Sun Chung was born on 30 November 1940 and is also known as Dong Ming-shan. Of Shandong descent, he grew up in Taiwan and graduated from the screenwriting and directing department of the National Taiwan Academy of Arts. After a year of military service he worked as a continuity clerk and director's assistant at the Central Motion Picture Corporation in Taiwan, and later as an assistant director to Li Hsing and Bai Jingrui, absorbing the lessons of Taiwanese realist cinema. He directed his first film, the musical Wild Girl, in 1969, followed in 1970 by the comedy Tops in Every Trade, which was both a critical and a box-office success and brought him to the attention of Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Ltd. At Shaw he first tried the wuxia genre with The Devil's Mirror (1972), then over the following decade made some thirty films spanning satirical comedy, contemporary action and martial arts. Among his major works are Cohabitation (1975), The Drug Connection (1976), the episode Body in the Box in the true-crime omnibus The Criminals, Part Two (1976), the co-directed Assault: The Criminals, Part Four (1977), The Avenging Eagle (1978), The Deadly Breaking Sword (1979) and The Kung-Fu Instructor (1979); The Avenging Eagle, starring Ti Lung as a killer caught in a chain of ambushes, became a landmark of Shaw wuxia, and he co-wrote Human Lanterns (1982) with Ni Kuang, blending horror into the martial-arts tale. After leaving Shaw in 1982 he directed A Fist Full of Talons (1983) for the Eternal Film Company, became production manager of Silver Bird Films in 1985, and continued with Lady in Black (1987) and City War (1988). His work ranges widely across genres with clean, brisk staging and a particular gift for ferocious fight scenes and taut suspense.
Sun Chung was one of Shaw Brothers' leading directors of wuxia and true-crime films in the 1970s, working across satirical comedy, contemporary action and martial arts with a range few of his peers matched. The Avenging Eagle (1978), with Ti Lung as a killer trapped in a chain of ambushes, became a landmark of Shaw wuxia, while Human Lanterns (1982) stood out for its ferocious horror touches. Moving from the Taiwanese film world to Hong Kong, he was among the few directors of Shaw's later studio era who could handle both martial-arts and crime subjects.
Achievements
- 1969 · Directed his debut feature, the musical Wild Girl.
- 1972 · Joined Shaw Brothers and directed the wuxia film The Devil's Mirror.
- 1978 · Directed The Avenging Eagle, a landmark of Shaw wuxia.
- 1982 · Directed Human Lanterns, co-written with Ni Kuang.