How Hong Kong star Aaron Kwok went from ‘gormless’ to ‘adequate’ to ‘terrific’ in movies

Aaron Kwok’s early films garnered mixed reviews, from a terrible outing in Legend of the Liquid Sword to a great one in After This Our Exile

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Aaron Kwok Fu-shing in a still from The Bare-footed Kid (1993). Kwok’s early films garnered mixed reviews. We take a look at some of them.

Richard James Havis

Published: 4:15am, 27 Oct 2024Updated: 4:17pm, 28 Oct 2024

Cantopop’s “Four Heavenly Kings” all ventured into film with varying degrees of success.

Andy Lau Tak-wah has become as well known for his acting career as his singing one, Jacky Cheung Hok-yau has performed extremely well in select films – including three for Wong Kar-wai – while Leon Lai Ming was almost singularly unimpressive.

Aaron Kwok Fu-shing’s trajectory has been somewhat different.

His early performances were often derided but, during the first decade of the 2000s, he earned critical acclaim for his roles in two films, Divergence and After This Our Exile. Since then, he has carved out a durable and prolific career as a leading man.

Aaron Kwok won the best actor prize for his role in Port of Call at the 35th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2016. Photo: Edward Wong

Below, we look the early stages of Kwok’s movie career – which hold some surprises.

Story of Kennedy Town (1990)

A great small-scale cops-and-triads crime thriller directed by Wu Ma and featuring Kwok, Waise Lee Chi-hung and Mark Cheng Ho-nam. The story is similar to Bullet in the Head – which featured Lee in a similar role – and stars Kwok as one of three friends who kill a triad leader and then have to disappear.