Tsui Hark recently became the fourth Chinese film director to join the board of judges for the 57th Cannes Film Festival in the feature films category this year.

An internationally acclaimed visionary director, Hark started making experimental movies with 8mm film when he was only 13. After graduating from the University of Texas in Austin, majoring in film, he returned to Hong Kong in 1977 and landed a job working in television. In 1979 he directed his film debut, Die bian. It raised a lot of attention, and was hailed by many as the start of a new wave in Hong Kong cinema. After making numerous critically and successful films, he co-founded his own production house, Film Workshop, with his wife, Nansun Shi, in 1984. Although the company was intended to be contemporary, it went on to become one of the most successful production companies in Hong Kong, having produced such classics of Hong Kong cinema as Sinnui yauwan and Ying hung boon sik, which was directed by John Woo and starred the amazing Yun-Fat Chow.

Considered the master of kung-fu action films, Tsui Hark's Xiao ao jiang hu, The Legend of the Swordsman, Xin long men ke zhan and Wong Fei Hung created a new era and standard for the "wuxia" genre that has now become a trend in filmmaking.


Name is pronounced "Choy Hock" He was the fourth Chinese film director (after Kaige Chen, Jiang Wen and Edward Yang) to join the board of judges for the 57th Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Another Chinese film director joined the board of judges after him in the 58th Cannes Film Festival in 2005: John Woo, with whom Hark had a falling-out out during production of _Die xue shuang xiong (1989)_. Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004 Born in Vietnam, moved to Hong Kong at the age of fourteen He changed his calling name from Man-Kong to Hark ("overcoming") when his fellow students at the University of Texas at Austin used to tease him by calling him "KingKong"