Center Stage

The 1991 film follows a unique storytelling format – Ruan’s rise to stardom in her late teens, her complicated love life and her tragic death in her mid-20s are interspersed with conversations between the director and various actors, as well as interviews with Ruan’s contemporaries. These clips offer another angle to the Chinese cinema icon’s life.

Cheung was awarded the Silver Bear for best actress award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1992 for her stunning performance.

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Lee Rock

The names of the characters have all been changed because of inconsistencies with reality. For example, one of Lui’s key rivals in the film is Sergeant Ngan Tung, yet in reality, a man named Ngan Hung was his loyal subordinate. The character Bill Lee, played by Aaron Kwok Fu-shing, is Lui’s son, an ICAC officer with a key role in the sequel Lee Rock II. But in fact, he is completely fictional.

The Soong Sisters

The 1997 historical drama is based on the lives of the Soong sisters, who married some of the most significant figures in modern Chinese history: Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and K’ung Hsiang-his.

The film starred Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, Michelle Yeoh Choo-kheng and Wu Junmei as the sisters.

Directed by Mabel Cheung and written by her husband Alex Law Kai-yui, it’s often praised for its epic cinematography and for how it stays true to most of the historical events.

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Ip Man

This could be the most popular biopic on this list. A grandmaster of the martial art style wing chun and also the master of famous student Bruce Lee, the Guangdong-born Ip started practising wing chun before moving to Hong Kong at the age of 16.

There are a few biopics based on the life of the grandmaster, but the Ip Man film series starring Hong Kong actor Donnie Yen Ji-dan in the leading role is the most well-known. The first film from the series, which came out in 2008, is set in the Chinese city of Foshan during the Sino-Japanese War.

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The Mad Phoenix

The life of the legendary Cantonese opera playwright Kong Yu-kau was indeed as dramatic in real life as it was depicted in the 1997 film The Mad Phoenix, written by Raymond To Kwok-wai.

The film did not have an impressive box office record, but it did receive critical acclaim following the successful drama production under the same title.

In the film, Kong’s eccentric persona, as portrayed by actor Tse Kwan-ho in a stellar performance, becomes a hurdle in his writing career, and he’s eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital in his final days.