Lai Man-Wai

Lai Man-Wai
Lai in 1913 in Zhuangzi Tests His Wife
Background information
Chinese name	黎民偉 (traditional)
Chinese name	黎民伟 (simplified)
Born	1893 Japan
Died	October 26, 1953 (aged 60) Hong Kong
Ancestry	Xinhui, Guangdong or Sihui, Guangdong

Lai Man-Wai (Chinese: 黎民偉; pinyin: Li Minwei; 1893–1953), considered the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema", was the director of the first Hong Kong film Zhuangzi Tests His Wife in 1913. In the film, Lai played the role of the wife, partly due to the reluctance of women to participate in show business at the time.

Born in Japan, of Xinhui, Guangdong origin and raised in Hong Kong, he joined Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang party in 1911 and helped make anti-warlord movies. He was an active director during the golden years of the Shanghai movie industry from 1921 to 1928. In 1923, he founded the Minxin (China Sun) Film Company with his brother, Lai Pak-Hoi, in Hong Kong which later relocated to Shanghai. In 1930, he co-founded one of the "Big Three" studios of the 1930s, Lianhua Film Company, with Law Ming-yau. Lianhua, together with other leading Shanghai studios, was destroyed when the Empire of Japan attacked Shanghai in 1937. Lai returned to Hong Kong in 1938 and retired.

He was married to Florence Lim, a Vancouver-born Hong Kong actress. His daughter and granddaughter Gigi Lai are both actresses.

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

Lai Man-Wai is portrayed in Stanley Kwan's 1992 biopic of actress Ruan Lingyu, Centre Stage by Hong Kong actor, Waise Lee.

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