Yonfan was born in 1947 in Hankou, Hubei, his family rooted in Hengshan, Hunan; originally named Yang Man-shih, he moved to Taiwan as a child and came to Hong Kong at sixteen, finishing secondary school before studying film and photography in the United States and Europe. He returned to Hong Kong in 1973 and became well known as a photographer, especially of portraits, publishing a collection of Paris photographs in 1978, a China collection in 1980, Ten Years of Yonfan in 1983 and a portrait collection in 1991. In 1984 he wrote and directed his first feature, A Certain Romance, and went on to make films centred on different kinds of women, including Lost Romance (1986), Last Romance (1988) and Immortal Story (1986); Lost Romance starred Chow Yun-fat and Maggie Cheung. Noted for painterly imagery, he won Best Costume and Make-up Design at the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards for Peony Pavilion. His Bugis Street competed in the Panorama section of the 62nd Berlin Film Festival in 1995; his 1998 Bishonen, starring Daniel Wu and Stephen Fung, explored homosexuality and was nominated for Best Art Direction at the 35th Golden Horse Awards; and the 2001 Peony Pavilion, with Joey Wong and Rie Miyazawa, wove in Kunqu opera, after which he made the Kunqu documentary Breaking the Willow (2003) and the Kunqu shorts Yun and Lu (2013). In 2009 Prince of Tears competed at the 66th Venice Film Festival, and in 2019 his animated feature No. 7 Cherry Lane, seven years in the making, competed at the 76th Venice Film Festival, where it won the Best Screenplay award; it also took Best Animated Feature at the 56th Golden Horse Awards, and recreates 1960s Hong Kong in animation. He has written all his directorial works over the years and also worked as photographer and art director, his aesthetic style setting him apart in Chinese-language cinema.
Yonfan's painterly imagery and his exploration of gender and desire gave Hong Kong cinema a distinct voice, while his animated No. 7 Cherry Lane turned 1960s Hong Kong memory into moving pictures, winning recognition at Venice and the Golden Horse Awards.
Achievements
- 1984 · Wrote and directed his first feature, A Certain Romance.
- 1998 · Directed Bishonen, starring Daniel Wu and Stephen Fung, exploring homosexuality.
- 2019 · No. 7 Cherry Lane won the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival and Best Animated Feature at the 56th Golden Horse Awards.