Lee Sil-hong

Lee had sarcopenia and was cared for by his wife after her retirement. He was admitted to hospital again over the Mid-Autumn Festival, and on Monday 5 October doctors found antibodies in his blood and haemolytic disease. He died of organ failure in hospital on the morning of 8 October 2026, aged 89. The director Lee Lik-chi announced the news on Weibo on 9 October, and Amy Wong confirmed it to the media, saying she was sad and reluctant to let him go. She said the funeral was expected to take place in October.

Lee Sil-hong was the son of the Cantonese film director Lee Sun-fung and the actress Lee Yuet-ching. Growing up in a performing family, he began working in film as a child actor in the late 1940s. His exact date of birth has not been confirmed in the reports of his death; they gave his age as 89.

In the 1960s Lee moved behind the camera as a screenwriter, frequently writing for his father. Their son writes, father directs partnership produced literary adaptations including The Story of Su Xiaoxiao and Li Hou Zhu.

He joined Rediffusion Television in 1973 and became a drama producer in July 1977. Known for combining family ethics with the upheavals of modern Chinese history, he pioneered realist serials at the station and was grouped with Johnny Mak and To Yung-hung as the three heroes of Rediffusion. His productions included The Television Man, Chameleon (1978), Gone with the Wind (1980), Fatherland (1980) and Hong Kong Gentlemen (1981). Fatherland drew such high ratings that TVB cut short its competing serial Five Easy Pieces, a rare event in Hong Kong broadcasting. Academic writing on the period credits him with bringing veterans of Hong Kong's left wing film studios into television.

He later worked at Asia Television, where the director Lee Lik-chi said he received his guidance, and he gradually withdrew from the industry in the 1990s.

Lee met his wife, Amy Wong, while both were working at Rediffusion Television. She went on to a 35 year career as a drama producer at TVB, retiring in 2024, after which she cared for him full time. In retirement he lived quietly, away from the industry.

Lee's Rediffusion serials are regarded as classics of Hong Kong television, and the ratings success of Fatherland against TVB remains one of the best known stories in the history of local broadcasting. Scholars have identified his tetralogy as a missing chapter linking post war left wing Hong Kong cinema to television.