Hong Kong director Benny Chan, who is known for directing movies such as New Police Story (2004) and A Moment Of Romance (1990), died of cancer on Sunday (Aug 23) at 58.
He leaves behind his wife, a son and a daughter.
According to Hong Kong media reports, Chan was feeling unwell last year when he was directing the crime movie Raging Fire, starring Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse.
Chan went for a health screening later and was diagnosed with late-stage nasopharyngeal cancer. He was unable to take part in the post-production of Raging Fire and had to let others take over the job.
Chan joined Hong Kong broadcaster TVB in 1982 and was the assistant to famous director Johnnie To. Chan became a TV director in 1985 and has co-directed classics such as The Flying Fox Of Snowy Mountain (1985) and The New Heaven Sword And The Dragon Sabre (1986), TV adaptations of Louis Cha’s martial arts novels.
Chan made his movie directorial debut in 1990 with A Moment Of Romance, starring Hong Kong actor Andy Lau and Taiwanese actress Jacklyn Wu.
The action romance movie, which also marked the first time Wu acted in a film, received rave reviews, with Lau’s character Wah Dee becoming a classic character.
Chan was nominated Best Director five times at the Hong Kong Film Awards for Big Bullet (1996), Heroic Duo (2003), New Police Story, Connected (2008) and The White Storm (2013), but did not win on all five occasions.
He also produced movies such as Final Romance (2001), If You Care… (2002) and Little Big Master (2015), which starred Miriam Yeung and Louis Koo.
His final movie Raging Fire will be released posthumously.
Koo, who has worked with Chan on movies such as Rob-B-Hood (2006), Connected and The White Storm, told the Hong Kong media that he was saddened by the news.
Other Hong Kong celebrities, including Lau, Tse, Yeung, Stephen Fung, Charlene Choi and Aaron Kwok, also paid tribute to Chan.
Choi, one half of girls group Twins, acted in New Police Story, while Kwok won his first Best Actor award at the Golden Horse Awards for the movie Divergence (2005), which was directed by Chan.
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