Chan Kiu, whose original name was Chan Yim-kiu, was a performer in Chaozhou opera and Teochew-dialect films. She received a secondary education and took to the stage while still at school, joining drama performances. She moved to Hong Kong with her family in the 1950s and, after appearing at a charity function, was taken on by Cheung Muk-chun, head of the Xintiancai Chaozhou Opera Troupe, soon becoming one of its leading members. Though still young, she specialised in older-woman roles, playing middle-aged and elderly characters. She followed the troupe from the stage to the screen and appeared in its earliest films, The Stepmother (1960) and A Wronged Daughter-in-Law (Tor Ying, 1960). In all she acted in more than forty pictures, most of them for the Bian Sing Motion Picture Co and the Chiu Ngee Motion Picture Production Company, among them Phoenix Ornament (1961), The Murder Case During the Lantern Festival (1964), Mermaid Story (1965) and Prince and Wild Cat (1967). Her role as Wang Yulin's mother in The Misplaced Love-Token (1962) brought her fame in Singapore and Thailand. She also worked for other studios, including the Zhongyi Film Company's Romance of the Iron Bow (1961) and the Nanguo Film Company's The Virtuous Woman Qin Xuemei (1963). After Teochew-dialect films faded she remained with Xintiancai, touring Thailand, Singapore and elsewhere with the troupe. The troupe, founded by Cheung Muk-chun, was one of postwar Hong Kong's main Chaozhou companies, in which she shared the stage for many years with stars such as Chan Chor-wai and Zeng Shanfeng, and she was one of its most senior members.
Chan Kiu was a leading older-woman performer of the Xintiancai Chaozhou opera troupe, appearing in over forty Teochew-dialect films that circulated widely among Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
Achievements
- 1960 · Appeared with Xintiancai in its earliest Chaozhou-dialect films, The Stepmother and A Wronged Daughter-in-Law.
- 1962 · Played Wang Yulin's mother in The Misplaced Love-Token, becoming well known in Singapore and Thailand.
- 1967 · Appeared in Prince and Wild Cat, one of the more than forty Chaozhou-dialect films of her career.