Chuk Ching-yin

Chuk Ching-yin (1900–1981), whose ancestral home was Ningbo, Zhejiang, and who studied at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was a film producer and director active in Shanghai and Hong Kong before the war and a developer of sound-recording technology for Chinese cinema. In 1925 he was cinematographer on the silent film 《悔不當初》 for Shanghai's Chenzhong company; he later joined the Xinren company as a camera assistant, and after it closed he bought his own camera and shot films for small companies. He founded the Hehe company, producing 《患難夫妻》(1928). In the early 1930s he developed the 'Ching-yin' recorder (also called the 'Ching-yin-tung'), one of the three main domestic sound-film recording devices, used on 《春風楊柳》(1932). He then turned to Cantonese supernatural films with 《仕林祭塔》(1934). In 1935 he moved his Nam Yuet (Nanyue) company from Shanghai to Hong Kong, bringing many technicians south, and released 《梁天來告御狀》, 《沙三少》 and 《肖郎君》 (all 1935), expanding the Liyuan Hill studio. He followed with the horror film 《午夜殭屍》(1936) and the social drama 《奇女子》(1938), and made films for other companies such as 《鬥氣姑爺》(1937, starring Ma Si-tsang) and 《神秘之夜》(1937). Before the war Nam Yuet was one of Hong Kong's three major production companies, alongside Grandview and Tianyi/Nanyang. Chuk worked mainly as producer, occasionally on recording, and directed only one film himself, 《重見天日》(1937). In 1937 he joined film representatives petitioning the Nationalist government's central censorship board against a ban on Cantonese films. He also worked with Xinhua to shoot Mandarin films in Hong Kong such as 《女少爺》(1938), and invited Hu Die to star in 《胭脂淚》(1938), made in both Cantonese and Mandarin versions. In 1941 he sold the Nam Yuet studio, intending to build a new one in Java, but stayed on in the region and died there in 1981.