Hung Suk-wan, also known as Hung Yin, was born in 1913 in Wujin, Jiangsu. The acclaimed dramatist Hong Shen was his eldest half-brother, while the director Hung Chung-ho was his brother of the same parents. In 1932 he acted in Star Film Company's Broken Love. After graduating from the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts he joined Lianhua Film Company as an art designer before moving to its publicity department. When the war spread to Shanghai in 1937 he moved to Hong Kong with Hung Chung-ho. In 1938 he helped his brother found Zhongnan Film Company in Hong Kong. When Hung Chung-ho turned to the trading business, Hung Suk-wan began directing, and the two brothers co-directed the Cantonese films The Adventures of Fong Sai-yuk, Part Two (1939) and Rescue My Mother (1939). His first solo film was Breaking the Bronze Net (1939), after which he joined Nanyang Film Company with his brother. In 1940 he directed the Gu Long-gang-scripted A Smile Worth a Thousand (1940), and after Ivy League Lovers (1941) he ranked among the industry's foremost directors. His work was noted for delicate feeling and careful composition, and Behind the Closed Door (1942), released after the fall of Hong Kong, was one of his best-known films. During the occupation he and his wife, the actress Yung Yuk-yi, performed stage plays in Guangzhouwan. Returning to Hong Kong after the war, he made his first Mandarin film, No Cloud but Wushan (1947), and thereafter worked in both Mandarin and Cantonese. Among his Cantonese pictures were The Fragrance of Wild Flowers (1950), starring Ma Si-tsang and Hung Sin-nui, and Leung Lang-yim (1950), adapted from Lee Ngor's sky novels. He directed Ouyang Sha-fei in the Mandarin film Don't Let Your Husband Know (1952) and again in The Illegitimate Son (1953), and co-directed Yang E (1955) with Yi Wen for Asia Film. After a 1955 stay on the mainland he returned to Hong Kong and, as Hung Yin, directed The Walking Corpse (1958) and Sudden Sunshine (1958) for Phoenix, and produced The Real and the Fake Daughter (1959). His last released film as director, The Strip-tease Affair, starring Ouyang Sha-fei, was shot entirely on location and released in Taiwan in 1959. In the 1970s he and Yung Yuk-yi emigrated to Canada.
Moving to Hong Kong with his brother in 1937 and helping found Zhongnan Film Company, Hung Suk-wan began directing in 1939 with the Fong Sai-yuk series and Breaking the Bronze Net. Working in both Mandarin and Cantonese after the war, he was a significant director of early Hong Kong martial-arts and Cantonese films, with Behind the Closed Door considered a representative work.
Achievements
- 1939 · Co-directed The Adventures of Fong Sai-yuk, Part Two with Hung Chung-ho, and directed Breaking the Bronze Net on his own the same year.
- 1947 · Directed his first Mandarin film, No Cloud but Wushan.
- 1958 · Directed The Walking Corpse and Sudden Sunshine for Phoenix under the name Hung Yin.