Simon Lui

Simon Lui Yue-yeung was born on 8 July 1964 in British Hong Kong. Chinese biographical sources note that he had one-eighth British ancestry and was an only child; his mother worked as a nurse. He attended St. Paul's Co-educational College Primary School and St. Paul's College. In 1975 he took second place in a modern piano solo category at the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival.

After A-levels he studied mass communication at Concordia University in Montreal. Returning to Hong Kong, he worked in media before entering TVB's artiste training programme in 1988, the conventional gateway into free-to-air television stardom.

At TVB Lui played supporting roles and hosted variety segments, often as antagonists or comic relief. In the early 1990s he moved into cinema just as Hong Kong's low-budget sector was flooding video shops. The pace was relentless: lovehkfilm and HKMDB tally nearly a hundred credits, with about twenty films in 1999 alone. Tabloids called him the King of Bad Movies; later reassessments praised committed turns in crime and Category III titles such as A Knife-Shooter and New Criminals.

Everything changed with Troublesome Night (1997). The comedy-horror series, eventually stretching past twenty entries, made Lui a franchise face. He appeared in around thirteen instalments and became known as the King of Ghosts. Related work included Last Ghost Standing (writer/actor), Escape from Hong Kong Island (director), and later mainstream comedy Vulgaria (2012). He also hosted ghost and late-night radio shows and television's The Unbelievable, while composing Cantopop and building Buddy Film Creative Workshop as a producer-writer base.

Lui's earlier relationships, reported in Hong Kong entertainment pages, included links to several actresses and public figures; he denied some rumoured affairs. In 2012 he married Ma Li, a Guangdong Television news and lifestyle presenter twenty-one years his junior. They met through a work interview about Hong Kong artists, settled in Guangzhou, and had a son, Lui Ting. Lui told interviewers he preferred family time over distant or exhausting jobs. The household kept a low public profile; photos of the three together were rare, which periodically fuelled divorce speculation that both sides left unanswered.

Despite the King of Ghosts brand, Lui said he was not superstitious and claimed little personal experience of the paranormal. The supernatural persona was a professional niche spanning film, radio and television rather than a statement of occult belief. Chinese biographical notes list him as a Protestant Christian. Friends described a hardworking, self-deprecating craftsman of B-movie Hong Kong who later chose domestic quiet in Guangzhou over constant celebrity.

Lui's "King of Bad Movies" nickname reflected volume more than a single scandal, though quality debates followed him through the Category III and quickie-horror years. In radio, he was drawn into a 1990s on-air dispute involving host Pamela Pak (白韻琴) during the Sin Ma Sai Tsang inheritance controversy on Metro Broadcast; the episode was widely covered in Hong Kong media. Later entertainment coverage speculated about his marriage when family photos stayed scarce; Lui and Ma Li did not engage those rumours publicly.

Lui had previously battled cancer, including throat cancer that left his voice raspy, according to friends such as actress Ada Choi's contemporary Leaf Yen. Gastric cancer returned in his final years. Colleague Chan Chi-kin said Lui was already critically ill in August 2026. He died in a Guangzhou hospital on 7 September 2026, aged 62, with Ma Li present. Frankie Ng Chi-hung confirmed the death to reporters on 11 September, asking that Lui rest free of pain. A private funeral took place on 12 September at Yinhe Yuan cemetery in Guangzhou; Ma Li and their teenage son were among those who mourned.

Lui stands as a workhorse of late-1990s and early-2000s Hong Kong genre cinema: the face fans still associate with Troublesome Night, late-night ghost radio, and the joke-and-jump-scare formula that kept local horror commercially alive when bigger studios retreated. City on Fire, AsiaOne, SCMP and Chinese-language outlets remembered a three-decade span across TV, radio, writing and directing. For younger viewers, Vulgaria and viral clips of the Yin Yang Lu series keep his comic timing in circulation; for colleagues, the low-key Guangzhou years showed a star who stepped off the carousel for family.

• Horror-fiction / entertainment volume Hung Weekly (凶周刊), tied to his ghost-host persona
• Cantopop composition credits including Frances Yip's "思想撲火" (1991), plus songs for other mid-1990s artists
• Screenplays and producing credits through Buddy Film Creative Workshop

Lui was not primarily an awards-circuit star. His lasting recognition is popular and industrial: the King of Ghosts nickname from Troublesome Night and supernatural hosting; the earlier King of Bad Movies tag for B-movie volume; and durable cult affection for Vulgaria and the Yin Yang Lu cycle among Hong Kong cinema fans.