Theater Master King Sir, Chung King-fai, Dies at 89

"My most satisfying work? The next one. No matter how good you are, there's always someone better, and there's a limit to everything you know." — Chung King-fai

Theater master Chung King-fai, known affectionately as King Sir, has quietly taken his final bow. The pioneering grandmaster of Hong Kong theater died in his sleep at the age of 89.

He spent his life performing on stage and producing behind the scenes. But when it comes to King Sir's greatest contribution to Hong Kong's theater, film and television industries, his peers universally agree it was his role in nurturing new talent for the field.

King Sir's students were everywhere. Chow Yun-fat, Lo Hoi-pang, Johnnie To (To once enrolled in the fourth artist training class) and Kwok Fung — countless of today's stars and celebrities once studied under him.

Chung King-fai's résumé reads like a microcosm of Hong Kong theater history. In the 1950s, Hong Kong still had no performing arts academy. Having fallen in love with drama back at Pui Ching Middle School, King Sir enrolled in the English department of Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, against his family's opposition to a career in the performing arts. Yet he never let go of his passion for theater. At the same time, he applied to an American drama school, and in 1958 he traveled to Oklahoma Baptist University in the United States, entering the second semester of his third year as a speech and drama major. With recommendation letters written by Pui Ching Middle School principal Lam Chi-fung and his Chung Chi College teachers, he was successfully admitted to the Yale School of Drama.

After returning to Hong Kong, he chose not to become an actor. King Sir first taught at Hong Kong Baptist College for three years. He later joined TVB, where, to address a shortage of performers, he proposed launching the artist training class program, serving as instructor for its first four cohorts. He was later poached away and once taught drama in ATV's artist training class. Over the years he held various roles including director, general manager and program director, and never stopped performing — but he devoted more of his life to teaching than to anything else. In June 1983, King Sir was appointed founding dean of the School of Drama at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

In addition, King Sir was the founder and chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies. He was the first to champion performing theater of the absurd and Broadway musicals in Cantonese, exerting an enormous influence on the theater world.

In 1994, Chung King-fai received the Ten Years' Outstanding Achievement Award from the Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies. In 1999 and 2000, he was honored with the Hong Kong Artists' Annual Award for Stage Director and the Drama Achievement Award under the Drama/Chinese Opera Grant Scheme. In 2001, he was named an Honorary Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. In July 2002, the Hong Kong SAR government awarded him the Bronze Bauhinia Star. In 2007, he received the World Outstanding Chinese Award. In 2012, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

In 2016, after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer, King Sir suspended all his work, though in an interview he said his passion for acting remained as strong as ever. In 2018, his contract with TVB ended and he announced his retirement. His final work was the 2019 TVB drama "Wax and Wane." His nephew, Chung Chi-kuen, announced the sad news of King Sir's passing at the age of 89. He departed in his sleep — to continue directing his next, most satisfying work on another stage.

Source: The Culturist — https://theculturist.hk/2026/06/%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96/%E3%80%90%E6%82%BC%E5%BF%B5%E3%80%91%E6%88%B2%E5%8A%87%E5%A4%A7%E5%B8%AB%E9%8D%BE%E6%99%AF%E8%BC%9D%E9%80%9D%E4%B8%96-%E4%BA%AB%E5%B9%B489-%EF%BD%9C-2026/