Sung Tsun-Shou

Sung Tsun-Shou or Song Chun-So (September 2, 1930 – May 27, 2008), was a Mainland Chinese-born Taiwanese film director. He began his film career as screenwriter and assistant director. He came to Taiwan with Li Han-Hsiang (李翰祥) in 1963 to join Grand Motion Pictures Co., Ltd. (國聯影業有限公司) Li founded. He began his directorial career in 1966 and made altogether close to thirty films between 1966 and 1978. He was known as “literary director”.

Life and career
Sung Tsun-Shou was born in Jiangdu, Jiangsu in 1930. He was the youngest child in his family and had six brothers and sisters. His father ran a little department store. The first movie he watched at nine was Maiden in Armour (1939) starring Nancy Chan.

Sung arrived in Hong Kong and studied at the Hong Kong Cultural Vocational school (香港文化專科學校) in 1949. While he was a student, he also worked part-time in First National Printing Co, where he met King Hu, who worked there as an accountant and proofreader. They shared similar interests and often watched movies together.

Sung and King Hu later moved into an apartment, No.170 Boundary Street in Kowloon, and shared one big room with Li Han-Hsiang (李翰祥) and four other residents, Feng Yi (馮毅), Jiang Guang Chao (蔣光超), Ma Li (馬力), and Shen Chong (沈重). All talented but poor, they decided to become sworn brothers and called themselves "the Idle Seven" (ci dà sián,七大閒) in 1953.

Thanks to King Hu, Sung was introduced to Lo Wei and worked for his company the SWANK MOTION PICTURE LIMITED as a screenwriter. Sung wrote the screenplay of Duo Cíng Hé (多情河) directed by Lo Wei. In the following year he began to work for Shaw Brothers Pictures International Limited as a screenwriter and assistant director.

When Li Han-Hsiang moved from Hong Kong to Taiwan to form the Grand Motion Pictures Co., Ltd. Sung came with him to work as his assistant director. Among other films, he participated in the production of Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties (1965) directed by Li Han-Hsiang. Sung made his directorial debut film, A Perturbed Girl at Grand Motion Picture in 1966.

His next film At Dawn (破曉時分), set in the late Qing Dynasty and based on a short story by Chu Hsi-ning, received critical acclaim and he was praised to be a "literati director".

In 1971, he directed his first film based on the novel by Qiong Yao (瓊瑤), You Can’t Tell Him (庭院深深), which won the runner-up award for best picture and best supporting actor in the 9th Golden Horse Awards. In the same year he formed the Eighties Film Company with Yu Ching-chun and Yang Wei-hsiung.

Sung married Chao Ying Ying (趙瑛瑛) in 1972 and had two daughters with her. The film Outside the Window (窗外), produced by the company and directed by Sung in 1973, was Brigitte Lin’s debut film. Lin was made an instant star by this film, which is based on the namesake autobiographical novel by Qiong Yao, who banned the film from theatrical release in Taiwan.

Sung also directed Story of a Mother (母與子) in 1973, which is based on the namesake short story by Yu Lihua (於梨華). The film is highly praised by critics for its realistic depiction of a mother’s sexual desire and its courage to challenge traditional concepts about the role of mother.

Between 1966 and 1982, Sung made altogether twenty-six feature films. The great majority of them are literary romantic films (愛情文藝片). The four most popular actors and actresses of the genre, namely Brigitte Lin, Joan Lin (林鳳嬌), Charlie Chin (秦祥林) and Chin Han (秦漢) starred in quite a few of his films, such as Outside the Window, News Hen (女記者), Love In The Green Village (綠色山莊), He Loved Once Too Many (水雲), Love is Smoke(輕煙), Fallen Flowers, Flowing Water, the Spring Is Gone (落花，流水，春去也), and Ask My Love from God (此情可問天). He tried martial arts films once and directed Iron Petticoat in 1969, which led him to believe that he was not good at this popular action genre at all.

A Lily in the Valley (老師．斯卡也答) is the last film Sung directed in 1982, the year when the New Taiwan Cinema movement started.