Lai Man-Wai now known as Father of Hong Kong Cinema, was the director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 of the first Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 movie

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 Zhuangzi Tests His Wife

Zhuangzi Tests His Wife

Zhuangzi Tests His Wife is a 1913 Hong Kong drama film directed by Li Minwei. It is the first ever feature film in Hong Kong cinema...

(莊子試妻) in 1913. Note that in the movie, Lai played the role of the wife himself, partly due to the reluctance of women to participate in show business at that time.

Biography

Born in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, of Xinhui

Xinhui

Xinhui also known as 'Kuixiang'. Famous people born in what is now known as Xinhui include Liang Qichao, Chen Baisha, Chan Heung, and Michael Li from Westmead Hospital.-Geography:...

, Guangdong

Guangdong

Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

 origin and raised in Hong Kong, he joined Sun Yat-sen's

Sun Yat-sen

Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...

 Kuomintang

Kuomintang

The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...

 party in 1911 and helped make anti-warlord

Warlord

A warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...

 movies. He was an active director during the golden years of the Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

 movie industry from 1921 to 1928. In 1923, he founded the Minxin (China Sun) Film Company

Minxin Film Company

The Minxin Film Company or the China Sun Film Company was one of the earliest movie studios in the history of Chinese cinema.- History :...

 with his brother, Lai Pak-Hoi

Lai Pak-hoi

Lai Pak-hoi or Li Beihai was a Chinese actor and producer based in Hong Kong, and an early pioneer of the Hong Kong film industry.-Biography:...

, in Hong Kong which later relocated to Shanghai. By 1930, he co-founded one of the giant studios of the 1930s, Lianhua Film Company

Lianhua Film Company

The Lianhua Film Company was one of two major production companies based in Shanghai, China during the 1930s, the other being the Mingxing Film Company.-Names:...

 with Law Ming-yau. In 1938, he returned to Hong Kong and retired.

He was the grandfather of Hong Kong actress Gigi Lai

Gigi Lai

Gigi Lai is a Hong Kong actress and Cantopop singer. Lai was under a contract with the television station TVB and she retired in October 2008. She is popularly nicknamed by the Hong Kong media as the "Goddess of Beauty" ....

 and the father of another Hong Kong actress Lai Suen.

Memory

His story was documented in Lai Man-wai: Father of Hong Kong Cinema by Choi Kai-kwong in 2001.

Lai Man-Wai is portrayed in Stanley Kwan

Stanley Kwan

Stanley Kwan is a Hong Kong Second Wave film director and producer.Kwan landed a job at the TVB after receiving a mass communications degree at Hong Kong Baptist College...

's 1992 biopic of actress Ruan Lingyu

Ruan Lingyu

Ruan Lingyu , born Ruan Fenggen , was a Chinese silent film actress. One of the most prominent Chinese film stars of the 1930s, her death at the age of 24 led her to become an icon of Chinese cinema.- Career :...

, Centre Stage

Centre Stage

Centre Stage , also known as Actress and Yuen Ling-yuk, is a 1992 Hong Kong film, directed by Stanley Kwan.The film is based on a true story: the tragic life of China's first prima donna of the silver screen, Ruan Lingyu. This movie chronicles her rise to fame as a movie actress in Shanghai during...

by Hong Kong actor, Waise Lee

Waise Lee

Waise Lee Chi-hung is a Hong Kong film and television actor best known for playing the roles of villains and antagonists in various films.-Biography:...

.

Filmography

(incomplete)

• Romance of the Western Chamber
  Romance of the Western Chamber (1927 film)
  Romance of the Western Chamber is a 1927 silent Chinese film drama directed by Hou Yao.The film is an adaption of the classic Chinese dramatic work Romance of the West Chamber by Wang Shifu....
  
  (1927) directed with Hou Yao

External links

• His Origins in Xinhui - http://www.southcn.com/news/gdnews/sh/hrjnh/fyrw/200409020627.htm