Fung Ka-ming
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1972 (age 53–54)
Fung Ka-ming | |
|---|---|
馮家明 | |
| Born | Fung Ka-ming 1972 (age 53–54) Hong Kong |
| Education | |
| Occupation | Film critic |
| Years active | 1993–present |
Fung Ka-ming (Chinese: 馮家明; born 1972), also known by his pen name Ka Ming (家明),[1] is a Hong Kong film critic. He currently contributes reviews to Ming Pao and is a senior lecturer at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Fung was born in 1972,[2] and grew up at Tung Tau Estate, San Po Kong, where his parents often took him and his younger brother to watch movies at the nearby Palace Theatre.[3] He moved to Tsuen Wan in the 1980s,[4] and attended secondary school at Cheung Shan Estate.[5] During his time in secondary school, he started purchasing City Entertainment Magazine in 1987, enjoying the film reviews and columns, with particular favorites among the reviewers being Li Cheuk-to, Shu Kei, Law Kar, and Wong Ain-ling.[5] He went on to study arts at New Asia College, Chinese University of Hong Kong,[6] and he described himself as frequently skipping classes to "spend more time watching films at the library of United College", where his peers jokingly called him "more like a film major".[3]
In his sophomore year, he submitted a film review of the American film Boxing Helena to Youth's Weekly, which led to a weekly column where he published reviews of two to three thousand words under the pen name "Ka Ming" (Chinese: 家明).[3][5] He later divided the column into two sections: the first half focused on reviews and the second half covered gossip in the film industry.[5] He graduated in 1995 and began his career as a film educator for Broadway Cinematheque, Fringe Club, and the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2001.[6]
Career
Fung started writing his film review column for Ming Pao in 2007.[5] In 2010, he served as the editor for a collection of film reviews published by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society titled The Bygone Passion: Hong Kong Cinema in the 1980s,[7] which Leong Kam-sang of Macao Daily News praised for its "authentic revisit of the passion in 1980s [Hong Kong] cinema".[8] He also worked as an independent reviewer for RTHK, overseeing television series for a few years after the introduction of external reviewers in 2011.[9]
In 2019, Fung published his first collection of film reviews, Beyond Sight and Sound: Reflections on Hong Kong and Chinese-language cinema, compiling his reviews after 2007.[5] Dennis Chan of The Reporter found Fung's reviews of Hong Kong films as "extracting a pure essence of Hong Kong values", while his reviews of Taiwanese films were described as "strong, resonant, offering a must-listen overseas perspective";[10] Hong Kong Inmedia commended the collection fully showcased the efforts of the author, publisher, and editor.[11] In the same year, Fung served as a jury member for the 56th Golden Horse Awards, alongside Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Chun and animator Lo Che-ying, after mainland China boycotted the event and issued a ban preventing Chinese creatives from attending.[12][13] Fung currently serves as a senior lecturer in film history and film theory at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.[14][15]