Hu Jinquan (29 April 1932 â€" 14 January 1997), better known as King
Hu, was a Chinese film director and actor based in Hong Kong and
Taiwan. He is best known for directing various wuxia films in the
1960s and 1970s, which brought Hong Kong and Taiwanese cinema to new
technical and artistic heights. His films Come Drink with Me (1966),
Dragon Inn (1967), and A Touch of Zen (1969â€"1971) inaugurated a new
generation of wuxia films in the late 1960s. Apart from being a film
director, Hu was also a screenwriter and set designer.Hu was born in
Beijing to a well-established family originating from Handan, Hebei.
His grandfather was the governor of Henan in the late Qing Dynasty. He
emigrated to Hong Kong in 1949.After moving to Hong Kong, Hu worked in
a variety of occupations, such as advertising consultant, artistic
designer and producer for a number of media companies, as well as a
part-time English tutor. In 1958, he joined the Shaw Brothers Studio
as a set decorator, actor, scriptwriter and assistant director. He
acted in the classic 1959 film The Kingdom and the Beauty. Under the
influence of Taiwanese director Li Han-Hsiang, Hu embarked on a
directorial career, helping him on the phenomenally successful The
Love Eterne (1963). Hu's first film as a full-fledged director was
Sons of the Good Earth (1965), a film set in the Second Sino-Japanese
War, but he is better remembered for his next film, Come Drink with Me
(1966). Come Drink with Me was his first success and remains a classic
of the wuxia genre, catapulting the then 20-year-old starlet Cheng
Pei-pei to fame. Blending Japanese samurai film traditions with
Western editing techniques and Chinese aesthetic philosophy borrowed
from Chinese music and operatics, Hu began the trend of a new school
of wuxia films and his perpetual use of a heroine as the central
protagonist.Leaving the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1966, Hu travelled to
Taiwan, where he made another wuxia movie, Dragon Inn. Dragon Inn
broke box office records and became a phenomenal hit and cult classic,
especially in Southeast Asia. This tense tale of highly skilled
martial artists hidden in an inn was said to be the inspiration for
Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Zhang Yimou's
House of Flying Daggers (2004). In 2003, the award-winning
Malaysian-born Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang made Goodbye, Dragon
Inn, a tribute to Hu, in which all the action takes place during a
closing cinema's last show of Dragon Inn.
Hu, was a Chinese film director and actor based in Hong Kong and
Taiwan. He is best known for directing various wuxia films in the
1960s and 1970s, which brought Hong Kong and Taiwanese cinema to new
technical and artistic heights. His films Come Drink with Me (1966),
Dragon Inn (1967), and A Touch of Zen (1969â€"1971) inaugurated a new
generation of wuxia films in the late 1960s. Apart from being a film
director, Hu was also a screenwriter and set designer.Hu was born in
Beijing to a well-established family originating from Handan, Hebei.
His grandfather was the governor of Henan in the late Qing Dynasty. He
emigrated to Hong Kong in 1949.After moving to Hong Kong, Hu worked in
a variety of occupations, such as advertising consultant, artistic
designer and producer for a number of media companies, as well as a
part-time English tutor. In 1958, he joined the Shaw Brothers Studio
as a set decorator, actor, scriptwriter and assistant director. He
acted in the classic 1959 film The Kingdom and the Beauty. Under the
influence of Taiwanese director Li Han-Hsiang, Hu embarked on a
directorial career, helping him on the phenomenally successful The
Love Eterne (1963). Hu's first film as a full-fledged director was
Sons of the Good Earth (1965), a film set in the Second Sino-Japanese
War, but he is better remembered for his next film, Come Drink with Me
(1966). Come Drink with Me was his first success and remains a classic
of the wuxia genre, catapulting the then 20-year-old starlet Cheng
Pei-pei to fame. Blending Japanese samurai film traditions with
Western editing techniques and Chinese aesthetic philosophy borrowed
from Chinese music and operatics, Hu began the trend of a new school
of wuxia films and his perpetual use of a heroine as the central
protagonist.Leaving the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1966, Hu travelled to
Taiwan, where he made another wuxia movie, Dragon Inn. Dragon Inn
broke box office records and became a phenomenal hit and cult classic,
especially in Southeast Asia. This tense tale of highly skilled
martial artists hidden in an inn was said to be the inspiration for
Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Zhang Yimou's
House of Flying Daggers (2004). In 2003, the award-winning
Malaysian-born Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang made Goodbye, Dragon
Inn, a tribute to Hu, in which all the action takes place during a
closing cinema's last show of Dragon Inn.
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