Lai Man-Wai

Lai Man-Wai (黎民偉) (1893 - 1953), now known as Father of Hong Kong Cinema, was the director of the first Hong Kong movie Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (莊子試妻) in 1913. Note that in this movie, Lai acted as the wife himself, partly due to the reluctance of women to participate in showing business at that time.

Born in Japan and grown up in Hong Kong, he had joined Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary party in 1911 and helped making anti-warlord movies. He was an active director during the golden year of Shanghai movie industry from 1921 to 1928. In 1938, he returned to Hong Kong and retired.

His story was documented in Lai Man-wai: father of Hong Kong cinema by Choi Kai-kwong in 2001.