Lam Chiu-wing, nicknamed Superman, was born on 14 December 1961 and died on 12 December 2023. He was a Hong Kong master of ceremonies, radio and television host, screenwriter and film director. Raised in a resettlement estate in Kwai Chung, he earned an honours diploma in Chinese from Hong Kong Baptist College in 1986, was mentored by the creator Lai Man-cheuk and was a member of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. In the early 1990s he took over hosting and script-editing the ATV variety show Happy Mainstream from Eric Tsang, later becoming its producer and creative consultant, and worked as script editor on the long drama serial Nineties Trio (1991). For many years he wrote, as Superman, for Commercial Radio's long-running radio serial 18/F Block C, and he was a veteran presenter of RTHK's Headliner; from 2007 he hosted Happy Daily with co-hosts such as Chan Suk-lan, taught part-time at Baptist University's film academy from 2007 to 2019 and later lectured in professional practice at Chu Hai College. His screenwriting spanned television and film, including such titles as Moon, Star and Sun, Nga Goh Nga Goh Dui Dui Pong and The Lion Roars, and he wrote newspaper columns; his wife is the columnist Wat Wing-yin. He was president of the Hong Kong Screenwriters' Guild from 2013 to 2017, and in 2016 directed his first feature, Fooling Around Jiang Hu, starring Alan Tam and Jordan Chan and sending up Hong Kong triad pictures. He died of acute leukaemia at Princess Margaret Hospital on 12 December 2023, aged 61.
Under the name Superman, Lam Chiu-wing was a fixture of radio and television, bringing the radio serial and satirical current-affairs programming into the mainstream; he wrote 18/F Block C for many years and long presented Headliner, commenting on politics in a mocking, irreverent style, and in later years taught screenwriting at university, training a new generation of writers.
Achievements
- 1991 · Worked as script editor on the Asia Television drama serial Nineties Trio (1991).
- 2013 · Became president of the Hong Kong Screenwriters' Guild, serving until 2017.
- 2016 · Directed his first feature film, Fooling Around Jiang Hu, starring Alan Tam and Jordan Chan.