Lee Tit (1913–1996), whose original name was Lee Yuk-ching, was born in Hong Kong to a family from Xiangshan (now Zhongshan) in Guangdong and became a leading Cantonese-language film director in Hong Kong from the 1950s to the 1960s. He loved the arts from boyhood, acted in stage plays as a student and finished secondary school in Guangzhou. In 1930 he entered the Lianhua actors' school in Hong Kong, graduating as one of its first outstanding students; he entered films in 1932, acting in his first film, and formally became a director in 1936 with his debut feature, later making his name with a film that earned the actor Ng Cho-fan the title of Emperor of Film. He directed more than a hundred films across melodrama, comedy and opera film, blending literary quality with the colour of Chinese opera in a strongly personal style. In 1952 he was one of the founders of Union Film Enterprise and became its longest-serving core director, later also founding the Baoying Film Company. In 1953 he directed the social-realist classic In the Face of Demolition for Union, about the tenants of subdivided flats in an old tenement supporting one another, starring Cheung Ying and Ng Cho-fan. He was especially known for adapting Tong Tik-sang's Cantonese operas for the screen: he directed The Story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (1958) with Yam Kim-fai and Fung Yim-fan, and in 1959 The Purple Hairpin and The Butterfly and the Red Pear Blossoms, both starring Yam Kim-fai and Pak Suet-sin, bringing stage opera to film; he directed a second version of The Purple Hairpin in 1977. His other notable works include the social drama The Orchid in the Flames (1961) and genre films such as Murder in the City (1958) and I Want to Live (1960). In 1980, after making a Henan-opera film about Judge Bao, he retired; he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild in 1994 and died in 1996.
With In the Face of Demolition in 1953, Lee Tit captured the lives of tenants in subdivided tenement flats, and his adaptations of Tong Tik-sang's operas, The Purple Hairpin and The Butterfly and the Red Pear Blossoms, brought Cantonese opera to the screen. A driving force of 1950s–60s Cantonese cinema and a founder of Union Film, he directed more than a hundred films.
Achievements
- 1953 · Directed the social-realist classic In the Face of Demolition, starring Cheung Ying and Ng Cho-fan
- 1959 · Directed the Cantonese opera film The Purple Hairpin, adapted by Tong Tik-sang and starring Yam Kim-fai and Pak Suet-sin
- 1994 · Received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild