Hong Kong 1941
1984 film by Po-Chih Leong

Hong Kong 1941 (Chinese: 等待黎明) is a 1984 Hong Kong war drama film directed by Po-Chih Leong, produced by John Shum and written by Sammo Hung. The film stars Chow Yun-fat, Cecilia Yip and Alex Man. For his performance in this film, Chow was awarded his first Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actor.
Synopsis
The film takes places shortly before and during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. The story of three young friends focuses on their sufferings as Hong Kong falls under oppressive occupation.
Years later, a woman narrates her personal story of the Japanese takeover of Hong Kong in 1941. She's Nam, young, attractive, daughter of a wealthy rice merchant, and prey to painful, disabling seizures. Her boyhood friend is Coolie Keung, whose family used to have wealth; he's now impoverished, a tough kid, a leader, in love with her. Into the mix steps Fei, cool and resourceful, an actor from the north, intent on getting to San Francisco in the US or Australia. They form a trio, but the day they are to leave Hong Kong, the invasion stops them. Fei must rescue Keung from collaborators, Nam falls in love with Fei, and danger awaits their next attempt to escape.
“Hong Kong 1941” enters the record as 1984 film by Po-Chih Leong. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hong, Kong and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Hong Kong 1941” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hong, Kong and film provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5894138. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 5 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hong Kong 1941” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.