Cheung Ying Yin was born on 21 October 1936 in Chaoyang, Guangdong, and grew up in the county's Gurao township. At thirteen he joined the Chaozhou opera troupe Ching Yuk Tin Heung to learn xiaosheng roles, but the troupe disbanded half a year later during a famine and he returned home to work in Chaozhou shadow-puppet performance. He settled in Hong Kong in 1950, first joining a puppetry-and-music troupe and the following year the Xin Tian Cai company, then still a shadow-puppet group, where he learned from its leader Cheung Muk-tsun and other seniors. When Xin Tian Cai moved into full Chaozhou opera, Cheung, growing too old for young-lead roles, switched to laosheng (old male) parts while also singing Chaozhou songs behind the scenes, dubbing for actors such as Law Kim-long, Mak Bing-wing and Leng Chi-pak. In 1960 he appeared with Xin Tian Cai in his first film, The Stepmother, and then took the young lead opposite the Thai dan Zeng Shan-feng in another 1960 Chaozhou film. He later specialised in old-male roles, notably as the upright judge Bao in a 1961 film, as a Han loyalist in a 1962 film and as the official Hai Rui in The Dismissal of Hai Rui (1967); he was equally convincing as villains, such as Cao Pi in a 1966 film. Over his career he appeared in more than sixty films, mostly with Xin Tian Cai for studios including Tor Ying, Man Sing, Luen Yau and Chiu Ngai, and also performed with the Ling Tung Chaozhou troupe and in a 1963 film produced by Ching Shan. From 1964 he took film work in his own name. After Chaozhou cinema declined he toured Southeast Asia with Xin Tian Cai and later worked as a director; he is now retired and lives in Hong Kong.
A former shadow-puppet apprentice who became the leading laosheng actor of the Xin Tian Cai troupe, Cheung Ying Yin created memorable upright-official figures such as Bao, Liu Ze and Hai Rui across more than sixty Chaozhou-dialect films, making him one of the most representative old-male performers of Hong Kong's Chaozhou cinema and helping sustain the art form abroad through later tours.
Achievements
- 1960 · Appeared with Xin Tian Cai in his first film, The Stepmother, and starred with Zeng Shan-feng in another 1960 production.
- 1961 · Played the upright judge Bao in the 1961 Chaozhou-dialect film.
- 1967 · Played the official Hai Rui in The Dismissal of Hai Rui.