Real Case Inspiring “Cold War 1994”

(Above) Fish Liew (廖子妤) and Carlos Chan play the millionaire couple.

Hong Kong’s classic police thriller franchise Cold War <寒戰> returns after 10 years with its prequel, Cold War 1994 <寒戰1994>. Set in Hong Kong before the 1997 handover, the film follows a wealthy businessman’s kidnapping and the police power struggles it triggers.

Intriguing Story Which Inspired the Movie

After watching the film, some viewers noticed that the kidnapped tycoon “Wong Ka-fai”, played by Carlos Chan (陳家樂), appears to be inspired by real-life Hong Kong property magnate Teddy Wang Teh-huei (王德輝), former chairman of Chinachem Group. His case remains one of Hong Kong’s most shocking unsolved mysteries.

Teddy Wang was born into a business family in Shanghai and later built a property empire with his wife, Nina Wang (龔如心). The childhood sweethearts married in Hong Kong in 1955 and founded Chinachem Properties, growing it into a major real estate business. The couple were famously close, often affectionately calling each other “silly pig”.

But their immense wealth also made them targets. In 1983, Teddy Wang was kidnapped for the first time. The criminals hid him inside a modified refrigerator, and Nina Wang paid US$11 million in ransom to secure his release. One of the police officers who helped solve the case was Sergeant Chung Wai-ching (鍾維政), who later gained the Wang family’s trust and even advised them on security.

That trust would later prove fatal.

After the first kidnapping, Wang became extremely cautious. He hired bodyguards and even hid a small radio transmitter in the heel of his shoe. However, in 1990, after dismissing his bodyguards, he was kidnapped again after returning home from a squash game. This time, the kidnappers removed and threw away his shoes, disabling the transmitter.

After his disappearance, Nina Wang took over Chinachem and built it into an even larger empire, becoming Asia’s richest woman. Yet she never gave up hope that her husband would return, keeping his room untouched for years. Teddy Wang was only legally declared dead in 1999, sparking a long inheritance battle. Nina Wang passed away in 2007.

Cold War 1994 draws from this chilling real-life case to explore how greed and power can blur the line between law enforcer and criminal. As the film shows internal battles within the police force, it also reminds audiences that sometimes, reality can be even more haunting than fiction.

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