RIP Alan Tang

Got word via facebook today that Alan Tang had passed away. Never a superstar or really a big face, at least in the West, I know Alan Tang best for his gangster movies of the late 1980s.

He starred in both Taiwan and Hong Kong movies from the mid 60s to the early 90s, his bread and butter was a mixture of dramas, romance, some kung fu and later crime roles.

He also had his own production company In Gear, personally producing Hong Kong gems of the 1980s like Haunted Cop Shop, Vampire Buster and was an early supporter of Wong Kar Wai. They met, I believe, whilst working on Flaming Brothers which Wong Kaw Wai assisted to write. Alan Tang then helped to finance his early films once As Tears Go By had become a hit.

It is Flaming Brothers I'll remember him best for, Chow Yun Fat takes a back seat to Alan Tang in an excessive gangster drama. Alan Tang swaggers through the movie with the cool of Roger Moore in full swing, but with the macho of Bunta Sugawara. Other two great roles are the action film Yellow Peril and the silly but fun Return Engagement.

Tang starred in two classic turkeys also, the baffling Black Panther Warriors and the garish Gun N' Rose, made by most of the team of Return Engagement but manages to be utterly awful.

Alan Tang packed cinema in around 1994 to concentate on business and is quoted as late as 2005 as saying he would never return to movies.

Not much of an obiturary but it's my little piece on an actor that starred in one of my fav movies from Hong Kong.

Adios Alan!