Lung Kong

All of his 12 films explore the social taboos of the time. He explains to Winnie Yeung why he made controversial films, and why Cantonese films are here to stay.

I was born in Hong Kong in 1935. My grandmother hired a teacher to come to our home in Shek Tong Tsui to teach me how to write my birth name, Lung Kin-yiu. Just before I wrote the character “yiu,” a bomb went off near us. The Japanese army dropped their first bombs on Hong Kong that day.

I fled to Guangzhou to reunite with my parents. My father was a Cantonese opera singer and studied under Master Sit Kok-sin. So when Master Sit was doing opera shows in Guangxi, my father brought us all along.

That’s when I became an actor—I was 7 and I was playing an extra in Cantonese operas.

I returned to Hong Kong after WWII. I lived with my aunt and her rich husband. I was hoping to go to school but my uncle said, “I never went to school for a day but I am a tycoon now. So what’s the point of going to school?” I ended up working for him as an office boy at the age of 12.

I had odd jobs and was a stockbroker for eight years. I became a Catholic and met actress Ma Siu-ying when we were in a film for the church together. She then brought me to the Shaw and Sons studio, and into the movie business. I was a stockbroker by day, an actor by night.