Lai Man-wai (; September 25, 1893 – October 26, 1953), also romanised as Lay Min-wei or M.W. Ray, considered the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema", was the director of the first

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

film ''

Zhuangzi Tests His Wife ''Zhuangzi Tests His Wife'' () is a 1913 Hong Kong drama film directed by Li Minwei. It is the earliest feature film of Hong Kong cinema, and the only film made by the Huamei (Chinese-American) Studio, which was co-founded by Benjamin Brosky, ...

'' in 1913. In the film, Lai played the role of the wife, partly due to the reluctance of women to participate in show business at the time.

Biography

Born in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, of

Xinhui Xinhui, alternately romanized as Sunwui and also known as Kuixiang, is an urban district of Jiangmen in Guangdong, China. It grew from a separate city founded at the confluence of the Tan and West Rivers. It has a population of about 735,50 ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

origin and raised in Hong Kong, he joined

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

party in 1911 and helped make anti-

warlord A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...

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

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

movie industry from 1921 to 1928. In 1923, he founded the

China Sun Motion Picture Company Minxin Film Company (), also known as China Sun Motion Picture Company Ltd. (1923–1930) was one of the earliest movie studios in the history of Chinese cinema and Hong Kong cinema. History Established in 1922 in Hong Kong by director and act ...

with his brother, Lai Pak-hoi, in Hong Kong which later relocated to Shanghai. In 1930, he co-founded one of the "Big Three" studios of the 1930s,

Lianhua Film Company The United Photoplay Service Company () was one of the three dominant production companies based in Shanghai, China during the 1930s, the other two being the Mingxing Film Company and the Tianyi Film Company, the forerunner of the Hong Kong-based ...

, with

Lo Ming-yau Lo Ming-yau (1900–1967) or Luo Mingyou was a Hong Kong entrepreneur and filmmaker, and a pioneer of Chinese cinema. His uncle Lo Wen-kan (羅文榦, Luo Wengan) was a major politician during the early Republican period. Lo Ming-yau founded the ...

. Lianhua, together with other leading Shanghai studios, was destroyed when the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent form ...

attacked Shanghai in 1937. Lai returned to Hong Kong in 1938 and retired. He was married to Lim Cho-cho, a

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

-born actress. His daughter

Lai Suen Lai or LAI may refer to: Abbreviations * Austrian Latin America Institute (Österreichisches Lateinamerika-Institut) * ''Latin American Idol'', TV series * La Trobe Institute, Melbourne, Australia * Leaf area index, leaf area of a crop or ve ...

and granddaughter Gigi Lai are both actresses.

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's 1991 biopic of actress Ruan Lingyu, '' Center Stage'' by Hong Kong actor, Waise Lee.

Partial filmography

* ''

'' (1913) * '' Romance of the Western Chamber'' (1927) directed with

Hou Yao Hou Yao (1903–1942) was a pioneering Chinese film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He wrote and directed many films including ''The Discarded Wife'' (1924), ''Romance of the Western Chamber'' (1927), the first Chinese film shown in We ...

* ''The Battle of Shanghai'' (1937) * ''A Page of History'' (1941). Documentary. Lai Man-wai followed

during the 1920s."HK Film Archive's "100 Must-See Hong Kong Movies" to screen historically significant films"
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References

External links

* His Origins in Xinhui - http://www.southcn.com/news/gdnews/sh/hrjnh/fyrw/200409020627.htm * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lai, Man-wai 1893 births 1953 deaths Chinese male silent film actors Chinese film producers Hong Kong film directors Alumni of St. Paul's College, Hong Kong Asian film producers Chinese silent film directors Emigrants from Japan to British Hong Kong

Biography

Memory

Partial filmography

References

Further reading

External links