Lau Hak-suen (18 December 1911 – 24 January 1983), known as Uncle Suen and styled Guining, was a Cantonese opera, film and television actor from Rong County in Yulin, Guangxi. University-educated, he was in the first graduating class of the Cantonese opera actors' school run by Guangzhou's Bahe Association, a classmate of Law Pin-chiu, Wong Hok-sing and Cheung Wood-yau, and was especially admired for his singing in Ma Si-tsang's style. In the 1930s and 1940s he played second martial roles in the troupes of Ma Si-tsang and Tam Lan-hing and of Sit Kok-sin, and afterwards the clown role in touring red-boat companies. As Cantonese opera struggled after the Second World War he moved to Hong Kong and joined Shaw Brothers, going freelance in the early 1960s to keep making Cantonese films. He appeared in more than five hundred pictures, mostly as a villain, and also directed several, among them a number of mythological and tragic tales. He retired in 1970 as the Cantonese film trade declined, returned in 1978 amid a television nostalgia boom at RTV, appearing in the series New Variant Dragon and switching to heroic roles, then joined Television Broadcasts in 1980, appearing in several of its drama serials. While filming in 1983 he suffered a heart attack and died at Kwong Wah Hospital on 24 January that year, ending a career spanning more than fifty years across Cantonese opera, film and television. His son Lau Chi-wing was also an actor.
Lau Hak-suen spanned Cantonese opera, Cantonese cinema and television, appearing in more than five hundred films, and his villains and older characters were deeply familiar to audiences. His 1978 comeback on RTV's New Variant Dragon showed how the era's television nostalgia brought veteran Cantonese-film performers back to the screen, reintroducing pre-war opera actors to a mass television audience.
Achievements
- 1930 · Graduated in the first class of the Guangzhou Bahe Association's Cantonese opera actors' school, a classmate of Law Pin-chiu and Cheung Wood-yau
- 1978 · Returned to acting with RTV, appearing in the series New Variant Dragon in heroic roles
- 1980 · Joined Television Broadcasts and appeared in several of its drama series