{"id":538448,"date":"2026-07-13T00:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T00:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/538448\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T00:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T00:44:06","slug":"how-did-peter-chans-pioneering-studio-ufo-redefine-1990s-hong-kong-cinema-without-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/538448\/","title":{"rendered":"How did Peter Chan\u2019s pioneering studio UFO redefine 1990s Hong Kong cinema without action?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone remembers Peter Chan Ho-sun\u2019s crowd-pleasing 1996 hit Comrades, Almost a Love Story<\/a>, but how many can still name UFO, the pioneering studio behind it?<\/p>\n

The United Filmmakers Organisation (UFO) was formed by Chan, Eric Tsang Chi-wai and Claudie Chung Chun in 1992 with a specific purpose: to make quality commercial films that did not rely on action and reflected the lives of young workers from Hong Kong\u2019s up-and-coming urban middle class.<\/p>\n

While Comrades, Almost a Love Story was UFO\u2019s biggest film, the studio scored numerous other hits<\/a> during its short life, such as the gender-bending music industry film He\u2019s a Woman, She\u2019s a Man (1994).\"AnitaAnita Yuen (left) and Leslie Cheung in a still from He\u2019s a Woman, She\u2019s a Man (1994).<\/p>\n

UFO films offered a quality experience to viewers \u2013 they were capably scripted, well acted, beautifully photographed and elegantly edited. They also accurately represented the lives of their yuppie target audience without didacticism or condescension.<\/p>\n

Filling a gap in the market<\/p>\n

Chan recognised a market for quality contemporary commercial dramas outside the action genre when Yesteryou, Yesterme, Yesterday (1993), a Wonder Years-style movie he produced, was shelved by distributors because it lacked action. He subsequently founded UFO to cater to this demographic.<\/p>\n

Importantly, UFO was not conceived as an art house film studio but rather as a mid-sized mainstream outfit that was \u201cnot against commercial films\u201d, Chan told the South China Morning Post in 1993.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not like the Hong Kong New Wave<\/a> [of the late 1970s and early 1980s] or the French New Wave of the 1960s who wanted to do something totally different,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to break rules or shock. We don\u2019t aim to change the world or the whole movie industry, but we want to put some sense back into cinema.\u201d\"TheThe key people behind UFO, pictured in 1993: (clockwise from the front) Eric Tsang, Peter Chan, Jacob Cheung, Claudie Chung and Lee Chi-ngai. Photo: SCMP<\/p>\n

Chan, already an experienced filmmaker, took on a producer-director role; Tsang used his contacts and expertise as an executive producer, while Chung handled production and distribution. They attracted talents like director Jacob Cheung Chi-leung, then riding high with the social-realist drama Cageman (1992), writer James Yuen Sai-sang and the multi-hyphenate Lee Chi-ngai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone remembers Peter Chan Ho-sun\u2019s crowd-pleasing 1996 hit Comrades, Almost a Love Story, but how many can still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[245282,132954,245283,245281,245272,146,245270,245280,245273,245277,245274,3448,148626,245275,85,46,245269,245284,245278,245271,82934,245276,59756,245279,245268],"class_list":["post-538448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-almost-a-love-story","tag-babe","tag-cine-east","tag-comrades","tag-dick-and-hairy","tag-entertainment","tag-eric-tsang","tag-eric-tsang-chi-wai","tag-he-aint-heavy","tag-hes-a-woman","tag-hes-my-father","tag-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong-cinema","tag-ive-got-you","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-peter-chan","tag-peter-chan-ho-sun","tag-shes-a-man","tag-the-days-of-being-dumb","tag-tom","tag-twenty-something","tag-ufo","tag-united-filmmakers-organisation","tag-united-filmmakers-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}