Tsui Hark's Film Workshop: Political Cues in the Gangster Film, 1986-1989

The films Tsui Hark has either produced, directed, or both, have frequently been framed within an idea of a “mythic Chinese identity”. This chapter focuses on Tsui Hark's Film Workshop and his role and impact as a producer on the gangster films created with John Woo. It contextualizes Tsui's career and biography, and his vision for Film Workshop. The collaborations with Tsui and his tenure at Film Workshop allowed for the development of an exciting and extreme level of violence as well as explicitly bringing to the fore political subtexts. The gangster films produced by Film Workshop allowed for the fears and anxieties of Hong Kong and its filmmakers to be expressed in an allegorical world of chaos. Both the gangsters and the cops become heroes involved in a struggle to save the fate of Hong Kong and to restore a sense of identity.