Born to a Chinese father and Persian mother, Bizhan Tong has spent his life seeking to understand his cultural heritage by living in two worlds while striving to bring the East and West into one.
He founded Phoenix Waters Productions, a production company exploring social issues through the power of film, beginning with THE ESCORT (2018), a film he wrote, directed, and produced which explores society's role in the mistreatment of women told from the perspective of an often overlooked and marginalized segment which he won various awards across the festival circuit for.
Tong lives in Hong Kong and has partnered with film companies across the globe including the US, UK, Japan, and Malaysia in an effort to bring local Asian stories to global audiences. As part of Tong’s vision to support the resurgence of the Hong Kong film industry by making it more internationally focused he partnered with ATV, Hong Kong’s oldest broadcaster, as its Executive Producer and launched international arm AMM Global where he wrote and directed THE AUDITION (2022), a film about the impact of social media disinformation inspired by the passing of his mentor the UK film distributor Trevor Green which was shot in the UK and Hong Kong over the course of the pandemic.
Tong created and directed Hong Kong crime series FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST (2023) featuring an all-star cast including Jeannie Chan, 2019 Hong Kong Film Awards winner Crisel Consunji, and Justin Cheung about a psychologist who interviews criminals to assess whether they are mentally fit to stand trial, exploring the cross section between mental health and criminal behaviour. He recently co-wrote, produced, and directed the Hong Kong remake of Richard Linklater’s 2001 Sundance and TIFF film TAPE (2024), produced horror music comedy MURDER BALLADS starring Simon Callow, and in March 2023 launched Phoenix Waters Asia to support filmmakers across the South East Asia region.
His projects in development include tech drama series CRYPTO KEEPERS while his next film is East-meets-West action thriller SHASHOU followed by bank robbery thriller HOSTAGE CRISIS and CHUNGKING MANSIONS.