Jason Kwan Chi-yiu was born in Hong Kong in 1964, with family roots in Nanhai, Guangdong, and is a cinematographer, director and vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers. He was a cameraman at TVB's Pearl channel from 1983 to 1989, then went to Japan in 1990 and studied film production at a Tokyo photography college from 1991. Graduating in 1993, he returned to Hong Kong and joined the camera department of Salon Films, rising to cinematographer; he went freelance in 2000, moving between advertising and film. In 2001 he shot Andy Lau's music video Practice, directed by Yu Wai-kok, on 16mm film, and in 2002, on Yu's recommendation, he went to Malaysia to shoot the Malay-language feature Puteri Gunung Ledang for director Saw Teong Hin — his first credit as a director of photography on a narrative film, released in 2004. His first Hong Kong feature as cinematographer was the 2005 Andy Lau romance Only You. Later credits include Love in a Puff, Love in the Buff, the Cold War series, As the Light Goes Out, Helios, The Last Tycoon, Chasing the Dragon, Project Gutenberg, Line Walker 2 and The Goldfinger. He directed his first feature, A Nail Clipper Romance, in 2017 and co-directed Chasing the Dragon with Wong Jing the same year. Nominated seven times for Best Cinematography at the Hong Kong Film Awards, he won at the 37th ceremony for Chasing the Dragon in 2018 and again at the 38th for Project Gutenberg in 2019.
Winning Best Cinematography at consecutive Hong Kong Film Awards for Chasing the Dragon and Project Gutenberg, Kwan's sharp, textured imagery became a signature look of 2010s Hong Kong commercial cinema; he has also moved into directing and serves the cinematographers' society.
Achievements
- 2004 · Puteri Gunung Ledang, his first feature as director of photography, was released
- 2018 · Won Best Cinematography at the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards for Chasing the Dragon
- 2019 · Won Best Cinematography at the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards for Project Gutenberg