MUMBAI: The 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will honour director Tsui Hark as Asian Filmmaker of the Year for his contribution to the advancement of Asian cinema.

BIFF will celebrate the director‘s career of over three decades and will praise his achievement for bringing Hong Kong films to the international market. It was Tsui whp rewrote the history of Hong Kong films and contributed to the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema.
 
Tsui came into prominence in the 1980s after establishing his name as one of the pioneers of the Hong Kong New Wave with films like The Butterfly Murders (1979) and Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind (1980).

He brought about the special effects era in Hong Kong cinema with Warriors From the Magic Mountain (1982) and revived the martial arts genre with A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) and Once Upon a Time in China (1990).

Tsui‘s next foray into 3D filmmaking with The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, is scheduled for release in December.

Directors who were earlier honoured by the BIFF were Hou Hsiao-hsien, the late Edward Yang and Tsai Ming-liang of Taiwan, Andy Lau of Hong Kong and Yash Chopra of India.