In Remembrance: Kwan Hoi-Shan

     Kwan Hoi-Shan, the Hong Kong character actor best known to western audiences for his appearances in Jackie Chan’s Project A and its sequel Project A 2, has passed away on September 11, 2006 in Hong Kong. He was 82.

     Born in 1925 – though some sources say 1926 – in China, Kwan was trained by his father in Cantonese Opera, which he began performing in at age 11. He later began acting.

     Kwan made his film debut in 1965’s The Man With 1,000 Fists, Part 1 and Part 2. He would appear in a small handful of films before temporarily leaving the film industry in 1967.

     In 1976, Kwan joined Hong Kong television station TVB and acted in several series. He returned to the silver screen in 1977’s The Dragon, The Odds with Yuen Baio. Often known by the nickname “Uncle Shrimp,” Kwan would go onto appear in numerous Hong Kong produced films including Shaolin And Wu Tang (1981), the two Jackie Chan Project A films, Ghost Hospital (1988), My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (1989), The Banquet (1991) with Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung, John Woo’s classic Hard Boiled (1992) and Cold Blood Warm Heart (1996). Kwan won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 1992 for his work in the crime drama Lee Rock with Andy Lau.

     Kwan’s last film was the 2000 drama Queen of Kowloon.