Herman Yau Lai-to, born in Hong Kong in 1961 with family roots in Chaozhou, Guangdong, is a film director, cinematographer, screenwriter and producer whose work ranges across horror, crime, romance and realist drama. After secondary school he studied radiation therapy at Hong Kong Polytechnic before entering the communication department of Hong Kong Baptist College in 1981; while a student he already worked as a continuity clerk on film sets and made independent short films. He began his career mainly as a cinematographer, shooting features such as Sentenced to Hang (1989) for Taylor Wong and Fatal Contact (2006) for Dennis Law, and serving as director of photography on Michael Hui's The Magic Touch (1992) and Tsui Hark's Time and Tide (2000). In 1987 he directed his first feature, No Regret. Invited by Danny Lee, he made The Untold Story in 1993, a film whose extreme violence shocked the industry, followed by Taxi Hunter (1993) and Ebola Syndrome (1996), which made him a leading figure in Hong Kong's Category III cinema. He also directed the first six instalments of the Troublesome Night series (1997-99), the romance Fascination Amour (1999), the socially engaged From the Queen to the Chief Executive (2001) and Whispers and Moans (2007), and the biopic Ip Man: The Final Fight (2013). His Shock Wave (2017) brought his first Best Director nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards, and The White Storm 2: Drug Lords (2019) became Hong Kong's submission for the Academy Award for best international feature. He has also co-founded film magazines and a publishing house, published a book on directing in 2010, and earned a PhD in cultural studies from Lingnan University in 2015.
With more than eighty films over four decades, Yau is one of Hong Kong's most productive and versatile directors, moving between large commercial productions and realist, socially engaged work while also serving as a cinematographer and film educator.
Achievements
- 1987 · Directed his first feature, No Regret, going on to work widely as a cinematographer.
- 1993 · Directed The Untold Story, a notorious Category III crime film that shocked the industry.
- 2017 · Received his first Best Director nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards for Shock Wave.
- 2019 · His sequel set a mainland box-office record for a Hong Kong film and became Hong Kong's Oscar submission.