Cheng Wai-man, also known as Steve Cheng, was born in Hong Kong in 1963. He began his television career as an assistant director at TVB, moved to Asia Television as a director in 1988, and there directed series such as Fist of Fury (1995), Storm of the Sun (1996), Vampire Expert II (1996) and From Chaozhou (1997). He was promoted to producer at ATV in 1997, his first produced series being Waiting for You to Return, also known as Knock Knock. He also worked in film: in 1995 he co-directed the Mong Kok crime picture The Sky of Wandering at Benny Chan's invitation, and in 1997 drew attention for the segment he directed in the horror comedy Troublesome Night, an omnibus made by several directors as a set of independent stories that later grew into a long-running series. He went on to direct more than a dozen films, mostly horror and thrillers. Leaving ATV in 2001 to concentrate on film, he returned as production manager in 2004 and was promoted to assistant production controller in 2005, departing again in 2007. Through the later 2000s he continued to produce and direct ATV dramas such as The Legendary Story of Goddess 2 (2005), Dangerous Person (2005), Heart of Greed in Central Part 2 (2006) and The Unyielding Justice (2006). During his ATV years he helped sustain the station's mid-1990s output, with series built on martial arts, the supernatural and melodrama, and he became an assured hand at genre pacing. In recent years his work has centred on the mainland, Taiwan and Singapore, where he continues to direct drama series and online productions at a steady pace.
Cheng Wai-man was an active director during the boom in Hong Kong horror films around 1997; his segment in Troublesome Night helped launch a vogue for locally made horror-comedy anthologies, and the series ran for many instalments afterwards. He also spent years directing martial-arts and supernatural dramas at ATV, and from the 2000s shifted his career towards the mainland and Southeast Asian television markets, an example of a Hong Kong genre director heading north.
Achievements
- 1995 · Co-directed the film The Sky of Wandering at Benny Chan's invitation.
- 1997 · Directed a segment of the horror omnibus Troublesome Night and was promoted to ATV producer the same year.
- 2005 · Was promoted to assistant production controller at ATV.