Actors - Yu So Chow

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	Actors - Yu So Chow

Yu So Chow ( Yale Cantonese:Jy¹ Sou³ Tsau¹) was born in Beijing on July 9 1930 to a Peking opera family. She is the daughter of late Master Yu Jim Yuen who ran the Chinese Peking Opera School, the teacher of many well-known actors.

Ms Yu learnt 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 Peking opera in which she could skilfully demonstrate her footwork by continuously juggling and kicking back twelve red tasselled spears tuo shou (脫手) as seen in one of her famous stage Peking opera The White Snake (白蛇傳) and in a movie made in 1951 Amazon on the Sea (海上女霸王).

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

Her first movie was made in 1948, a Mandarin wuxia film called The Kung Fu Couple (宏碧緣 ). In fact she was one of the three actresses in the 50’s who really knew martial arts. Off the screen, she was virtually a heroine, when she was at the age of sixteen, she alone successfully fought off a group of gangsters with only a silky belt on the street in Shanghai. Thus, she could do all the stunts, punch and Acrobatics!acrobatic skills by herself in all action films. Her early wuxia pictures from 1948-1957, were in both Mandarin and Cantonese dialogue, stories were mainly to bring out the cooperation of 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.

Her remarkable wuxia films were mostly based on kung fu novels namely 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 Pt 1 to Pt 4 (如來神掌) in 1964 and The Burning of Pingyang City (火燒平陽城) in 1965.

Her performance in Cantonese opera was quite different in which she brought in a mixture of Peking Opera, in which she performed a lot of footworks 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 leading 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 namely 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 1963-1966 when she had made at least thirty movies in a year. Despite her fame and leading position, she did take part in movies as a bad lady, a role usually rejected by other actresses who were afraid of damaging their images. However, Ms Yu proved that her talent in acting was not limited to action films. Her surprise roles in The big revenge part 1 and 2 (灕江河畔血海仇) in 1963 and Heaven, Hell and Crystal Palace (天堂地獄水晶宮) in 1965 did not rocket her popularity nor upset her fans but on the hand won the hearts of the audience.

She was married to a famous Cantonese opera actor, Mr Mak Bing Wing in 1966. Her last movie was filmed in Taiwan Decree of the fire dragon (血火龍令) in 1968 and had made a guest appearance in Secret agent no.1 (神探一號) in 1970. Soon after that she was completely retired from the limelight.

She is now settled in San Francisco with her three children.

In 2004, Ms Yu is one of the celebrities honoured on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars. To date, Ms Yu is still on the top record of making more than 170 wuxia movies among other actresses. Though she has not gained any international award before her retirement (because Hong Kong wuxia pictures are accepted internationally recently), she deserves a credit as a remarkable Queen of marital artist and actress by her fans for her devotion and brilliant success in wuxia films.

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