Wong Jing

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For other uses, see Wang Jing (disambiguation).
In this Chinese name, the family name is Wong.

Wong Jing
Wong in 2025
Born
Wong Yat Cheong (王日祥)

(1955-05-03) 3 May 1955 (age 70)
British Hong Kong
Occupations
  • Film director
  • actor
  • screenwriter
  • film producer
ParentWong Tin-Lam (1928–2010)
AwardsHong Kong Film Critics Society Awards – Best Screenplay
2006 Colour of the Loyalty
2007 Crouching Tiger

Chinese name
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinWáng Jīng
Yue: Cantonese
JyutpingWong4 Zing1

Wong Yat-cheong, known professionally as Wong Jing (Chinese: 王晶, born 3 May 1955),[1] is a Hong Kong filmmaker and actor. A prolific filmmaker with strong instincts for crowd-pleasing and publicity, he played a prominent role in Hong Kong cinema during the 1990s.

Biography

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Wong was born in Hong Kong, the son of noted film director Wong Tin-Lam. He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a degree in Chinese literature which he describes as "useless" (Yang, 2003).

Like many Hong Kong film figures of his time, Wong began his career in television – in his case, scriptwriting for local juggernaut TVB beginning in 1975 (Teo, 1997). He moved on to writing for the Shaw Brothers studio. There, he made his directing debut with Challenge of the Gamesters (千王鬥千霸) in 1981. This start foreshadowed his later successes with movies about gambling, such as God of Gamblers, starring Chow Yun-fat and Andy Lau, which broke Hong Kong's all-time box office record upon its release in 1989, and started a fad for the genre.

Wong has directed, produced or written over 175 films (Yang, 2003), occasionally acting in them as well. He works with an efficient mass production method making heavy use of directing assistants and allowing him to work on several movies at once. He works under the umbrellas of two production companies he launched, Wong Jing's Workshop Ltd. and BoB and Partners Co. Ltd. (Best of the Best), the latter in partnership with director Andrew Lau and writer-producer Manfred Wong (Bordwell, 2000).

He once commented that his movies were hits because he gave the people what they wanted, and not what he thought they should want. A typical Wong production might be a broad comedy (Boys Are Easy, 1993) or an entry in a currently popular genre, such as martial arts (Holy Weapon, 1993), erotic thriller (Naked Killer, 1992) or gangster film (Young and Dangerous, 1996). It will imbue its model with lightning pacing and frequent shifts in tone to accommodate slapstick and toilet humor, sentimental heart-tugging, cartoonish violence, sexual titillation, and parodic references to well-known Hong Kong and Hollywood films.

Wong also directed or produced several of the films of comic actor Stephen Chow, who has been Hong Kong's most popular performer since the early 1990s. Examples of their collaborations include God of Gamblers II (1991), Tricky Brains (1991), Royal Tramp I and II (1992) and Sixty Million Dollar Man (1995).

Wong's commercial skills are not limited to the content of his movies or his casting. He was using Hollywood-style cross-media promotional tactics – such as tie-in novels, comic books and other products, and magazine interviews – long before they became common in Hong Kong (Bordwell, 2000).

Wong's style, often seen as loud, crass and philistine, may be another factor in his low stock among critics. According to director Ann Hui, he remarked of Hui's acclaimed 1990 drama Song of the Exile, "Who wants to watch the autobiography of a fat woman?" In 1994, unidentified assailants attacked him outside his offices and knocked out his teeth; this was widely believed to have been retaliation for injudicious remarks, ordered by Triads or Chinese organized crime figures, whose involvement in the industry is notorious,[2] although Wong himself is rumored to be involved with the Triads.[3]

In the late 1990s and 2000s, Wong's films fared much worse in the box office compared to his earlier output due to the sluggish recession which had enveloped Hong Kong cinema in the new millennium. However a number of his films released in the 2010s, such as From Vegas to Macau, saw renewed success for the director, particularly in mainland China.

Filmography

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Main article: Wong Jing filmography

Awards and recognition

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Despite his prolific output, Wong has received limited formal recognition from major film awards bodies, with most accolades centering on his screenwriting and the technical achievements of his productions rather than directing.

His 1989 film God of Gamblers earned Chow Yun-fat a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor nomination at the 9th Hong Kong Film Awards.[4]

His 2017 crime drama Chasing the Dragon, co-directed with Jason Kwan, received six nominations at the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Film.[5] The film won Best Cinematography for Jason Kwan and Best Film Editing for Li Ka-wing.[6]

Box office success

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Wong Jing is recognized as one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful directors. God of Gamblers grossed approximately HK$37–40 million at the Hong Kong box office, making it the highest-grossing Hong Kong film of 1989 and surpassing John Woo's A Better Tomorrow' and The Killer.[7]

His 2014 film From Vegas to Macau marked a major comeback in the mainland China market, grossing RMB523 million (approximately US$84.5 million) in China and earning a total of US$95.9 million internationally.[8]

Chasing the Dragon (2017) earned US$86 million in China, outperforming Hollywood blockbusters Blade Runner 2049 and Jackie Chan's The Foreigner at the Chinese box office. [9]

References

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  1. ^ "Wong Jing – HKMDB". Hong Kong Movie DataBase. 5 January 2023.
  2. ^ Dannen, Fredric (28 November 1997). Hong Kong Babylon: An Insider's Guide to the Hollywood of the East. Miamax. ISBN 0-7868-6267-X.
  3. ^ "王晶曾收小弟 "黑社会头领"长沙现身". Archived from the original on 1 September 2012. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
  4. ^ Training, A. M. P. (14 October 2019). "Is "God of Gamblers" the Best Chinese Gambling Movie of All Time?". Asian Movie Pulse. Retrieved 26 November 2025.
  5. ^ "Our Time Will Come wins best film at Hong Kong Film Awards". South China Morning Post. 15 April 2018. Retrieved 26 November 2025.
  6. ^ Chasing the Dragon (2017) - Awards - IMDb. Retrieved 26 November 2025 – via www.imdb.com.
  7. ^ Mudge, James (31 October 2023). "Movie review: God of Gamblers | easternkicks.com". www.easternkicks.com. Retrieved 26 November 2025.
  8. ^ "From Vegas to Macau - Wikipedia". en.wikipedia.org. Archived from the original on 11 October 2025. Retrieved 26 November 2025.
  9. ^ "Chasing the Dragon (film)", Wikipedia, 11 November 2025, retrieved 26 November 2025
  • Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-674-00214-8
  • Dannen, Fredric, and Barry Long. Hong Kong Babylon: The Insider's Guide to the Hollywood of the East. New York: Miramax, 1997. ISBN 0-7868-6267-X
  • Teo, Stephen. Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions. London: British Film Institute, 1997. ISBN 0-85170-514-6
  • Yang, Jeff. Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese Cinema. New York: Atria, 2003. ISBN 0-7434-4817-0
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