Ming Beaver Kwei

Who is Ming Beaver Kwei?

Born YauMing Kwei in 1966 in Hong Kong, Ming Beaver Kwei is the son of famed Shaw Brothers Studio director Chih-Hung Kuei. Kwei grew up on the Shaw Brothers backlot, living in studio-subsidized housing with his family, where he counted Hong Kong filmmakers Chang Cheh, Ching Gang, father of Tony Ching Siu-Tung and Derek Yee Tung-sing as neighbors.

“Shaw kept everybody in their little kingdom,” Kwei told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011. “Directors in one block and stars in the next building... My mother was a Foley artist and I was used to coconut shells, buckets of gravel and doors that led nowhere on a sound stage. My math tutor was the projectionist. I grew up there."

After relocating to the United States with his family in the 1980s, Kwei attended St. Michael’s, a Catholic boys boarding school in southern Orange County, California. His father discouraged Kwei to pursue a career in film. Nonetheless, while working part time at his father's pizza store, Kwei was accepted into the film program at the University of California, Irvine.