Lucilla You Min (19 August 1936 – 29 December 1996), born But Yuk-yee, was a Hong Kong-born actress and the daughter of the Cantonese opera star Pak Yuk-tong; the opera star Yam Kim-fai was her cousin. Sent to Macau as a child to be raised by her grandmother because her parents were busy performing, she even appeared on stage with her father at the age of nine. In 1952, while a pupil at the Sacred Heart School in Macau, she was discovered by Shao Cun-ren and signed with the Shaw brothers' company, making her debut in a film that was never publicly released. She went on to make more than twenty pictures for the Shaws, among them Twilight (1954), Birds of the Same Nest (1955) and The Red Pomegranate (1959), earning the title of the 'jade maiden' for her fresh, refined image. After her contract ended in 1958 she joined MP & GI, where Her Tender Heart (1959) and All in the Family (1959) won her Best Actress at the 6th and 7th Asian Film Festivals, and Sun, Moon and Star (1961) won the first Golden Horse Award for Best Actress. MP & GI also made her a transnational star, partnering with Japan's Toho on films such as Hong Kong Nocturne (1961) and Hong Kong, Tokyo, Hawaii (1963) that proved popular in Japan, where the press called her the 'Pearl of Hong Kong'. She married the businessman Ko Fook-kau after completing her last film in 1964 and retired, raising three sons. She died of heart disease in Hong Kong on 29 December 1996, aged sixty. Her Shaw Brothers output included The Third Life (1954), Tragedy of Vendetta (1955) and Sabrina (1957); at MP & GI she also made The Little Ones (1963), written by Eileen Chang and directed by Wong Tin-lam, and Romance of the Forbidden City (1964), her final film. Her 1961 Japan co-production A Night in Hong Kong, opposite Akira Takarada, was a hit there, and she kept a low profile after retiring.
Lucilla You Min embodied the 'jade maiden' image of Hong Kong Mandarin cinema in the 1950s and 1960s and was MP & GI's leading star for expanding into Japanese and Southeast Asian markets. Winning Best Actress at successive Asian Film Festivals and taking the first Golden Horse Best Actress award made her a symbol of the cross-border distribution of post-war Chinese-language cinema. Her collaborations with Japanese studios also reflect the era's attempts to link Hong Kong film to the East Asian market.
Achievements
- 1959 · Won Best Actress at the 6th Asian Film Festival in 1959 for Her Tender Heart.
- 1960 · Won Best Actress at the 7th Asian Film Festival in 1960 for All in the Family.
- 1962 · Won Best Actress at the 1st Golden Horse Awards in 1962 for Sun, Moon and Star.