For Chee Keong Cheung, a cinematic education came not from the local cinemas of his native Lancaster in England’s northwest, but from the neon-lit streets of Hong Kong.
“I was probably a bit young to be watching them, but the John Woo films were a big inspiration. The Killer, A Better Tomorrow … had a real effect on me,” he tells the South China Morning Post over a video call.
Films from the so-called “Heroic Bloodshed” era of Hong Kong action cinema, of which Woo was a key figure, lit a fire in Cheung. The filmmaker often dresses in a black suit, white shirt and tie, just like one of Woo’s assassins. He remains a fan of the director and film star Chow Yun-fat.
“What I was really drawn to was just the style and how cool these films were, but also … this level of nobility. There’s this code that these characters live by … and they are also characters at a crossroads. It wasn’t just action, action, action. With my background, being British-Chinese and growing up in the UK, seeing the two perspectives … that shaped my thought process.”
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