Wong Hok Sing, also known as Wong Kam-yan, was born in 1913 to a family from Huaxian in Guangdong and grew up in Foshan, where his grandfather was a shareholder of the Qingping Theatre. In the late 1920s he secretly sat the entrance examination for the Guangdong Drama Research Institute, studying Cantonese opera and kunqu and training in northern-style movement, later blending Peking opera technique into Cantonese performance as one of the reformers of the form. After the institute closed he trained at the Guangzhou Bahe Cantonese Opera Training Institute, graduating in its first class alongside Law Pin-chiu, Lau Hak-suen and Cheung Wood-yau. He joined Sit Kok-sin's Kok Sin Sing troupe as its seventh xiaowu, then passed through the Po Chai Tin, Tong Tin Bo and other troupes, and also performed in the Da Luotian troupe run by Liu Yinsun, proprietor of the Guohua newspaper, with The Beauty Who Toppled a Kingdom as a signature role. In 1937 he joined the Man Nin Ching troupe as a wenwusheng, and in 1940 he joined Ma Si-tsang's Tai Ping troupe on a tour of Annam, now Vietnam. One of the earliest opera performers to enter film and among the few to direct, he first appeared in The Broken Bronze Net (1939). While touring the United States in 1940 he met Chiu Shu-sun, owner of the American branch of the Grandview Film Company, and learned cinematography, sound recording and set design, later studying colour film technique. Performing in San Francisco from 1941, he directed and starred in White Powder and Neon Lights (1947) and became one of Grandview's leading directors. He returned to Hong Kong in 1948. Between 1940 and 1970 he acted in more than sixty and directed more than two hundred films, specialising in gong-and-drum sung operas. In the 1960s he adapted opera classics for the Tai Lung Fung troupe, including Romance of the Phoenix Chamber (1962), and made over fifty films for Lai Si, among them Na Zha Breaks the Heaven to Save His Mother (1962). Other opera films include Thunder of War Drums (1963) and The Red Plum Blossoms (1968). His films preserved rare traditional techniques, such as Yam Kim-fai's 'ten memorials to Yan Song' and Fan Kok-fa's water-carrying feat. On 1 June 1963 he and nine fellow directors formed the 'Ten Great Directors' brotherhood. He emigrated to San Francisco in 1969, managing the Wah Sing cinema for Wong Cheuk-hon in his later years, and died there in 1994.
Wong Hok Sing moved from the Cantonese opera stage to the screen and was among the earliest performers to bring traditional operatic technique intact into cinema. The gong-and-drum sung operas he directed and appeared in left a vast moving-image record of Cantonese opera, with footage of stars such as Yam Kim-fai and Fan Kok-fa proving especially valuable to later researchers. He also branched into Chaozhou- and Amoy-dialect films, extending the reach of opera cinema to other dialect communities.
Achievements
- 1939 · Made his film debut in The Broken Bronze Net, among the earliest Cantonese opera performers to enter cinema.
- 1947 · Directed and starred in White Powder and Neon Lights, becoming a leading director for the Grandview Film Company.
- 1963 · Joined nine fellow directors to form the 'Ten Great Directors' brotherhood.