Lau Sik Chun, born Chiu Suk-yu in Chaoyang, Guangdong, is a Teochew opera actress who trained as a female lead. She joined a drama society in her home town and performed Teochew opera from an early age. After finishing secondary school at sixteen she studied at a college in Guangzhou and came to Hong Kong in 1962. In 1963, when the Singapore-based Wing Wah company was looking for new faces for Teochew-language films, she was introduced to its executive Lee Long-kwun and invited to join, making her film debut under the stage name Lau Sik Chun in the Teochew opera film The Lotus Lantern, directed by Law Chi-hung. That same year she joined the Hanjiang Teochew opera troupe organised by the Hong Kong Swatow Importers and Exporters Association. She made two further films for Wing Wah, in 1964 and 1965, and toured Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam for stage performances. In Hong Kong she studied Teochew opera under Choi Siu-lam and northern-style martial movement under Yu Jim-yuen, Hui Kwan-hon and Kwan Ching-leung, so that her singing and acting were equally strong. From the 1960s to the 1990s she was the leading female lead of the Hanjiang troupe, later renamed the Hong Kong Hanjiang Teochew Opera Troupe, performing at major halls, religious festival shows and across Southeast Asia, taking the lead in more than a hundred Teochew operas and recording dozens of discs. Her signature pieces included So Luk Neung, Tang San and Ngou Niang, Golden Flower Tends Sheep, the Women Generals of the Yang Family, Accusing Her Husband and Hong Chengchou; Golden Flower Tends Sheep, which she created in the mid-1960s, remained a fixture of the troupe's repertory. She remained active on stage in later years, frequently touring the Chaoshan region, and witnessed the shift of Teochew opera in Hong Kong from cinema to the stage.
Lau Sik Chun performed more than a hundred Teochew operas with the Hanjiang troupe and recorded a large number of discs, becoming a key transmitter of Chaozhou opera in Hong Kong as the art form moved from cinema to the professional stage.
Achievements
- 1963 · Starred under the stage name Lau Sik Chun in the Teochew opera film The Lotus Lantern
- 1964 · Appeared in a further Teochew-language film for the Wing Wah company before touring Southeast Asia
- 1965 · Appeared in a Teochew-language film and toured Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam