Synopsis

Former member of the experimental Squad 701, Tsui Chik escapes a government purge and settles into a quiet life as a librarian. When his former comrades begin killing drug dealers across Hong Kong, Tsui resumes his combat skills and adopts the identity of Black Mask. He must stop the increasingly unstable soldiers while protecting his friendship with a police inspector investigating the murders.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film adapts Li Chi-Tak's 1992 manhua of the same name, bringing its masked vigilante into a science-fiction action setting.

• Producer Tsui Hark selected Daniel Lee after seeing his debut feature, What Price Survival (1994), which paid homage to Chang Cheh's The One-Armed Swordsman.

• Black Mask's domino mask and chauffeur's cap deliberately echo Bruce Lee's Kato costume from the television series The Green Hornet.

• The action choreography was handled by Yuen Woo-ping, whose work combines wire-assisted martial arts with gunfights, explosions, and comic-book spectacle.

• The film received 1997 Hong Kong Film Award nominations for action choreography, art direction, and costume and makeup design.

• The Hong Kong release runs approximately 99 minutes, while the 1999 U.S. theatrical version was English-dubbed and shortened to about 89 minutes.

• A sequel, Black Mask 2: City of Masks, was released in 2002 with a different lead performer and Tsui Hark as director.