Ting Chor-kiu, a native of Chao'an in Guangdong who came to Hong Kong in 1952, was a leading actress of 1960s Hong Kong Teochew-language films. She joined the Dongshan Chaozhou opera troupe in 1960 and, almost at once, played the tragic heroine in two films produced by Man Sing, Lu Lin Hui (1960) and Jing Bian Hui (1961), establishing her as a specialist in sorrowful roles. She went on to play similarly afflicted heroines in Dongshan Film productions such as Wang Mang Usurps the Throne (1961), Princess Cheung Ping (1961), the two-part San Shen Yu Tang Chun (1961–62), Xue Er Qi Yuan (1962) and Shen Shan Jie Fu (1962). In 1963 she moved to Lingdong Film and starred in a version of the Dou E story, also making films for several other companies, among them Zhongyi's A Troubled Romance (1963) and Eng Wah's Liu Yu Niang (1963). Besides tragedy she took on bold parts, playing both a hero and a villain in one 1962 picture and cross-dressing as a male role in a 1963 film; in all she appeared in more than twenty Teochew-language films. When the market declined in 1965 she founded her own Art Star Film Company to make Cantonese films, producing the comedy The Rickshaw Boy (1965) directed by Lung To, and took a Teochew opera troupe, with herself as the male lead opposite the celebrated dan Chan Lai-lai, to perform in Thailand for about a month that year.
Almost always cast as the tragic heroine, Ting was one of the few faces of Hong Kong's small Teochew-language film industry in the early 1960s; after it declined she formed her own company to make Cantonese films and took a Teochew opera troupe to Thailand, tracing the circulation of Hong Kong dialect cinema and opera in Southeast Asia.
Achievements
- 1960 · Joined the Dongshan Chaozhou opera troupe and starred in the Man Sing production Lu Lin Hui
- 1963 · Moved to Lingdong Film and starred in the company's version of the Dou E story
- 1965 · Founded her own Art Star Film Company, producing the Cantonese comedy The Rickshaw Boy and taking a Teochew opera troupe to Thailand