HK filmmaker Ho Meng-hua dead at 80

With the recent deaths of actors Shek Kin and David Carradine still fresh on our minds, it is with sad regret that I must now report that Hong Kong director Ho Meng-hua has also died. He passed on earlier, on May 19th, but an announcement wasn’t made until June 2nd when Hong Kong media picked up the story. I just discovered the news today, over a week later, after stumbling upon an excellent tribute to Ho published on the blog of French documentary filmmaker Frederic Ambroisine.

Ho Meng-hua began his film career as a screenwriter and assistant director at the Yung Hwa film company. He directed his first film, a comedy called THE WILD GIRL, for Cathay in 1956 although it wasn’t released until 1960. That film caught the attention of Run Run Shaw who signed him to Shaw Brothers where he would remain until 1980, the same year that he retired.

Ho was one of Shaw Brothers’ most talented filmmakers who was capable of successfully directing a wildly eclectic range of film genres but in the 1970s he became best known for helming grindhouse-friendly genre films such as THE FLYING GUILLOTINE (1975), BLACK MAGIC (1975) and THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN (1977).

In his earlier tenure at Shaw Brothers, he directed the studio’s beloved, effects-filled “Journey to the West” trilogy, made up of THE MONKEY GOES WEST (1966), PRINCESS IRON FAN (1966) and CAVE OF THE SILKEN WEB (1967).

He helmed a number of wuxia classics including THE LADY HERMIT (1971), starring Cheng Pei-pei. Ho made the “Wong Fei Hung” movie THE MASTER OF KUNG FU, starring Ku Feng. He shot David Chiang in SHAOLIN HAND LOCK (1978) and SHAOLIN ABBOT (1980).

From Chinese opera to martial arts and even erotica, Ho Meng-hua consistently delivered entertaining genre movies, over 50 of them, most of which are now being rediscovered by new generations of fans thanks to the re-mastered re-release of the majority of the Shaw Brothers film library on DVD and VCD. Thus, Ho’s considerable contribution to Hong Kong and martial arts cinema will carry on, keeping his legacy alive for years to come.