Ringo Lam | |||||||
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| Born | Lam Ling-tung 8 December 1955 | ||||||
| Died | 29 December 2018 (aged 63) Hong Kong | ||||||
| Alma mater | York University | ||||||
| Occupation(s) | Film director screenwriter film producer | ||||||
| Years active | 1983–2018 | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 林嶺東 | ||||||
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Ringo Lam Ling-Tung (simplified Chinese: 林岭东; traditional Chinese: 林嶺東; pinyin: Lín Lǐngdōng, 8 December 1955 – 29 December 2018) was a Hong Kong film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was known for his action and crime films produced during the Hong Kong New Wave, many of them comprising entries in the heroic bloodshed subgenre. He was nominated for six Hong Kong Film Awards, winning Best Director for his 1987 film City on Fire, which he followed with other similar films that shared a dark view of Hong Kong society, collectively known as the "On Fire" cycle.
Lam's other notable films include Aces Go Places IV (1986), Prison on Fire (1987), Undeclared War (1990), Twin Dragons (1992, co-directed with Tsui Hark), and Full Contact (1992). Many of his films starred Chow Yun-fat. He also directed several films in the United States, beginning with 1996's Maximum Risk, with Jean-Claude Van Damme. He would continue working on film productions in both Hong Kong and two more American productions with Van Damme until 2003.
In 2016, he won the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for Best Director for his Wild City, his first film in 8 years. His final film, a segment in the omnibus Septet: The Story of Hong Kong, was released posthumously in 2020, two years after his death.