Cheng Shun-ying, born on 12 November 1943 in Chaoyang, Guangdong, began learning Chaozhou opera on the mainland at thirteen or fourteen, performing with amateur troupes of her hometown in pieces such as the period classic A Fisherman Kills a Family and the modern play Jiang Xiuqing, as well as land-reform propaganda. She moved to Hong Kong in 1958 and joined the Xintiancai Chaozhou Opera Troupe as a dan, appearing with Chan Chor-wai and Fong Hau-yuk, at first mainly in deities' opera, and she also sang Chaozhou-dialect dubbing parts for dozens of Cantonese and Amoy films. Her Chaozhou-film debut came in 1961 with Xintiancai's The Selfless Woman General. She worked most often with Tung Shan Film Company, appearing in Birthday Ceremony (1961), Story of the Jade Lion (1962) and A Troubled Romance (1963), and also in Zhongyi's Romance of the Iron Bow (1961), Eng Wah's The Nun's Story (1962) and Shaw Brothers' The Perfumed Ball (1963). Over a career of more than twenty Chaozhou films she took many substantial supporting roles, playing the maid Yinghsin in The Butterfly Lovers (1963), the fairy Lingzhi in The Precious Lotus Lamp (1963) and Hongniang in Romance of the West Chamber (1964). In 1964 she appeared in two Ngai Yip films and toured more than thirty port cities in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia for eight months with Fanny Ha, Chan Mancheong and Chow Lok. As Chaozhou cinema declined she turned to business, still performing occasionally with Xintiancai in Singapore and with local troupes until retiring from the stage in the mid-1980s; she now lives in Hong Kong, and her former husband was the son of Yu Pui-kay, owner of the Thai To Ying film company.
From deities'-opera stages to Teochew film screens, Cheng long dubbed Chaozhou songs for many production companies and took substantial supporting roles, leaving a concrete record of Hong Kong Teochew cinema and opera in the 1950s-60s and of their circulation in the Nanyang market.
Achievements
- 1958 · Moved to Hong Kong and joined the Xintiancai Chaozhou Opera Troupe as a dan
- 1961 · Made her Chaozhou-film debut in The Selfless Woman General
- 1964 · Toured more than thirty ports in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia for eight months with Fanny Ha and others