Patrick Tam's achievement in directing, producing and art direction has received extensive public acknowledgement. He has made a significant contribution to the development of Hong Kong television. The series "Seven Women", for example, is considered stylistically ground-breaking. He is one of the most important figures of the Hong Kong new wave in the early 1980's, and his films have been shown in numerous film festivals and retrospectives.
Patrick joined HKTVB (Television Broadcast Limited) in 1967 and worked for ten years and since 1970 was involved in television production works as TV director, producing highly-acclaimed television series of different genres. His television works (as Director and Executive Producer) from 1970 to 1977 include THE HUI BROTHERS SHOW (Comedy Series), 73 (Situation Comedy Series), WONDERFUN (Documentary-Infotainment Series), SUPERSTAR SPECIAL (Telefeature Drama Series), an episode of which won the Bronze Medal Award at the International Film and Television Festival of New York.
In 1975, Patrick was sent by the company to attend film courses in San Francisco that specialized in film production technique, and upon his return in 1976, he continued to produce and direct TV films, which include C.I.D. (Police Drama Series), SEVEN WOMEN (a series exploring the realities of modern women), THE NORTHERN STAR (a drama series about social workers), THIRTEEN (Mystery Thriller Series), and THE UNDERDOG (a series which tells of the relationships between people).
In 1978, Patrick turned to directing feature films. His works have met with critical success and have received numerous nominations and awards in film festivals. His filmography includes THE SWORD, LOVE MASSACRE (Taiwan Golden Horse Film Award 3 Nominations, including the award in Best Sound Recording, and Best Director nomination for Patrick Tam), NOMAD (Hong Kong Film Award 9 Nominations, including Best Director nomination for Patrick Tam), CHERIE (Hong Kong Film Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor), FINAL VICTORY (Hong Kong Film Award 11 Nominations, including the award in Best Film Editor, and nominations of both Best Director and Best Art Director for Patrick Tam), BURNING SNOW, and MY HEART IS THAT ETERNAL ROSE (Hong Kong Film Award 3 Nominations, including the award in Best Supporting Actor, and Best Art Director nomination for Patrick Tam).
Patrick has also worked as film editor and won Best Film Editing awards for DAYS OF BEING WILD and ASHES OF TIME, both of which are directed by Wong Kar Wai.
He has also directed film commercials and has won the Golden Bell Award for best film commercial of the year in Taiwan in 1994 for "MYSHEROS", a commercial on fashion.
Patrick joined HVD (Home Video Distributors) Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. In 1996. Since then, he has conducted training classes for film and television scriptwriters. He set up the Senior Scriptwriting department in 1997 and since then has directed, supervised and collaborated in the writing of movie and telefeature scripts with his team of writers. He has also conducted film appreciation classes in 1998.
Since 1999, Patrick is also Editing Supervisor of the company's drama programmes and has been heading a quality-control team on productions before his return to Hong Kong as Visiting Consultant to the School. |
