- Chinese Name: 杜篤之
- Born: April 5, 1955
- Birthplace: Taipei City (Northern Taiwan)
- Did You Know That …?
- To recreate a realistic sonic atmosphere for train station scenes in the 1981 film "Student Days (學生之愛)" by director Lin Ching-chieh (林清介), Tu visited the Tamsui railway several times to record sounds of trains leaving and entering the station to replace the canned sounds originally proposed for the film.
Tu Duu-chih is a pioneering sound editor who brought live recording, synchronized sound, and Dolby encoding techniques to Taiwan's film industry. In a career spanning over four decades, Tu has worked with prominent directors such as Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Wang Kar-wei. His talent is also recognized by a stunning twelve Golden Horse Awards and the Cannes’ Best Use of Sound Design for Hou's 2001 classic "Millennium Mambo (千禧曼波)."
Tu first worked in the electrical room of the Central Motion Pictures Corporation in 1972 after graduating with a degree in electrical engineering. He was then recruited to work as an assistant in the recording studio room, and joined the in-house film technician training program the following year.
After mandatory military service, Tu returned to Central Motion Pictures to work as a sound recorder and editor. This is where he met the late auteur Yang, as Tu was selected to serve as sound editor for "The Winter of 1905 (一九○五年的冬天)," a project written by Yang in 1981. Tu's pioneering views on sound recording resonated with Yang's ambitions in innovative filmmaking, which prompted their long-term collaboration for almost two decades.
Starting from Yang's 1982 feature "In Our Time (光陰的故事)," Tu consistently experimented with new techniques of creating audio elements for Yang's films, overturning the traditional sound effects used by Taiwan's film industry with his realistic aural aesthetics during the 1980s. Tu's post-scoring, post-synchronization skills in Yang's 1986 classic "Terrorizers (恐怖份子)" was so excellently done that other directors thought it was synchronized sound recording.
In 1989, Tu had his first collaboration with Hou for "The City of the Sadness (悲情城市)," in which Tu struck a milestone in the history of Taiwan cinema by creating the first Taiwanese feature film that employed sync sounds. Hou later gave Tu a new set of recording equipment, which he used in Yang's award-winning feature "A Brighter Summer Day (牯嶺街少年殺人事件)" in 1991.
Tu’s sound engineering skills have helped Taiwanese film shine on the international stage, including "Seediq Bale" by Wei Te-sheng, "Soul" by Chung Mong-hong, and "The Great Buddha+" by Huang Hsin-yao. In addition, he has assisted many Taiwanese directors in making documentaries, animations, and short films.
To foster more professional sound recording talents, he now also offers summer internship opportunities for film students to learn and train in his studio for free.