Ann Hui On-wah (born 23 May 1947 in Anshan, Liaoning) is a Hong Kong film director, producer and screenwriter, and one of the leading figures of the Hong Kong New Wave. Her father was a Nationalist Party clerk and her mother Japanese; in 1952 the family moved to Macau and later to Hong Kong, where she attended St Paul's Convent School. She entered the University of Hong Kong in 1969 and graduated with a first-class BA in 1972, followed by a master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in 1973. She then studied at the London Film School and returned to Hong Kong in 1975, working as an assistant to director King Hu and later for TVB, the ICAC and RTHK, where she made a documentary-style series based on real cases. Her 1979 feature debut The Secret, scripted by Joyce Chan and drawn from a real murder on Hong Kong Island, is regarded as a landmark of the New Wave and won a prize at the 17th Golden Horse Awards. The Spooky Bunch followed in 1980. She then completed her Vietnam trilogy, including The Story of Woo Viet (1981) and Boat People (1982); the latter won Best Film and Best Director at the 2nd Hong Kong Film Awards and screened at Cannes, bringing her international attention. Hui's films range across drama, martial arts and social realism, and include adaptations of Eileen Chang's Love in a Fallen City (1984) and Eighteen Springs (1997) and of Jin Yong's The Book and the Sword (1987). The semi-autobiographical Song of the Exile (1990) explores a mother-daughter relationship and questions of cultural identity. She has long focused on women and the underprivileged: Summer Snow (1995) follows a middle-aged woman caring for a father-in-law with dementia and won Josephine Siao the Silver Bear at Berlin; The Way We Are (2008) counters the label of a city of sadness with the everyday life of Tin Shui Wai; A Simple Life (2011) is based on a true story and brought Deanie Ip the Best Actress award at Venice; and The Golden Era (2014) reconstructs the life of the writer Xiao Hong. Love After Love, her adaptation of another Eileen Chang story, followed in 2020. She has won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director six times (2nd, 15th, 28th, 31st, 34th and 37th editions) and the Golden Horse Award for Best Director three times, making her the most awarded director in the history of the Hong Kong Film Awards. In 2020 she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival, the first Chinese female director to be so honoured, and she holds honorary doctorates from several institutions, including the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Ann Hui is a central figure of the Hong Kong New Wave and the most frequent winner of the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director. Films such as Boat People, Summer Snow and A Simple Life put women and ordinary people at their centre and turn the camera on the margins of Hong Kong society. In 2020 she became the first Chinese female director to receive Venice's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Her realist style and humanist concern have influenced later Hong Kong filmmakers who take up social subjects.
Achievements
- 1979 · Made her directorial debut with The Secret
- 1982 · Won Best Director at the 2nd Hong Kong Film Awards for Boat People
- 2020 · Received Venice's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement