The 1980s
As the 1970s and the era of the martial arts film wound down, Wu Ma's output as a director also slowed. His acting output, however, increased as he became increasingly well known as a character actor.
While Wu had made appearances in Hung's 1970s movies (such as Iron Fisted Monk), Wu's association with Sammo Hung began in earnest in the early 1980s. Wu appeared in Hung's groundbreaking Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980), a movie widely acknowledged as the precursor of the Hong Kong vampire genre, and directed and appeared in The Dead And The Deadly (1983), a noted classic in its genre which earned Wu a Hong Kong Film Award nomination for Best Director. Throughout the 1980s, Wu and Hung had a close working relationship, often with Wu as the director and Hung as the producer (such as My Cousin The Ghost (1986)).
Wu also worked in Hung's production company Bo Ho as the production manager, and made appearances in almost every Hung-directed movie of the 1980s. Amongst the most notable movies were Millionaire's Express (1986) and Wheels on Meals (1984).
Towards the mid-1980s, Wu became one of the most prolific character actors in Hong Kong, his now-rubbery face able to shift effortlessly across a spectrum of emotions. During the 1980s, he received three Hong Kong Film Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor - for Righting Wrongs (1986), where he played a policeman having to deal with his son's death; A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) as Yin Chek-Ha; and in The Last Eunuch In China (1988), as Lord Ting.
Wu also began a working relationship with Tsui Hark, and appeared in several of Hark's movies. Aside from A Chinese Ghost Story, Wu also appeared in the earlier Peking Opera Blues (1986).
After A Chinese Ghost Story, said by Wu to be amongst his favourite movies, Wu began to focus on the supernatural genre. Much of his directorial efforts after 1987 were within that genre, such as Portrait Of A Nymph (1988), Burning Sensation (1989) and Fox Legend (1991).
Read more about this topic: Wu Ma