Wilson Yip

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Categories: Year of birth missing (living people) | Living people | Hong Kong film directors | Hong Kong film actors

Wilson Yip Wai-Shun (traditional Chinese: 葉偉信) is a Hong Kong actor, film director and screenwriter. His films include Bio Zombie, The White Dragon, SPL: Sha Po Lang and Dragon Tiger Gate.

1 Early career
2 Turning point
3 Films with Donnie Yen
4 Filmography
5 External links

Early career

A film buff at an early age, Yip went to the cinema whenever he could and often wrote reviews on the backs of ticket stubs. He entered the movie business in the 1980s, starting out as a "gofer" and working his way up to assistant director.

His directorial debut was 01.00 AM, a three-segment horror compendium. He directed two of three parts, one with Veronica Yip as a nurse who sees dead pop stars, and Anita Yuen interviewing a demon.

His next effort, Daze Reaper, was a Category III exploitation film, based on a true-crime story about a prison guard to turns to crime. Next was Mongkok Story, an exploitive story in the vein of Young and Dangerous, and another horror trilogy, Midnight Zone, about urban myths. He also turned to comedy with Teaching Sucks, about two Hong Kong teachers played by Anthony Wong and Jan Lam.

In 1998 Wilson co-wrote and directed his biggest cult hit at the time, Bio Zombie, which was influenced by Dawn of the Dead and takes place in a shopping mall, where a small group of misfits bands together in order to survive.

Turning point

Yip next directed the 1999 crime-drama Bullets Over Summer, starring Francis Ng and Louis Koo as two detectives hunting a gang of deadly criminals who have to use a demented elderly woman's (Helena Law Lan) apartment for surveillance. The biggest-budget film of his career up to then, he considers Bullets Over Summer his "turning point". He shared a best-screenplay award at the 2000 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards for the film.

In 2000 he was picked by Golden Harvest to direct Skyline Cruisers, a big-budget action film. Yip didn't get along with the cast and clashed with the studio's management over creative differences.

Other films include the sci-fi-action story 2002 and the romantic comedies, Dry Wood, Fierce Fire with Miriam Yeung and Louis Koo, and a Leaving Me, Loving You with Leon Lai and Faye Wong and The White Dragon.

Yip also acts, mostly doing small roles. They include a pimp in The Runaway Pistol and a Taoist exorcist in the Pang Brothers' The Eye.

Films with Donnie Yen

In 2005, Yip directed his most critically hailed film, SPL: Sha Po Lang. A gritty return to the 1980s style of Hong Kong action cinema, SPL starred Simon Yam and Donnie Yen as Hong Kong police officers trying to pin a crime on an unstoppable gangster, portrayed by Sammo Hung.

In 2006, Yip re-teamed with Yen for an adaptation of a Hong Kong manga, Dragon Tiger Gate.

Flash Point (film), another martial-arts crime drama, in the same vein as SPL was shot in Macau in September 2006, with Donnie Yen and Louis Koo as the police officers.