Manfred Wong, originally named Wong Man-chun, was born in Hong Kong on 5 June 1957 and grew up in a squatter area at the back of Kwun Lung Lau in Western district with three younger brothers and a sister. At nine he was recommended by his headmaster to perform children's radio dramas at RTHK, and from fourteen he contributed film and television columns to Youth's Weekly, becoming a paid columnist and proofreader. He attended St Paul's Co-educational College and read communication at Hong Kong Baptist College, but left before graduating to join Rediffusion Television's creative unit as a full-time writer, scripting series such as Beloved Daughter and Dragon Strikes. His first film script was for Encore (1979); he then moved to Johnny Mak Productions and wrote Lonely Fifteen (1982) and Everlasting Love (1984), both earning Hong Kong Film Award nominations for Best Screenplay. He made his directorial debut with Crazy Games (1985) and produced his first film in 1989, and worked successively for Golden Harvest, D & B, Shaw Brothers, Cinema City, Artists and Win's, serving as head of publicity for the D & B circuit in 1987-88. In 1991 he directed The Twilight of the Forbidden City in Beijing and made the early Hong Kong-mainland police thriller The Road, and in 1994 he produced Jiang Wen's In the Heat of the Sun, which triumphed at the Venice festival where Xia Yu took best actor. In 1995 he co-founded BoB & Partners with Wong Jing and Andrew Lau, producing over thirty films. In 1996 he wrote and produced Young and Dangerous, which took over HK$21 million and, with the sequels, pushed the franchise past HK$60 million and sparked a new wave of triad films; he produced and scripted all six instalments plus the spin-offs Portland Street Blues and Those Were the Days. With Lau he made The Storm Riders (1998), that year's top-grossing Hong Kong film, and A Man Called Hero (1999). He chaired the Hong Kong Film Awards Association for four years and headed the Hong Kong Screenwriters' Guild, and in November 2007 founded the magazine Hong Kong Film. From 2010 he worked mainly on the mainland, producing hits such as Lost on Journey and writing or producing films including Bruce Lee, My Brother and The House That Never Dies.
Manfred Wong was a driving force behind the 1990s wave of comic-book adaptations and triad films, and the Young and Dangerous series turned a comic into a box-office franchise and reshaped the business model of Hong Kong cinema. A Rediffusion Television writer by training, he worked for such studios as Golden Harvest, D & B, Shaw Brothers and Cinema City, chaired the Hong Kong Film Awards Association and led the screenwriters' guild before shifting his focus to the mainland market.
Achievements
- 1980 · Wrote his first film script, for Encore
- 1982 · Scripted Lonely Fifteen and earned a Hong Kong Film Award Best Screenplay nomination
- 1995 · Produced Jiang Wen's In the Heat of the Sun and co-founded BoB & Partners
- 1996 · Wrote and produced Young and Dangerous, which grossed over HK$21 million