And whenever Cheng's films hit movie and TV screens, the Hang Seng index tends to collapse.
Cheng's next movie — Saving General Yang — comes out on April 4.
CNBC's Deirdre Wang Morris points us to this story in the South China Morning Post. Here are some of his film stats via the SCMP:
- "The Greed Of Man," 1992: The Hang Seng fell 13 percent while the show was on.
- "Legend of Yung Ching," 1997: The Hang Seng sunk below the below 10,000 while the series was running.
- Cheng had shows airing during the Asian financial crisis of 1998 and the tech bubble burst of 2000.
- The market fell during 11 of 17 of his television shows since 1992.
- CLSA analysts say the markets do worse when the series are more tragic.
It's called the "Ting Hai effect," named after one of Cheng's characters who makes money by shorting derivatives and stocks.
File this one under bizarre stock market indicators.
Here's the trailer for the movie. Warning: it's very bloody.