David Lam Tak-luk was born in Macau in 1954 to a family from Huiyang, Guangdong. The seventh of ten children, he grew up around Kiang Wu Hospital and moved to Shau Kei Wan on Hong Kong Island at the age of eleven. A film director, screenwriter and producer, he is known for crime films and dramas about society's marginal figures. He entered the first artiste training class of Television Broadcasts in 1971 intending to work behind the camera, but was assigned to the drama department, beginning as assistant director on the series The Lamp of Wisdom. Promoted to drama director, he made his first series, Wu Shan Meng, and also served as deputy head of the artiste training class, examining its third intake. In 1977 he was invited, along with Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, to join Commercial Television and directed the long serial The Romance of Celebrities. In 1980 he joined the Community Relations Department of the ICAC, directing the docudramas ICAC Investigators (1981) and its sequel (1985) and receiving a commendation from the Commissioner before leaving at the end of 1985. In 1988 he moved from television to cinema with Call Girl '88, and in 1990 founded his own company and made Hong Kong Gigolo, followed by Women's Prison and The Wild Reeds. Because ICAC rules barred filming on related subjects for some years after leaving, he only returned to anti-corruption themes in 1993 with First Shot. After a lull in the early 2000s he directed the Z Storm series from 2014, including its several sequels, bringing him renewed attention in the mainland market. He was a co-founder and first chairman of the TVB alumni association.
With Call Girl '88 and Hong Kong Gigolo, David Lam opened up the subject of sex workers and gigolos in Hong Kong cinema and helped set off a wave of similar films in the early 1990s; having made docudramas for the ICAC early on, he returned to anti-corruption stories in later years with the Z Storm series, which found a fresh audience on the mainland.
Achievements
- 1971 · Entered the first artiste training class of Television Broadcasts.
- 1988 · Directed Call Girl '88, moving from television to film.
- 2014 · Directed Z Storm, launching the anti-corruption Z Storm series.