Yu So-chow

Yu So-chow
Chinese name 于素秋
Chinese name 于素秋 (traditional)
Chinese name 于素秋 (simplified)
Born (1930-07-09)9 July 1930
Beijing, China
Died 12 May 2017(2017-05-12) (aged 86)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Years active 1948–1966
Spouse(s) Mak Bing-wing (m. 1966; d. 1984)
Parents Yu Jim Yuen

Yu So-chow (Chinese: 于素秋; pinyin: Yú Sù Qiū; Cantonese Yale: yū sou chāu; 9 July 1930 – 12 May 2017) was a Chinese actress. She was born in Beijing to a Peking opera family. She is the daughter of late Master Yu Jim Yuen who ran the China Drama Academy, a Peking Opera School in Hong Kong, and teacher of many well-known actors.

She started her acting career in 1948 and made over 240 films in the wuxia, kung fu, action, detective and Cantonese opera genres. Her films were successful at the box-office and she was one of the most popular superstars of the 1960 in Asia and Hong Kong.

Career

Yu learned Peking Opera at the age of eight and made her stage debut at the age of nine. She specialized in playing female warrior roles in which she could skillfully demonstrate her footwork by continuously juggling and kicking back twelve red-tasselled tuo shou (脫手) spears, as seen in one of her famous stage Peking operas, The White Snake (白蛇傳), and in the 1951 film Amazon on the Sea (海上女霸王).

Her first movie was made in 1948. She was one of the three actresses in the 1950s who really knew martial arts. Off the screen, she was virtually a heroine: at the age of sixteen, she alone successfully fought off a group of gangsters with only a silky belt on the streets of Shanghai.

Her early wuxia pictures from 1948-57 were in both Mandarin and Cantonese dialogue, with stories intended to increase cooperation of the Northern Style and Southern Style of martial arts, as seen in The heroine of deadly darts (女俠響尾追魂鏢) in 1956. These remarkable wuxia films were mostly based on kung fu novels, e.g. Burning of the Red Lotus Monastery Pt 1 & Pt 2 (火燒紅蓮寺) in 1950, The Golden Hairpin Pt 1 & Pt 3 (碧血金釵) in 1963, Buddha’s Palm (如來神掌), a four-part film, in 1964 and The Burning of Pingyang City (火燒平陽城) in 1965.

Her performances in Cantonese opera were quite different; she brought in a mixture of Peking Opera, in which she performed a lot of footwork, as in Suet Ting Shan and Fan Lai Hua - Meeting on the Weedy River (蘆花河會母) in 1961, Giving birth on the bridge – the White serpent (斷橋產子) in 1962 and How Zhong Wuyan Conquered the West (鍾無艷掛帥征西) in 1962. She also played a male lead as seen in movies Execution of Lui Po at Pak Moon Lau (白門樓斬呂布) in 1961, Two hunters in a pursuit (文武狀元爭彩鳳) in 1962 and The beauties (陣陣美人威) in 1964.

Apart from action films, she did a few rare contemporary and melodrama films, for example Midsummer night’s romance (夏夜之戀) in 1953, Bachelors beware (溫柔鄉) in 1960 and Two mouthy ladies from the north and south (南北鐵咀雞) in 1965. Her golden age of filming was between 1963 and 1966, when she made at least thirty movies in a year. Her surprise roles in The big revenge part 1 and 2 (灕江河畔血海仇) (1963) and Heaven, Hell and Crystal Palace (天堂地獄水晶宮) (1965) did not destroy her popularity nor upset her fans; instead they won the hearts of the audience. Her last major movie was filmed in Taiwan (Decree of the fire dragon (血火龍令) in 1968) and she made a guest appearance in Secret agent no.1 (神探一號) in 1970.

In 2004, Yu was one of the celebrities honoured on the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong. To date, Yu still holds the record among actresses of making more than 170 wuxia movies.

Personal life

Yu ended her acting career after she married, in 1966, Mak Bing-wing (Chinese: 麥炳榮; 1915–1984), a Chinese actor active in Cantonese opera.[1] Mak Bing-wing began his acting career in the 1930s. He left Hong Kong in 1941 for a tour of the United States, returning in 1947 after the Pacific War had ended.

While in the United States, Mak appeared in numerous Grandview Film Company productions.[2][3]

Yu So-chow was his second wife. They had three children and later moved to the United States, where she died of pneumonia on 12 May 2017 in San Francisco, California, aged 86.[4]

Selected filmography

References

  1. ↑ "Actress Yu So-chow dies at 89". The Standard. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  2. ↑ Law, Kar; Bren, Frank; Ho, Sam (2004). Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-cultural View. Scarecrow Press. pp. 86–87. ISBN 9780810849860.
  3. ↑ Stokes, Lisa Odham (2007). Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema. Scarecrow Press. p. 545. ISBN 9780810864580.
  4. ↑ "1960s female martial arts star Yu So Chow dies". The Straits Times. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
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