How Ip Man director Wilson Yip made his name with offbeat Hong Kong movies, from Bio Zombie to Bullets Over Summer and Juliet in Love
- Wilson Yip, known for directing the action-packed Ip Man films, hadn’t really made action or martial arts films before that
- His standard fare was comedies, ghost stories and other dramas, usually with offbeat characters. We look at five of these ‘low-key’ films
Yip was originally described by the Post as Hong Kong’s “utility director” for his skill at making films in a range of genres. He started by making idiosyncratic, small-scale comedies, ghost stories and other dramas that featured offbeat characters, unusual plots and delicately humorous flourishes.
Yip didn’t make his first foray into big-budget action film until the Mission Impossible-influenced Skyline Cruisers in 2000. He later went the whole hog with SPL (2005), a hard-hitting film which featured none of his cheeky touches.
But his change of style was not through choice, he told the Post’s Clarence Tsui in 2006, when large-scale movies aimed at the China market were the order of the day.
“It’s not like I was offered the choice of doing low-key films and turned them down in favour of what I’m doing now,” he said. “I do action because I’m unable to do the low-key films I’ve been making for the last 10 years.”
Here we take a look at five of those “low-key” films by the veteran director.
