Edko Films made one of the splashiest announcements at this year’s Hong Kong Filmart, officially releasing Cold War 1994, the long-awaited prequel to Hong Kong’s highest-grossing police action thriller series.
Executive producer Bill Kong, producer Ivy Ho, director Ron Man Leung, and stars Terence Lau, Tse Kwang-ho, and Louise Wong took to the stage. The event was headlined by a surprise appearance by Tony Leung Ka-fai, who won his fourth Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor for his role in the original Cold War, and began an emotional on-stage reunion with Lau, bringing together two generations of the series’ iconic MB Lee character.
The film is anchored by four film legends: Chow Yun-Fat, Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Louis Koo, and features an unprecedented ensemble of 10 Hong Kong Film Awards Best Actor winners. At this announcement, 12 character posters were also released.
The original “Cold War” and its sequel “Cold War 2” have collectively grossed more than HK$100 million ($12.8 million) at the local box office, making the new prequel one of the most anticipated titles in Hong Kong’s pipeline.
Kong framed this project as something much deeper than a traditional franchise expansion. “Sequels move the story forward, but this prequel goes even deeper,” he said at the event. “We go back to the very roots of the ‘Cold War’ world and reveal how the 1994 regime change planted the seeds for everything that followed.”
Leon said that the 1994 storyline had been quietly built into the series since its inception. “Beneath the surface tranquility of that era was a dangerous undercurrent,” he says. “Through a grander narrative canvas, audiences will finally witness the true origins of the ‘Cold War’ world and uncover answers to many long-standing mysteries.”
The film unfolds over two time periods. The drama is set in motion in 2017 when Hong Kong’s newly appointed security chief, MB Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fai), goes missing, forcing Police Commissioner Sean Lau (Aaron Kwok) and senior advisor Oswald Kang (Chow Yun-Fat) to search for answers dating back to sealed secret files from 1994. The flashback thread unfolds against the backdrop of the twilight of British colonial rule. The impending disbandment of the Royal Hong Kong Police Special Branch and the kidnapping of a prominent businessman collide, sparking a dangerous internal power struggle.
Daniel Wu makes his first Hong Kong film appearance in six years, directing the 1994 story as Deputy Chief of Police Operations Peter Choi, a calculating and driven senior police officer. Lau will play his counterpart, MB Lee, an idealistic Deputy Superintendent of the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau. Golden Horse Award winners Wu Kangren and Tse Guang-ho play the formidable Poon patriarch and his son. Louise Wong plays the role of triad leader Jody Yuen, while Fish Liu plays the central figure of the Poon family. Louis Koo will join the series in the 2017 thread as the next CEO Adrian Yip Shunting.
The international cast includes Aidan Gillen as MI6’s head of Asia-Pacific and Hugh Bonneville as a British minister.
“Cold War 1994” is produced by Kong and Ho, written and directed by Leung, and is scheduled for release later this year.
