BENNY CHAN, widely regarded as one of Hong Kong’s leading action directors, died aged 58 Sunday. Chan was suffering from nasopharyngeal cancer. He had fallen ill while shooting “Raging Fire,” starring Nicolas Tse and Donnie Yen last year, and handed post-production of the film to his colleagues. He had spent the last few months hospitalized in Hong Kong. Chan’s career started at Hong Kong broadcaster TVB where he worked as an assistant director to Johnnie To and later became a director. His early films include iconic action titles such as “A Moment of Romance” (1990), starring Andy Lau; “Big Bullet” (1996), with Lau Ching-wan; and “Gen-X Cops” (1999), starring Nicolas Tse, Stephen Fung and Daniel Wu, who at the time were all at the start of their careers. He soon became known for police and crime-themed action dramas, including “New Police Story” (2004), a reboot of the “Police Story” franchise starring Jackie Chan, “Divergence” (2005), “Invisible Target” (2007) and “The White Storm” (2013). However, his hits also included action comedies such as “Rob-B-Hood” (2006), also starring Jackie Chan, as well as period action films including “Shaolin” (2011) and “Call of Heroes” (2016). His latest film “Raging Fire,” produced by Emperor Motion Pictures, is currently awaiting theatrical release. As Hong Kong film lovers mourn the loss of one of the industry’s most respected action filmmakers, here is a look back on five of the best directorial efforts in Benny Chan’s career. 1. A Moment of Romance (1990) Chan announced his arrival as a film director in some style with this debut, which went on to become one of the most recognizable Hong Kong films of the 1990s. Produced by Johnnie To, its melodramatic blend of gangster thriller and star-crossed romance provided one of the most iconic roles for Andy Lau. Lau plays Wah Dee, a triad getaway driver who falls for his equally smitten hostage (Wu Chien-lien). By deftly striking a balance between the litany of gangland violence and his protagonists’ unlikely romance, Chan came up with one of the most engrossing stories in his entire oeuvre — an irony, given how many audiences have since come to view action, instead of storytelling, as Chan’s bread and butter. 2. Big Bullet (1996) Despite his career-long affinity for mainstream action movies, Chan was well recognized beyond the confines of genre filmmaking. The filmmaker received the first of his five best director nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards for “Big Bullet,” which ranks among the best action movies ever made in Hong Kong. Frenetically paced from start to finish, this action extravaganza sees Lau Ching-wan’s demoted policeman take an eclectic team — including Jordan Chan and Cheung Tat-ming — with him to catch a couple of criminals on the loose. Despite the generic plot line, Chan showed his flair for action filmmaking with this oddly memorable effort. 3. Divergence (2005) An entertaining crime thriller elevated by Aaron Kwok’s transformative performance, “Divergence” is an ambitious narrative experiment, Chan working with a convoluted script by revered screenwriter Ivy Ho. Among the leading trio of Kwok (playing a policeman), Daniel Wu (an assassin) and Ekin Cheng (a lawyer), Kwok benefited the most from Chan’s twisty film. It earned him a surprise best actor win at the prestigious Golden Horse awards in Taipei, and pretty much set the Canto-pop singer up for his next career phase as a reliable movie star. 4. The White Storm (2013) Chan paid homage to John Woo’s heroic bloodshed movies in this preposterous yet utterly compelling drug cartel thriller, which was so popular with audiences that it spawned a blockbuster sequel — by another director, Herman Yau Lai-to — six years later. With its outrageous body count and hysterical take on the theme of blood brotherhood, “The White Storm” plays like a forgotten masterpiece from the late 1980s. It follows three childhood friends-turned Narcotics Bureau teammates (Lau Ching-wan, Louis Koo and Nick Cheung) as they take down a Thailand-based drug-trafficking empire together. 5. Call of Heroes (2016) Arguably Chan’s best film in the 21st century, this Chinese wuxia epic is a thrilling spectacle with echoes of classic spaghetti Westerns, as well as Akira Kurosawa’s samurai dramas such as “Seven Samurai” and “Yojimbo.” With Sammo Hung Kam-bo serving as action director, “Call of Heroes” sees Lau Ching-wan’s righteous sheriff take on the sadistic son of a warlord (Louis Koo); Eddie Peng Yu-yan’s wandering warrior provides unlikely assistance to the distressed townspeople. For what initially appears to be a straightforward good-versus-evil story, the film throws up some moral quandaries, particularly about the heavy price of pursuing justice, adding unexpected intrigue to its exhilarating fight sequences. (SD-Agencies) | 