A Macau-born Hong Kong film director known for stylish, hard-edged genre cinema. His films include Accident, Motorway, SPL II, Limbo, Mad Fate and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, with selections at Cannes, Berlin and Venice, and two Hong Kong Film Award wins for Best Director.

From a Macau boy to a Cannes premiere stage — Soi Cheang has used one stylish genre film after another to prove that Hong Kong cinema still has its own authors.

Soi Cheang is a Macau-born Hong Kong film director known for stylish genre cinema. From Accident to Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, his work has repeatedly reached the world's major festivals.

Profile

  • Chinese Name: 鄭保瑞
  • English Name: Soi Cheang (Cheang Pou-soi)
  • Born: 1972 (Macau)
  • Domains: Culture · Film
  • Subject type: Film director

Background

Soi Cheang was born in Macau in 1972 and moved to Hong Kong around the age of eleven. With no film-school training and no industry connections, he started as a production assistant in the early 1990s and worked his way up as an assistant director under filmmakers including Ringo Lam and Johnnie To.

Career

I. From debut to a style of his own

Cheang made his directorial debut with The House of No Man (1999). Moving between thriller, action and fantasy, he built a cold, hard-edged style across films such as Accident (2009, in competition at Venice), Motorway (2012) and SPL II (2015), and directed large-scale productions including The Monkey King.

II. Onto the world's festivals

In recent years Cheang reached a creative peak: Limbo (2021) was selected for Berlin, Mad Fate (2023) returned to Berlin, and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) premiered in the Midnight Screenings at Cannes and swept major awards. Nominated four times for Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards, he won twice — for Mad Fate and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.

Key Achievements

  • Two-time Best Director winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards (Mad Fate; Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In)
  • Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) selected for the Cannes Midnight Screenings
  • Limbo and Mad Fate selected for Berlin; Accident for Venice
  • Directed SPL II, Motorway and the Monkey King films

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