Lung To (24 January 1910 – 17 October 1986), born Poon Wai-lam and also known as Poon Lung-to, was a native of Panyu who was born in Guangzhou and worked as a playwright, librettist, director, producer and actor in Cantonese opera and film. His father, Poon Hon-chi, was a veteran artist whose students included the famous performers Kwai Ming-yeung and Wu Tip-ying; his younger sister Ngan Kim-ying was a celebrated Cantonese opera actress, and for her Lung wrote The Red Maid, the role that won her the nickname the Living Red Maid. His elder daughter Poon Yim-chu, a Shaw Brothers actress known as Lam Yim, and his second daughter Poon Lai-chu were both trained as dan. Lung drafted teaching notes on Cantonese opera for the provincial drama research institute in Guangdong and arranged many operatic songs. He entered films in 1938, composing the music for and assisting on A Night of Romance, A Lifetime of Regret, and began writing screenplays in 1939 with Farewell on a Winter Night, co-written with Fung Fung-kor. During the Japanese occupation he worked as a playwright and production assistant for Cantonese opera in Guangxi and elsewhere, and after the war returned to Hong Kong, where he wrote and directed The Blooming Flower (1947) and then No More Retreat (1949). Between 1947 and 1969 he directed more than one hundred and ten films, about a third of which he also wrote, specialising in opera and song pictures such as The Random Harvest (1960) and A Half-Moon Night (1964), and modern dramas including The True Story of Siu Yuet-pak (1955) and Two Families (1964); he also made Chaozhou-dialect and Mandarin films. A pioneer of Hong Kong screen effects, he created the flying head in The Headless Empress Bears a Son (1957) and the freeze-frame, rotating shot and double role in The Happy Wedding (1959). On 1 June 1963 he and nine other veteran directors, among them Wong Toi, Mok Hong-si, Wong Hok-sing, Wu Pang, Lee Tit, Ng Wui, Fung Chi-kong, Lo Yu-kei and Chu Kei, became sworn brothers known as the Ten Great Directors. In 1969 he helped direct Let's Build a Family to commemorate Mok Hong-si, then left the industry and worked for a church until his death in 1986.
Across more than a hundred films spanning opera pictures and modern song films, Lung To used old-style effects — the flying head, freeze-frames and doubling — in fantastical works such as The Headless Empress Bears a Son, making him an early pioneer of Hong Kong screen illusion. The sworn brotherhood of the Ten Great Directors that he joined also reflects the distinctive networks of the post-war Cantonese film industry.
Achievements
- 1947 · Directed his first feature, The Blooming Flower, beginning his career as a filmmaker.
- 1957 · Used old-style effects such as the flying head in The Headless Empress Bears a Son, marking him as an early pioneer of Hong Kong screen illusions.
- 1963 · Formed a sworn brotherhood with nine other veteran directors, collectively known as the Ten Great Directors.