Weng Lingwen was born in Changshu, Jiangsu, in 1919, raised and educated in northern China; an ancestor, Weng Tonghe, was a top imperial scholar who tutored the Tongzhi and Guangxu emperors. Coming to Hong Kong before the war, he taught Chinese language and history at Pui Ying Middle School, where he met the émigré filmmakers Cai Chusheng and Situ Huimin, and during summer holidays served as assistant director on the Greater Earth company's Orphan Island Paradise (1939), directed by Cai Chusheng and released in Hong Kong from 22 September 1939 for a twelve-day run, and on Hometown Cloud (1940), directed by Situ Huimin, beginning his lifelong connection with film. When the Pacific war broke out he returned to the mainland, joined a resistance drama troupe as writer, director and actor, and toured Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan for anti-Japanese propaganda. In 1945 he went to Guangzhou, teaching and moonlighting at an arts college where he coached students in reading scripts in Mandarin. In 1947 Chu Yuk-wah invited him to Hong Kong to work in the publicity department of the Grand China Film Company, and he then joined the newly founded Yonghua studio, publicising its first productions and working with the illustrators Ding Cong and Zhang Guangyu. In the mid-to-late 1950s he joined the China United Film Company, which distributed Hong Kong pictures, staying until its general manager died in a plane crash and the firm closed in 1964; he then moved to Toho, handling the release and publicity of Japanese films in Hong Kong. Weng entered and left Shaw Brothers several times, editing the studio's magazine in the 1950s and later returning at Chu's request; he also worked for Reader's Digest. In 1981 he joined Television Broadcasts Limited in public relations, became an adviser in 1991, and retired in 2002, dying in Hong Kong on 17 August that year, aged 83.
A central figure in postwar Hong Kong film publicity, Weng worked for Grand China, Yonghua, China United, Shaw Brothers and TVB, and edited the magazines Film Circle and Hong Kong Movie News, linking studio magazines with distribution and promotion across the industry from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Achievements
- 1939 · Served as assistant director on the Greater Earth company's Orphan Island Paradise
- 1947 · Was invited by Chu Yuk-wah to Hong Kong to join the publicity department of the Grand China Film Company
- 1981 · Joined Television Broadcasts Limited to head its public-relations work