9° FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE CINEMA GIOVANI
Special Event - Hong Kong 1985-1991

Wong Fei Hung

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA
by Tsui Hark (Xu Ke)
Country: Hong Kong
Year: 1991
Duration: 121'


Although there have been some 98 films about Wong Fei Hung, one of the greatest martial artists of Southern China, it has been thirty years. Since there has been a new film about his exploits. Film number 99 is a spectacular retelling of the adventures of this legendary Ching Dynasty hero and his small band of loyal followers. It is the closing quarter of the last century and China is beginning to feel a growing swell of Western influence. Foreign fashions, culture and religion are upsetting the old traditional order and firearms are threatening the omnipotence of the martial arts. Wong's small local militia is to be disbanded by a new regional commander who sees it as a threat to his power - and possibly to his lucrative relationship with foreign traders - especially those who are conniving gullible locals into buying overpriced passages to the goldfields of America. A young woman for whom Wong has long cared is captured and taken on board one of the foreign ships to be sold as a prostitute. Former rivalry is forgotten in the spectacular battle to defeat the foreigners and their mercenaries and rescue the girl.

Biography

film director

Tsui Hark (Xu Ke)

FILMOGRAFIA

Diebian (Butterfly Murders) (1979), Diyu wu men (We Are Going to Eat) (1980), Diyi leixing weixian (Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind) (1980), Guima zhiduo xing (All the Wrong Clues... for the Right Solution) (1981), Shushan (Zu, Warriors from the Magic Mountain) (1983), Wo ai Yelaixiang (Aces Go Places III) (1984), Shangai zhi ye (Shangai Blues) (1984), Dagong huangdi (Working Class) (1985), Daomadan (Peking Opera Blues) (1986), Xao o xiang hu (Fantasies of a Swordsman) (1989), Xin meng loong quo xiang (Project I - The New Way of the Dragon) (1989), Ying shong bun shei san (A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon) (1989).

Cast

& Credits

Director: Tsui Hark.
Screenplay: Tsui Hark, Yuen Kai Chi, Leung Yiu Ming, Tang Pik Yin.
Director of photography: Chung Chi Man, Wong Chung Piu, Arthur Wong, Lam Kwok Wa, Chan Pui Kai.
Art director: Lau Man Hung.
Editor: Mak Chi Sin.
Music: James Wong.
Cast and characters: Jet Li (Wong Fey Hang), Yuen Biao (Fu), Jacky Cheung (Buck Teeth Sol), Rosamund Kwan (zia Yee / aunt Yee), Qiu Jian Guo (Chan), Kent Cheng, Yan Yee Kwan, Yuen Kam Fai, Wu Ma.
Producer: Tsui Hakr.
Produzione e vendita all'estero: Golden Harvest, 8 Hammer Hill Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, tel. 8523528222, fax 8523511683.
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