Yong, the movie is less a straightforward action thriller than a visually striking meditation on memory and love. It nominally centers on Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung), who ekes out a lonely existence as an itinerant hired sword. Getting on in years and tormented by memories of a lost love, he also works an agent for other mercenary assassins from his remote desert abode. Ouyang's old friend and fellow swordsman, Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Kar-fai, who starred in the The Lover) drowns his lovelorn misery in a magical wine that makes him forget. Later, a mysterious young man named Murong Yang (Brigitte Lin) hires Ouyang to kill his sister's unfaithful suitor, Huang Yaoshi. The following day, that spurned sister, Murong Yin (Lin again), hires Ouyang to protect her dearly beloved. Meanwhile, Hong Qi (pop star Jackie Cheung) finds some redemption for a life of killing by accepting a poor girl's offer to avenge her brother's death -- a task that Ouyang brusquely shunned. In another subplot, a master swordsman (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) is slowly going blind. He agrees to defend a village from horse thieves so that he can afford to go home and see his wife before his eyesight fails completely. This film is one of the most celebrated examples of 1990s Hong Kong cinema: it won multiple awards in its native Hong Kong, along with a Golden Osella for Best Cinematography at the 1994 Venice Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Lin, Leslie Cheung, (more)
- 1994
- NR
Hong Kong action superstar Chow Yun Fat returns as the God Of Gamblers, whose planned retirement from gaming comes to a halt when an unscrupulous rival tries to take his title. Also stars Tony Leung. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chow Yun-Fat
Andrew Lau Wai-Keung directs this slick erotic drama loosely based on the exploits of lowly imperial concubine Yu-lan, who eventually grew to be the most powerful person in the royal court. As soon as the lithe young Yu-lan (Chingmy Yau) enters the palace grounds, she garners the attention of the Emperor Hsien-feng (Yu Rongguang). Yet when a jealous colleague boils her pet cat, Yu-lan freaks out and kills the woman. She is saved from prison by the dashing Prince Kung (Tony Leung Kar-fai), who covers up the crime. After learning some of the finer points of lovemaking from some veteran prostitutes, she wins the Emperor over with her bedroom skills and feminine wiles. Soon, she bears His Majesty a son. When the emperor dies, she becomes the Empress Dowager, ruling the nation with her handsome Prince Kung by her side. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yau Chingmy
- 1995
This left-of-center love story from Hong Kong, set in Shanghai during the 1930s, follows the romance between a journalist and a beautiful ghost. The tale begins as Xu returns from an assignment in the West and stops to buy some matches at an isolated corner store so he can smoke his beloved Era cigarettes; it is very late at night. Suddenly a woman dressed in a black cheongsam quietly emerges from the darkness. She is hoping to buy some Era cigarettes. The two share a smoke and begin walking. As they amble, she informs him that she is a spirit. Daylight comes and Xu reads a headline about a man who killed himself after meeting a female ghost. Intrigued, Xu meets the woman the following night and returns to her home; there she tells him of her former husband. He returns to her home the next day, but she is nowhere to be found. They continue to meet and gradually Xu learns that her husband had been shot in the back, after which, she simply seemed to vanish. It takes more time, but eventually he solves the mystery of this most enigmatic woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
