Derek Tsang

Derek Tsang was born to actor Eric Tsang and his second wife Rebecca Chu in Hong Kong on 8 November 1979.

Tsang described his upbringing as mostly detached from his father's public limelight. He said his father had moved out to live on his own when Tsang was a child because he had wanted to keep his personal life separate from the entertainment industry, which allowed Tsang "an ordinary, middle-class upbringing". Tsang lived with his mother, grandmother, and younger brother Mark in Mei Foo Sun Chuen before the family, excluding his father, moved to Canada when Tsang was 11.

Tsang received his bachelor of arts in Sociology at the University of Toronto Scarborough in 2001.After graduation, Tsang moved back to Hong Kong, where his father arranged for him to work under director Peter Chan Ho-Sun. There, he met producer Jojo Hui and director Jimmy Wan Chi-man, both of whom would go on to be Tsang's frequent collaborators.

Despite not pursuing an acting career, Tsang has had a variety of acting roles since the start of his career, which he attributed to other actors not wanting to be typecast into roles with unflattering characteristics. He made his screen debut in Men Suddenly in Black (2003), cameoing as the younger version of his father's character. There he met director Pang Ho-cheung, whom Tsang would later collaborate with on various projects.

Tsang's solo directorial debut, Soul Mate (2016), earned him Best Director nominations at various film award ceremonies, including the 36th Hong Kong Film Awards, the 53rd Golden Horse Awards and the 11th Asian Film Awards.

His next film, Better Days (2019), won eight out of twelve categories at the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. The film was subsequently chosen as Hong Kong's official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards. The film was nominated, but ultimately lost to Denmark's Another Round. Tsang became the first native Hong Kong director in the category.

In July 2021, Tsang was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.