Lee Mei Ying, who used the stage name Lee Yi-hung, was a native of Shaweili in Shantou, Guangdong, and an actress of Hong Kong Teochew opera and Chaozhou-dialect films. She joined a workers' amateur harbour board troupe at fifteen to study Teochew opera as a young male lead and starred in Lu You. After coming to Hong Kong at nineteen she joined the drama troupe of the Hong Kong Shantou Importers and Exporters Association, forerunner of the Hong Kong Teochew opera and Hanjiang troupes, performing with it and teaching within the group to train new members. In the early 1960s, as the Guangdong Chaozhou Opera Theatre toured Hong Kong and Chaozhou opera films proved hugely popular across Southeast Asia, production of Chaozhou-dialect films briefly flourished, and Lee entered the screen during that wave. Her first film was Sux Liuniang (1961) from Thailand Film Company, in which she played the male lead Guo Jichun in a cross-gender role; she then starred opposite Chan Lai-lai in several of the company's productions, among them The Frosted Sword (1962), Meng Jiangnu Weeps Down the Great Wall (1963), The Tale of the Bright Pearl (1963) and Meeting in the Hall (1964). She also appeared for other studios, including Snow in Midsummer (1963) for Ling Tung, Liu Yuniang (1963) for Wing Wah, He Wenxiu Consults the Oracle (1963) for Man Sing and The Two Lions (1963) for Chiu Ngai. In all she appeared in more than ten Chaozhou-dialect films, taking an older female or a female-lead role in only two and male leads in the rest. Besides young-male leads she could also take older-female and female-lead roles, a range wider than that of many of her peers, and many Chaozhou-dialect films were built on the traditional opera repertoire, keeping the conventions of stage song and movement. On stage she toured Thailand and Singapore with the Hanjiang, Lok Sing and Sing Ngai troupes, and her signature roles included Qin Xianglian, Li Sanniang in The White Rabbit and Empress Li in Judge Bao Meets Empress Li. She died in Hong Kong on 23 January 2021.
Lee Mei Ying worked in Hong Kong's Chaozhou-dialect cinema as a female xiaosheng, making cross-gender male roles her trademark and partnering Chan Lai-lai in more than ten films. Moving between stage and screen, she toured Southeast Asia with several Teochew opera troupes, witnessing the parallel boom of Hong Kong's Teochew troupes and Chaozhou-dialect films in the 1960s.
Achievements
- 1961 · Made her screen debut playing the male lead Guo Jichun in a cross-gender role in Sux Liuniang
- 1962 · Co-starred with Chan Lai-lai in The Frosted Sword for Thailand Film Company
- 1963 · Starred in several Chaozhou-dialect films including Meng Jiangnu Weeps Down the Great Wall and The Tale of the Bright Pearl