Ray Yeung

Born in 1964, Yeung grew up in Hong Kong. At the age 13, he was sent to an English boarding school outside of London.^[1][3] He was the only Asian student at school and faced severe bullying.^[4] Upon his family's request, he went on to read law at the University of Canterbury.^[4][5] After graduating with a Bachelor of Laws, he began his career as a lawyer.^[1] He practiced law in the United Kingdom for two years before realizing that the profession was too tedious for him.^[5] He decided to switch career paths and become an advertising director.^[4] He enrolled at Columbia University School of the Arts to study filmmaking in 2008,^[4] and obtained a Master of Fine Arts in 2013.^[6]

Yeung wrote the plays Banana Skin and The Third Sex.^[6][7] He made several shorts prior to his feature film debut.^[1]

Yeung made his feature film debut with Cut Sleeve Boys, a gay love story between two Chinese-British men,^[1] in 2005 at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.^[6] The film won Best Feature at the Outfest Fusion Festival in Los Angeles and Best Actor for Chowee Leow at the Madrid Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

His second feature film Front Cover premiered at the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival.^[6] The story follows Ryan Fu, a gay Chinese American fashion stylist (Jake Choi), who rejects his ethnic heritage, and is assigned to style Ning (James Chen), an ostensibly heterosexual patriotic actor from Beijing. Front Cover won Best Screenplay at FilmOut San Diego, Jury Award for Best Domestic Feature at the Outflix Film Festival in Memphis and Audience Award at the Boston Asian American Film Festival.

Yeung had expressed interest in doing a Cantonese-language film set in Hong Kong, having grown up there until age 13.^[8] Twilight's Kiss, or Suk Suk, is a film about a gay relationship between two elderly men in Hong Kong and was inspired by the book “Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong” by Hong Kong University Professor Travis S.K. Kong.^[8][9] The film premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2019.^[6] The film had its European Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival 2020.^[10] Suk Suk is his first Chinese-language film. It was awarded Best Film at the 2019 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award^[11] and numerous other awards and nominations from 2019- 2022. He was also presented with the Artist of the Year for Film award from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2021.^[12]

In 2024, Yeung directed another LGBT-themed drama film All Shall Be Well,^[13] the film won a Teddy Award and Yeung was nominated for Best Director in the 61st Golden Horse Awards.^[14][15]

Yeung cites directors Yasujirō Ozu and Stanley Kwan as his influences.^[16]