Nanson Shea, the pioneering Hong Kong producer and executive who helped shape the territory’s golden age of cinema as co-founder of Film Workshop and which later produced Infernal Affairs Martin Scorsese’s crime thriller will be remade as an Oscar-winning film The departed He died on Monday at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital. She was 75 years old.
Film Workshop, the production house that Shi launched with director Tsui Hark in 1984, said she had been in deteriorating health since 2022 due to complications affecting her immune system and that recurring infections in recent months had led to “dysfunction in several organs.” Shi died peacefully at 8:51 p.m. local time, with her family and loved ones by her side, the company said, adding that memorial and funeral arrangements will be announced.
Over the course of a career spanning more than four decades, Shi has ranked among the most influential figures in Hong Kong films – a major contributor to its glorious 1980s heyday, an architect of its revival in the early 2000s, and one of the first local producers to build truly international distribution pipelines for Chinese-language cinema, at a time when few of her peers looked beyond the region. She was also among the first Hong Kong producers to film in mainland China, in an era when the two industries barely cooperated.
Born and educated in Hong Kong, Shi studied statistics and computing at North London Polytechnic before returning to her home country to begin her career in television, working at broadcasters including TVB and Rediffusion in the mid-1970s.
Her film career began in 1981, when she joined the fledgling commercial comedy company Cinema City as executive director, overseeing management, finance and – most importantly – foreign sales and festival strategy while the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest were still ruling the domestic business. Her colleagues nicknamed her “the housekeeper” because of the way she efficiently maintained the operations of the sprawling startup. Her credits from that period include successful comedies Aces Go Places II and Even death are we afraid.
In 1984, she left along with Tsui Hark, Film City’s most ambitious young talent, to found the Film Workshop – a home for projects too idiosyncratic for her former employer’s commercial production line and, over time, one of the most iconic banners in Hong Kong film history. Starting with Tsui Shanghai Blues (1984), his output has grown to include Beijing Opera Blues, Chinese ghost storythe Once upon a time in China series and john woo A better tomorrow (1986) and killer – Major titles in the action film series that promoted Hong Kong cinema around the world. Shi married Cui in 1996, then divorced in 2014, but they never stopped making films together.
In 2002, Peter Lam, president of Media Asia, appointed Shi to the position of vice president, and along with Andrew Lau and Jun Chung, Shi produced. Infernal Affairsan innovative undercover cop thriller directed by Lau and Alan Mak and starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. The film helped revitalize Hong Kong’s then-faltering industry, spawning two sequels, which Scorsese remade in 2006. The departedWhich won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Shi’s subsequent work with the Beijing-based Bona Film Group included the film I heard Thrillers, Derek Yee The great magician And Ann Hui Simple lifeShe won the Best Actress Award in Venice in 2011 for star Denny Ibb. In 2007, she co-founded International Sales Agency Distribution Workshop with Jeffrey Chan, which she ran until her death. Competitors at the festival later included Flora Lau Bendswho bowed in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2013.
Through it all, Shi has kept Film Workshop running as an independent label, producing Tsui titles including Detective D films, Dragon Gate Flying Swords and Capture of Tiger Mountain. Her latest credit came to Tsui Legends of the Condor Heroes: The BraveLunar New Year box office starts from 2025.
Shi has served on major competition juries in both Cannes and Berlin, receiving regular recognition from across the international film world. France named her Officer of the Order of Arts and Lettres in 2013; Locarno gave her the Premio Raimondo Rezzonico Award for Best Independent Producer in 2014; The Italian Far East Film Festival in Udine awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Honor in 2015; The Berlinale was awarded the Berlinale Camera in 2017; The Chinese Pingyao Festival honored her contribution to Chinese cinema in 2019. She has also been a constant presence in Hollywood ReporterAnnual list of the most influential women in international films.
In 2025, the Hong Kong Film Awards presented Shi and Tsui with the Joint Lifetime Achievement Award – the final joint bow of a partnership that has helped define cinema in the city for more than 40 years.
