HSIA Tsu-hui was born on 10 November 1933 in Nanjing, China, and moved to Taipei with his family in 1949. He graduated from the Department of Film and Theatre at the Political Warfare Cadres Academy, then joined the China Motion Picture Studio in the 1960s. Within the next decade, HSIA directed dozens of newsreels, documentaries, and military education films. Later, he began to direct fictional feature films and TV series, among which was the well-received 1992 series New Legend of White Snake for Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV), lauded as the all-time best TV adaptation of the classic Chinese folklore.