Maggie Q, Andy Lau and Sammo Hung help bring alive 2 war epics Hong Kong directors filmed in China

Nationalistic mainland Chinese co-productions with historical themes have been a go-to for Hong Kong directors this century, and two of them merit a closer look

Andy Lau faces off against Maggie Q in Daniel’s Lee take on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vincent Zhao leads God of War; Sammo Hung has cameos in both films

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Andy Lau in a still from Hong Kong-China co-production Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon. The 2008 war epic directed by Daniel Lee co-starred Maggie Q, with a cameo from Sammo Hung, and is a retelling of a story from the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Published: 4:15am, 19 May 2024Updated: 9:17am, 19 May 2024

After 2000, Hong Kong directors abandoned their attempts to make it big in Hollywood and flocked to mainland China to take advantage of looser co-production rules.

Large-scale epics were the order of the day because of their relatively low production costs, a surplus of scenic locations, and a plentiful supply of extras.

John Woo Yu-sum’s two Red Cliff films and Peter Chan Ho-sun’s The Warlords were the high points of the genre, but there were many others. We recall two other big historical war films Hong Kong directors made in China.

Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (2008)

The 100-chapter, 14th-century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms has been mined many times for film and television adaptations.

So credit must be given to Hong Kong director Daniel Lee Yan-kong for trying something different in this 2008 adaptation of one of the stories from the novel.

Three Kingdoms Resurrection Of The Dragon Trailer

To add freshness to the tale, Lee decided to focus on General Zhao Zilong (Andy Lau Tak-wah), a character who had never been centre stage in previous screen versions of the novel. Moreover, he created a new character, Luo Ping-an – a kind of Chinese Sir John Falstaff, played by Sammo Hung Kam-bo – to act as narrator.