Lo Duen (1911–2000) was born in Guangzhou to a family from Xinhui, Guangdong, and became one of the few Hong Kong film figures to work as screenwriter, director, actor and producer, also directing under the alias Ko Shan. He left school in 1927 and trained at the Guangdong Film Academy founded by Wai Bik-wan, then in April 1929 entered the drama school attached to the Guangdong Drama Research Institute headed by Ouyang Yuqian, studying stage acting until the school closed at the end of 1931. He went on to appear in two silent films, Bombardment of Mount Wuzhi and a Purplish Rose production (both 1933), then moved to Shanghai, working as a screenwriter at the Xinhua and Mingxing studios under Ouyang. In 1936 an old teacher, Hu Chunbing, invited him to Hong Kong, where he starred in Lin Cang's The Modern Diaochan (1937) and in Cantonese films such as Wun Sang-choi Bombs Fu Kei (1937), which he co-wrote with Lee Sun-fung and Poon Ji-daam, and settled in the city for good. In 1940 he co-founded the Era Film Company with Lee Sun-fung and directed his first film, following it with two more in 1941. After the war he made This Endless Regret (1948) and A Tale of Two Cities (1951), politically charged Cantonese films about official corruption. In 1952 he helped found the Sun Luen Film Company and became one of its key figures; in the 1960s he ran Flying Dragon Pictures. He directed more than 30 films, among them Peach Blossoms All Over the Land (1955), Typhoon Signal No. 10 (1959) and a two-part epic (1961) about Chinese coolies toiling in South America. He was also a fine actor, appearing in Bloodbath, Family and A Home of Million Gold (1953) among others, best known for villains and stubborn feudal patriarchs. His last directed film came in 1969; he retired from acting after 1970, made only occasional television appearances, and had cameos in 1989 and Ah Kam (1996). A co-founder of the South China Film Workers' Union, he wrote a memoir column, 'A Madman's Half Century', for Wen Wei Po in the 1980s, collected into a book in 1992. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Hong Kong Film Golden Bauhinia Awards in 1998 and died in Hong Kong on 23 May 2000.
Lo Duen worked across writing, directing, acting and production from the 1930s, co-founded the Sun Luen Film Company in 1952, and chronicled working-class and overseas-Chinese lives in realist films such as Typhoon Signal No. 10; his memoir columns left a first-hand record of early Hong Kong cinema.
Achievements
- 1940 · Co-founded the Era Film Company with Lee Sun-fung and directed his first film
- 1952 · Helped found the Sun Luen Film Company and became one of its key figures
- 1959 · Directed the social-realist film Typhoon Signal No. 10
- 1998 · Received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Hong Kong Film Golden Bauhinia Awards