Ho Yik Tsang was an avid fan of operatic art and a noted amateur performer in Hong Kong's Han opera scene; after the war he worked with Chen Xunzi, Yao Jingquan and Huang Lisheng to revive the Han opera unit of the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Merchants Mutual Assistance Society's music division and performed with it regularly. From the mid-1950s he entered Chaozhou-dialect cinema, working mainly as an actor in clown roles. His first appearance was in The Story of Wang Jinlong (1955), the debut of Tuojiang Film Company and the first Chaozhou-dialect film made in Hong Kong, directed by Chan Wun-man, with whom he worked repeatedly. He appeared in numerous Tung Shan Film Company releases, including Zhang Gudong Borrows a Wife (1961) and The Two Consorts (1961). From 1960 he took on behind-the-scenes work on about ten dialect pictures, serving as assistant director on Fragrant Shoe (1960) and writing his first screenplay for Lin Guilan (1961); five later films, among them The Peacock Flies Southeast (1962) and Li Zichang Paints from Life (1963), were performed by the Sun Tin Choi troupe. Between 1955 and 1965 he appeared in more than thirty Chaozhou-dialect films, often opposite Ha Fan, Chan Chor-wai, Chong Suet-kuen and Ding Chor-kiu, playing officials, rich men, beggar chiefs and brothel madams but best known for his fool roles; his signature parts include The Stepmother (1960), Jin Yunu Beats Sense into Her Heartless Husband (1961), Throwing Coins at the Fairy Maidens (1963) and Wife in Disguise (1963). In the late 1960s he joined the Sing Ngai troupe, performing both in Hong Kong and in Southeast Asian regions such as Thailand and Singapore.
Ho moved from amateur Han opera into Chaozhou-dialect cinema as both a comic screen actor and a behind-the-scenes writer-director, taking part in the dialect film boom from its 1955 beginnings to the mid-1960s. His work with the Sun Tin Choi troupe and studios such as Tung Shan and Tuojiang helped sustain a body of dialect pictures aimed largely at Teochew audiences in Southeast Asia.
Achievements
- 1955 · Appeared in The Story of Wang Jinlong, the first Chaozhou-dialect film made in Hong Kong
- 1960 · Served as assistant director for the first time on Fragrant Shoe
- 1961 · Wrote his first screenplay, for Lin Guilan