Chen Kuofu

Writing

Chen Kuofu

Born 1958-05-13 · Taichung, Taiwan

Chen Kuofu is a Taiwanese film director, screenwriter and producer. His film The Personals was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Born in 1958 Chen worked as a film critic before debuting as a director in 1989 with School Girl. In the 1990s, he continued to explore the world through a female perspective with Treasure Island, The Peony Pavilion and anti-romantic comedy The Personals. The latter, in which a single woman searches for Mr. Right on a series of blind dates, screened in Cannes' Un Certain Regard sidebar and was distributed in Asia, Europe and North America. In 2000 Chen became the head of the production unit of the Asian branch of Columbia Pictures. Here he accumulated experience in international film making and connections to young Chinese directors such as Feng Xiaogang. With these he would later join Huayi Brothers Media Corporation and continue his works in China. In 2001 Chen began to concentrate on feature film production beginning with Su Chao-Bin's youth comedy Better Than Sex through his company Nan Fang Film Productions. The following year, he directed and produced the supernatural thriller Double Vision.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Double Vision poster
6.6

An FBI Agent pairs with a troubled Taiwan cop to hunt for a serial killer who's embedding a mysterious fungus in the brains of victims.

Double Vision

2002

Double Vision poster
6.6

An FBI Agent pairs with a troubled Taiwan cop to hunt for a serial killer who's embedding a mysterious fungus in the brains of victims.

Double Vision

2002

Double Vision poster
6.6

An FBI Agent pairs with a troubled Taiwan cop to hunt for a serial killer who's embedding a mysterious fungus in the brains of victims.

Double Vision

2002

Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings poster
6.3

Dee, the detective serving Chinese empress Wu Zetian, is called upon to investigate a series of strange events in Loyang, including the appearance of mysterious warriors wearing Chiyou ghost masks, foxes that speak human language and the pillar sculptures in the palace coming alive.

Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings

2018

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame poster
6.6

When the future empress Wu Zetian's two courtiers die in a mysterious fire, she gets Di Renjie, a former detective and rebel, released from prison to solve the mystery of the fire.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

2010

Mojin: The Lost Legend poster
6.2

Three tomb raiders retire from their roles and move to New York to enjoy the rest of their lives. However, they are asked to resume duty in order to find out the reason behind the loss of a loved one.

Mojin: The Lost Legend

2015

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon poster
6.3

Young Dee Renjie arrives in the empire's capital to join the Supreme Court as police judge of his region. He wants to become a prosecutor. Empress Wu, who is at the beginning of her reign, has commissioned the fierce detective Yuchi to investigate a sea monster that stalks the city at night and makes it unsafe.

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon

2013

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon poster
6.3

Young Dee Renjie arrives in the empire's capital to join the Supreme Court as police judge of his region. He wants to become a prosecutor. Empress Wu, who is at the beginning of her reign, has commissioned the fierce detective Yuchi to investigate a sea monster that stalks the city at night and makes it unsafe.

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon

2013

A World Without Thieves poster
7.3

A con-team couple head west after taking a city businessman for his BMW. But an encounter with a naive young carpenter traveling home with his life savings challenges their fate as thieves.

A World Without Thieves

2004

The Message poster
7.4

After a series of assassinations in Nanking, a Japanese spy master gathers a group of suspects in a mansion, then a tense cat-and-mouse game erupts as the Chinese agent tries to keep his or her identity a secret.

The Message

2009

The Message poster
7.4

After a series of assassinations in Nanking, a Japanese spy master gathers a group of suspects in a mansion, then a tense cat-and-mouse game erupts as the Chinese agent tries to keep his or her identity a secret.

The Message

2009

Aftershock poster
7.2

Tangshan, 1976. Two seven-year-old twins are buried under the rubble of the deadliest earthquake of the 20th century. The rescue team explains to their mother that freeing either child will almost certainly result in the death of the other. Forced to make the most difficult decision of her life, she finally chooses to save her son. Though left behind as dead, the little girl miraculously survives, unbeknownst to her brother and mother.

Aftershock

2010

Painted Skin: The Resurrection poster
5.9

According to demon lore, it takes hundreds of years to attain human form. Even then, lacking a human heart, a demon cannot experience the true pains and passions of existence. However, there is a legend that if a pure human heart is freely offered to a demon, it can become a mortal and experience true life. Sequel of Painted Skin (2008).

Painted Skin: The Resurrection

2012

Starry Starry Night poster
6.3

May is worried about her mother and father, whose marriage is on the rocks, and she yearns to return to the woods where her grandfather lives. One day, May befriends a boy as lonely as she is. When reality catches up, they run away to a beautiful world that belongs only to them.

Starry Starry Night

2011

If You Are the One poster
6.8

Qin Fen, a funny, honest, single inventor, met a girl called Smiley, who was in agony of her boyfriend's betrayal. They traveled to Hokkaido, tried to help Smiley cure her pain in heart, and both of them gradually found their true love and life redemption during the journey.

If You Are the One

2008

Big Shot's Funeral poster
6.6

Don Tyler, a famous film-maker, falls ill on the sets of his movie. Fascinated by the funereal traditions of China, he requests a cameraman named Yoyo to arrange a grand, comedic funeral for him.

Big Shot's Funeral

2001

Hanson and the Beast poster
6.3

Yuan Shuai, a debt-ridden animal-breeder, tries to get out of his financial predicament by finding a wealthy girlfriend through matchmaking dates. He unexpectedly meets and fall in love with the fox demon, Bai Xianchu, who has arrived to the mortal realm to repay her gratitude. However, the head of the Demon tribe Yun Zhonghe forbids a love relationship between a demon and a human; and takes Bai Xianchu away. To seek his lover, Yuan Shuai bravely crashes the demonic world.

Hanson and the Beast

2017

Aberdeen poster
5.2

The extended Cheng family, which, like Aberdeen harbor's Chinese namesake, represents today's Little Hong Kong and its myriad of contradictions between traditions and modernity; superstitions and materialism; family and individuality.

Aberdeen

2014

Mountain Patrol poster
7.6

A moving true story about volunteers protecting antelope against poachers in the severe mountains of Tibet.

Mountain Patrol

2004

If You Are the One 2 poster
5.9

The odd-couple courtship saga continues of wealthy, middle-aged retiree Qin Fen and serious-minded young air hostess Xiaoxiao. After an amusing prelude in which Qin presides over a lavish divorce ceremony for an amicably splitting married couple, he and Xiaoxiao decide to address their own relationship barriers - her youth and beauty, his cynical, childish sense of humor — by entering into a trial marriage while on a trip to the country's tropical southeast.

If You Are the One 2

2010

The Personals poster
6.7

An attractive and successful doctor places a personal ad in a newspaper to try to meet (and eventually marry) Mr. Right. A succession of blind dates ensues, featuring men who are lonely, desperate, dangerous and perverted.

The Personals

1998

The Personals poster
6.7

An attractive and successful doctor places a personal ad in a newspaper to try to meet (and eventually marry) Mr. Right. A succession of blind dates ensues, featuring men who are lonely, desperate, dangerous and perverted.

The Personals

1998

Chongqing Hot Pot poster
6.5

When three friends open a hot pot restaurant in a former bomb shelter, they discover it’s linked by a single wall to the bank vault next door. While deciding to take the easy money or go to the police, they find out one of the bank’s employees is a former classmate and look to enlist her in deciding their future.

Chongqing Hot Pot

2016

10 Plus 10 poster
5.7

10+10 is a project initiated by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival to demonstrate the solidarity between Taiwanese film-makers. 20 directors are invited to make a 5-minute short film each on the theme of the “Uniqueness of Taiwan,” but allowed total freedom in all other aspects.

10 Plus 10

2011