Wang Toon
Wang Tong or Wang Toon 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 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.
He demonstrated his talent as a film director with his first feature, If I Were for Real, 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 by the Ministry of Education 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 from 1962 to 1965, under the guidance of teachers such as Long Sihliang, Gao Yifeng and Wu Yaozong. When he was young, Wang was nourished by inspiring journals, such as Juchang and Wenxue jikan, and his association with contemporary poets and painters, including Chen Yingzhen and Wei Tiancong, and Huang Chunming at Cafe Astoria. It was there that Wang Tong read the manuscript of the novel Days of Watching the Sea by Huang Chunming, which he later adapted into a popular feature film A Flower in The Raining Night.Wang Tong got a chance to join the production team of Songfest as art assistant when Director Yuan Qiufeng 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, 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, Ting Shanhsi, Pai Chingjui, Sung Tsunshou and Richard Chen Yaochi 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 and King Hu 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, who was known for her roles as sexy revenging woman, for the Best Leading Actress and Ying Ying for best supporting actress.
Wang's next film Run Away is praised for its realistic style, which makes it very different from previous martial art films in the 1960s and 1970s. His Spring Daddy 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, Banana Paradise, and Hill of No Return. 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 is an autobiographical film based on his childhood memories. Wang's 12th feature A Way We Go 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 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., founded by his elder brother Wang Zhong-yuan. He made The Fire Ball,, 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 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. 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, he has established the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion 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 by the Ministry of Education in 2022.
Filmography
| Year | Chinese title | English title |
| 1981 | 假如我是真的 | If I Were for Real |
| 1981 | 窗口的月亮不准看 | Don't Look at The Moon Through The Window |
| 1982 | 百分滿點 | One Hundred Point |
| 1982 | 苦戀 | Portrait of A Fanatic |
| 1983 | 看海的日子 | A Flower in The Raining Night |
| 1984 | 策馬入林 | Run Away |
| 1985 | 陽春老爸 | Spring Daddy |
| 1987 | 稻草人 | Straw Man |
| 1989 | 香蕉天堂 | Banana Paradise |
| 1992 | 無言的山丘 | Hill of No Return |
| 1995 | 紅柿子 | Red Persimmon |
| 2002 | 自由門神 | A Way We Go |
| 2015 | 風中家族 | Where the Wind Settles |
| Year | Chinese title | English title |
| 2005 | 紅孩兒：決戰火燄山 | The Fire Ball |
| Year | Chinese title | English title | Notes |
| 1976 | 楓葉情 | Forever My Love | |
| 1976 | 追球追求 | The Chasing Game | |
| 1976 | 翠湖寒 | The Spring Lake | |
| 1977 | 煙水寒 | The Glory of The Sunset | |
| 1977 | 微笑 | The Smiling Face | Corporate with Chi-Ping Chang |
| 1977 | 愛的賊船 | A Pirate of Love | |
| 1978 | 煙波江上 | Love On A Foggy River | |
| 1978 | 男孩與女孩的戰爭 | The War of the Sexes | |
| 1979 | 昨日雨瀟瀟 | The Misty Rain of Yesterday's | |
| 1979 | 師妹出關 | The Woman Avenger | |
| 1979 | 結婚三級跳 | Jiehun Sanjitiao | |
| 1979 | 悲之秋 | A Sorrowful Wedding | |
| 1979 | 衝刺 | Chongci | |
| 1979 | 醉拳女刁手 | No One Can Touch Her | |
| 1979 | 忘憂草 | A Girl Without Sorrow | |
| 1980 | 一根火柴 | Yigen Huochai | |
| 1980 | 一對傻鳥 | Poor Chasers | |
| 1980 | 十九新娘七歲郎 | Shijiu Xinniang Qisuilang | |
| 1980 | 雁兒歸 | Flying Home | |
| 1980 | 我踏浪而來 | Lover On The Wave | |
| 1980 | 愛情躲避球 | Twin Troubles | |
| 1981 | 怒犯天條 | Offend the Law of God | |
| 1981 | 假如我是真的 | If I Were for Real | |
| 1981 | 窗口的月亮不准看 | Don't Look at The Moon Through The Window | |
| 1983 | 看海的日子 | A Flower in The Raining Night | |
| 1983 | 天下第一 | All The King's Men | |
| 1984 | 策馬入林 | Run Away | Corporate with Chin-Tien Ku and Shung-Man Lam |
| 1989 | 香蕉天堂 | Banana Paradise | Corporate with Chin-Tien Ku and Bo-Lam Lee |
| 1991 | 密宗威龍 | The Tantana | |
| 1993 | 異域2孤軍 | End of The Road |