Yiu Kwang-Chao

Yiu Kwang-Chao

Acting

March 30, 1908 — August 16, 1967
50 movies

Biography

No biography available.

🎬 Yiu Kwang-Chao's Filmography

50 movies sorted by popularity

The Female Prince
6.5

The husband-and-wife team of Ivy Ling Po and Chin Han returned to another Huangmei Opera classic after Lady General Hua Mu-Lan. Helmed by Chow Sze-loke and written by Chang Cheh, the story revolved around two intellectual siblings, Ching Feng-sheng (Chin Feng) and Ching Feng-hsiao (Ivy Ling Po), who were constantly abused by their stepmother Hsia (Kao Pao-shu). Feng-hsiao was engaged to Li Ru-lung (Chin Han) since birth, but the greedy Hsia forced him to forfeit the marriage. When Ru-lung refused, Hsia framed him for thievery and put him behind bars. To rescue her lover, Feng-hsiao dressed as a young man and went to the capital. She then used Ru-lung's name to enter the national exam and was ranked first place. Impressed by Feng-hsiao, the Emperor decided to let her wed the Princess (Fang Ying). On the wedding night, Feng-hsiao revealed the truth to the Princess...

The Female Prince

1964
Unchanged Heart in Life and Death
9.0

Probably the most sheerly entertaining of all the films made in 1930s Shanghai by 'underground' leftists, this riff on The Prisoner of Zenda is funny and engaging from first to last. The irresistible Yuan Muzhi (director of Street Angel the following year) plays both Li Tao, a revolutionary on the run, and Liu Yuanjie, an American-Chinese teacher visiting China with his fiancée. Liu is mistaken for Li and thrown into jail; Li teams up with the fiancée (Chen Bo'er, Yuan's real life wife) to get him out of prison and into the spirit of revolution. Ying Yunwei (who started out playing female roles in Chinese opera) uses chiaroscuro lighting, highly mobile camerawork and zippy pacing to give it maximum impact, but it's Yuan who really keeps you watching.

Unchanged Heart in Life and Death

1936
Horror Night

After a flood, the Sea Charity Association sends Liu Hao Ming to a village to direct the burial of corpses. Hao Ming meets the singer Ruyun and her father there, and advises Ruyun not to sing a beautiful song, but to sing “The Beauty of Yu” instead, which Ruyun obeys to the full applause of the audience, but arouses the displeasure of a butcher, Sa-zuo, and others. When the flood comes again, the village people go to Shanghai to evacuate. Sa-zuo and the others ask Hao-ming for help, and Hao-ming leads them to an empty mansion to spend the night, where they run into Ruyun's father and learn that Ruyun has been separated. A female ghost haunts the house and they all escape from the house. Hao Ming does not see Ruyun's father and goes back to look for him, but he sees that the female ghost is Ruyun.

Horror Night

1938
A Soul at Night

A female ghost appeared in a barren mound near Yangjiazhuang, wailing every night and terrifying the villagers. The feathered priest of the God of Wealth Temple tells the villagers to offer food and paper money to the female ghost, and the female ghost is indeed much quieter, but she only takes food and not paper money. When a young man, Wang Yuan Sheng, comes back from a trip, he does not see his child bride, Xiu Fang. His mother tells him that Xiu Fang has been having an affair with someone since he left and is pregnant, so she has already run away from home. Knowing that Xiu Fang is pregnant with her own child, Yuan Sheng does not believe his mother's story. Mother Wang is frightened by the ghost's screams and falls ill. Yuan Sheng becomes suspicious of the ghost's true identity because the ghost only takes food.

A Soul at Night

1941
The Angel
7.0

This is one of the rare gems in early Chinese musical films that still exists today. Nancy Chan plays a naïve young woman who can sing and dance. Under the arrangement of her stepfather, she becomes a star and indulges in the glitz and glamour of the entertainment world before getting married to a wealthy heir in Nanyang. Yet her husband is cruel and unfaithful, leading her to divorce and return to her parents in Shanghai. She is set for a comeback to the stage. Her young daughter suffers from a serious illness. A remake of the Bu Wanchang’s silent film The Light of Maternal Instinct (1933), this film takes cues from Hollywood musicals, resulting in an elegant and lively fusion of camera movement and musical numbers. The film also reflects the harsh reality of China in the 1930s and the pathos of popular literature by combining morals, entertainment and social commentary to show that changes in the idea of femininity is a symbol of progress.

The Angel

1939
Yiu Kwang-Chao | MovieMind AI