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)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

film '' Zhuangzi Tests His Wife'' 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. Born in

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, of Xinhui,

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

origin and raised in Hong Kong, he joined

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-senUsually known as Sun Zhongshan () in Chinese; also known by Names of Sun Yat-sen, several other names. (; 12 November 186612 March 1925) was a Chinese physician, revolutionary, statesman, and political philosopher who founded the Republ ...

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the one party state, sole ruling party of the country Republic of China (1912-1949), during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until Retreat ...

party in 1911 and helped make anti-

warlord Warlords are individuals who exercise military, Economy, economic, and Politics, political control over a region, often one State collapse, without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over Militia, local ...

movies.

Biography

Lai was born in 1893 in

, Japan to Chinese parents. He grew up in

. Liu's earliest exposure to cinema was watching a newsreel from the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...

. In 1913, Lai founded a drama troupe in Hong Kong. He collaborated with Ukrainian-American filmmaker Benjamin Brodsky in the production of two short fiction films. Lai was a member of Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Alliance. In 1921, Lai founded a film exhibition company. In 1922, he founded the production company Minxin. Because Lai believed that cinema in China should serve the country's revolution and modernization, Minxin's early productions focused on documentaries dealing with educational, current affairs, and cultural topics. In 1925, Lai relocated Minxin from Hong Kong to

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

. Sun Yat-sen and the

became a major focus of Minxin's films. Lai recorded Sun's public announcement of the

Northern Expedition The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT) against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The purpose of the campaign was to reunify China prop ...

, and documented Chiang Kai-shek's consolidation of power after Sun's death, including filming the progress of the Northern Expedition. Initially, Minxin released film from this period as news reels. Later, Lai compiled footage into an eighty-minute film which the KMT branch in Shanghai approved as the only long format film for party

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

, making the film one of the earliest party films in China. Prior to Chiang's anti-communist purge, Lai maintained strong political relationships with both anti-communists and communists. He continued working across the political spectrum thereafter. 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–ba ...

, with Lo Ming-yau. Lianhua, together with other leading Shanghai studios, was destroyed when the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

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

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

-born actress. His daughter Lai Suen and granddaughter

Gigi Lai Gigi Lai (born 1 October 1971) is a Hong Kong actress and singer. Entering the entertainment industry in 1985, Lai was under a contract with the television station TVB from 1991 until she retired in 2008. Nicknamed by the Hong Kong media as the " ...

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

* '' Zhuangzi Tests His Wife'' (1913) * '' Romance of the Western Chamber'' (1927) directed with

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

* ''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 Chinese silent film directors Immigrants to British Hong Kong Japanese emigrants

Biography

Memory

Partial filmography

References

Further reading

External links