Clifton Ko Chi-sum (born 6 August 1958), a recipient of the Medal of Honour, is a Hong Kong film director, producer and theatre producer from Zhongshan, Guangdong, and the founder of the Spring-Time Stage production company. He attended schools in Hung Hom and Kwun Tong and, after Form Three, a Macau school where he was a member of its 38th graduating class. Spotted by the playwright Leung Lap-yan, he joined RTV in 1977 as a screenwriter at only nineteen, working on dramas such as Crocodile Tears and a hit crime serial; in 1980 he moved to Television Broadcasts as assistant director to the comedian Fung Tsui-fan. He began writing film scripts in 1979 and formally directed his first film in 1984. Ko wrote and directed many Chinese-language comedies: Chinese New Year hits including All's Well, Ends Well (1992), which took over forty-eight million Hong Kong dollars, its sequel and It's a Wonderful Life; youth pictures such as the Happy Ghost series and Merry Christmas; and family comedies including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World, Feast of a Rich Family and Chicken and Duck Talk, once holding the local comedy box-office record. In the early 1990s he created both stage and screen versions of a nostalgic romance, and later founded Spring-Time Stage, moving hit film subjects onto the stage and promoting the interplay of theatre and cinema. He directed The Mad Phoenix in 1997, received the Medal of Honour in 2006 and a gold prize for arts promotion at the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards in 2008, and in recent years has also drawn public controversy for remarks made on social media.
Clifton Ko was a leading director of Hong Kong screen comedy in the 1980s and 1990s, his Chinese New Year and family comedies repeatedly setting box-office records. He also moved into theatre production, broadening the local performing arts and carving a distinctive place between popular entertainment and arts promotion.
Achievements
- 1977 · Joined RTV as a screenwriter at only nineteen after being spotted by Leung Lap-yan
- 1992 · Directed the Chinese New Year comedy All's Well, Ends Well, which took over forty-eight million Hong Kong dollars
- 2008 · Received a gold prize for arts promotion at the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards