Wang Toon

Wang Tong or Wang Toon (born Wáng Zhōnghé, April 14, 1942) is a Taiwanese director who started his career as an art director and production designer and later became a film director and educator.

He started working in the Central Motion Picture Corporation (中影股份有限公司) in the department for art and costume design in 1966.  He won the 13th Golden Horse Award for best art direction in 1976 for Forever My Love, directed by Pai Chingjui (白景瑞).

He demonstrated his talent as a film director with his first feature, If I Were for Real (假如我是真的), which won him four awards, including Best Narrative Film, Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay in the 18th Golden Horse Award in 1981.

Between 1981 and  2015 he directed 13 feature films, 2 animation feature films, and 1 documentary. His achievement and contribution to Taiwan cinema for almost 60 years was recognized by the 56th Golden Horse Lifetime Achievement Award presented to him in 2019.

Wang Tong was also devoted to education. He took a teaching position in the Department of Filmmaking at the Taipei National University of the Arts in 2007 and served as the Chair from 2010 to 2013 and 2017 to 2019. He retired from the university in 2019 and was awarded the Art Education Contribution Award (藝術教育貢獻獎) by the Ministry of Education (教育部) in 2022.

Life and career

Wang Tong was born in Anhui, China in 1942 and moved to Taiwan with his family in 1949 because of the Chinese Civil War. He studied at the National Taiwan College of Arts (國立藝術專科學校) from 1962 to 1965, under the guidance of teachers such as Long Sihliang (龍思良), Gao Yifeng (高一峰) and Wu Yaozong (吳耀宗). When he was young, Wang was nourished by inspiring journals, such as Juchang (劇場; Theatre Magazine) and Wenxue jikan (文學季刊; Literature Magazine), and his association with contemporary poets and painters, including Chen Yingzhen (陳映真) and Wei Tiancong (尉天聰), and Huang Chunming (黃春明) at Cafe Astoria (明星咖啡館). It was there that Wang Tong read the manuscript of the novel Days of Watching the Sea (看海的日子) by Huang Chunming, which he later adapted into a popular feature film A Flower in The Raining Night (看海的日子).

Wang Tong got a chance to join the production team of Songfest (山歌姻緣) as art assistant when Director Yuan Qiufeng (袁秋楓) came to Taiwan to his this feature film in 1963. Realizing that he was good at art design and his work could bring him higher  income than his classmates who worked as art teacher, Wang decided to join the film industry for his career.

Wang entered Central Motion Picture Corporation in 1966 and was placed under Johnson Tsao Chuang-Sheng (曹莊生), from whom he learned to improve his aesthetic skills and the details about film production, such as architecture, space, makeup, costumes, and color. He had worked for many major directors at that time, including Lee Hsing (李行), Ting Shanhsi (丁善璽), Pai Chingjui, Sung Tsunshou (宋存壽) and Richard Chen Yaochi (陳耀圻) as the art director of their films. An avid learner, he also grabbed whatever opportunities he could have to learn from other directors he admired, such as Li Hanhsiang (李翰祥) and King Hu (胡金銓) to polish his production skills.

Wang Tong made his debut feature film, If I Were for Real in 1981 while continuing to work as an art director for his own films and for other directors. In 1983, he directed A Flower in the Rainy Night, which was adapted from Huang Chunming's novel, Days of Watching the Sea. The film was a box office success and won two 18th Golden Horse awards: Lu Hsiaofen (陸小芬), who was known for her roles as sexy revenging woman, for the Best Leading Actress and Ying Ying (英英) for best supporting actress.

Wang’s next film Run Away (策馬入林; 1984) is praised for its realistic style, which makes it very different from previous martial art films in the 1960s and 1970s. His Spring Daddy (陽春老爸; 1985) is a film about a family composed of mainland veteran father and Taiwanese mother, a social phenomenon depicted in many films of the 1980s.

Wang subsequently made three films about Taiwan’s history from the colonial time of the 1920s to the civil war between the nationalist and communist parties in the mid 20th century: Straw Man (稻草人; 1987), Banana Paradise (香蕉天堂; 1989), and Hill of No Return (無言的山丘; 1992). These films, all realistic depictions of the life experiences of local Taiwanese and mainland immigrants, are also known as Wang’s Taiwan trilogy. Red Persimmon (紅柿子; 1995) is an autobiographical film based on his childhood memories. Wang’s 12th feature A Way We Go (自由門神; 2002) is a contemporary dark comedy about three socially marginalized young men finding no way to go in globalized urban Taipei. After 13 years, Wang’s last film Where the Wind Settles (風中家族; 2015) picks up the same topic of Chinese Civil War to tell the story of a group of mainland refugees forming a new family in Taipei after 1949.

Wang Tong was actively involved in the production of animation films. In 2002, he joined Wang Film Productions Co. Ltd. (宏廣股份有限公司), founded by his elder brother Wang Zhong-yuan (王中元). He made The Fire Ball, (紅孩兒：決戰火燄山; 2005), an adaptation of Chinese novel Journey to the West. The film won the Best Animated Feature in the 42nd Golden Horse Award and the Best Animated Feature in the 50th Asia Pacific Film Festival. The other film A Story about Grandpa Lin Wang unfortunately failed to come to fruition.

Wang was promoted to be the director of Central Motion Picture Corporation Studio (中影製片廠) in 1997. Under his helm the company established the first and exclusive high-tech post-production studio in Taiwan's film industry, with synchronous recording cameras, lighting equipment, and computer editing capacity. Wang also established Taiwan's first dolby recording studio, Central Motion Pictures Corporation Dolby Recording (中影杜比錄音室). At the same time, he also worked as the chairman of the Taipei Film Festival from 1997 to 2002. Turning to 2003, when he served as the CEO of the executive committee of the Golden Horse Awards (臺北金馬影展執行委員會), he has established the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (金馬創投) which brings regional and international industry professionals to Taiwan with the purpose of developing international joint ventures and cross-productions.

Wang Tong was also devoted to education. He took a teaching position in the Department of Filmmaking at the Taipei National University of the Arts in 2007 and served as the Chair from 2010 to 2013 and 2017 to 2019. He retired from the university in 2019 and was awarded the Art Education Contribution Award (藝術教育貢獻獎) by the Ministry of Education (教育部) in 2022.

Filmography

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Awards and honors

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