Kei Shang-tong (1919–2007), original name Kei Xiangchan, was a Hong Kong film composer born in the Foshan town of Nanhai, Guangdong, with ancestral roots in Hengshan, Hunan. Trained in music, he graduated from the National Conservatory of Music and worked in the performance department of the China Symphony Orchestra, bringing a conservatory technique to Mandarin film music after settling in Hong Kong. During the war against Japan he first joined the Hong Kong YMCA's military service corps and later worked with the Fourth Drama Troupe. Returning to Hong Kong in 1948, he taught music at Ling Ying Middle School for seven years; as Hong Kong's Mandarin cinema, and musicals in particular, flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, his songs travelled with the films to Taiwan and Southeast Asia. He began writing film music in 1950, his first work being the Linda Lin Dai vehicle Cui Cui (1953), which included his song Ni Zhen Mei. He wrote many songs for Mandarin films, such as Jian Wu for Our Sister Hedy (1957) and Wang You Ge and Wo de Tian Tang for Mambo Girl (1957), plus theme songs for Xiang Che Mei Ren (1959) and Wen Rou Xiang (1960), and an inserted song, Qing Jia Ai Suo, for the Li Xianglan picture Yi Ye Feng Liu (1958). He began scoring films with Jin Feng (1956). From 1955 he composed and scored for the MP & GI studio, formally signing with it in August 1962, and worked on titles including Our Sister Hedy, Tian Chang Di Jiu (1959), Lan Gui Feng Yun (1959) and Wu Yu Wen Cang Tian (1961). He also scored Shaw Brothers' Hou Men (1960) and the Guolian studio's Dong Nuan (1969), his scoring spanning the MP & GI, Shaw and Guolian studios across musicals and drama. He emigrated to Canada in July 1973, gradually withdrawing from the music world, and died on 3 May 2007.
Kei composed and scored for MP & GI over many years, fusing Mandarin popular song with film scoring; numbers such as Jian Wu, Wang You Ge and Wo de Tian Tang travelled with the films and made him a key figure in the music of Hong Kong's 1950s and 1960s Mandarin musicals.
Achievements
- 1953 · Composed the music for Linda Lin Dai's breakthrough film Cui Cui, including the song Ni Zhen Mei
- 1956 · Scored his first film, Jin Feng
- 1962 · Formally signed with MP & GI