Nora Miao (born 31 January 1952), originally Chan Wing-han, was born in Hong Kong to a Nanhai, Guangdong family and educated at St Rose of Lima's College. In 1970 Golden Harvest advertised for a leading lady for a new film; she was selected and took the stage name Nora Miao. Promoted by the studio, she took the female lead in its first released picture, The Blade Spares None, and after three martial-arts films in a row — The Blade Spares None, The Angry Guest and The Ghostly Face — became known as the Princess of Golden Harvest. In 1971 she had a cameo as a girl selling sweet soup in Bruce Lee's The Big Boss, which first brought her to notice, and in 1972 she starred in Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon, becoming the female lead of Lee's Hong Kong films and the only actress to share an on-screen kiss with him; in Fist of Fury she played the junior sister of the Jing Wu school, whose understated romance with Lee's Chen Zhen forms the film's main female thread. She later starred in such films as The Skyhawk, making eleven pictures for Golden Harvest before leaving after five years to work freelance between Hong Kong and Taiwan, where she was repeatedly paired with the Taiwanese star Ko Chun-hsiung and became one of the few actresses then working in both markets. She appeared opposite Jackie Chan in Lo Wei's New Fist of Fury and Dragon Fist and starred for Shaw Brothers; after leaving Golden Harvest she signed with RTV, working as both actress and presenter: she hosted the variety show The Colourful World, appeared in dramas such as The Lover's Arrow (1979) and Shum Shing-yi, played Dugu Feng in the 1979 martial-arts serial Reincarnated, and in 1985 starred with Wong Yuen-sun in the Taiwan CTS wuxia drama Fei Hua Zhu Yue as Zhao Youlan. She emigrated to Canada in the 1990s, co-hosted a Chinese-language radio programme in Toronto with her brother, and largely retired from acting for years. She returned to the screen with Run Papa Run in 2008, earning Hong Kong Film Award and Golden Horse nominations for best supporting actress, has since appeared occasionally, and in 2017 acted in Scud Cheng's Thirty Years of Adonis.
Nora Miao was a leading Golden Harvest actress of the early 1970s, best known for starring in three martial-arts films in a row and for playing the female lead in Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon; her rise reflected how action cinema drove new female stars, and her 2008 comeback film Run Papa Run brought further award nominations.
Achievements
- 1970 · Was selected from an open casting call by Golden Harvest and took the stage name Nora Miao
- 1972 · Starred opposite Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon
- 2008 · Earned Hong Kong Film Award and Golden Horse supporting-actress nominations for her comeback film