繁體中文
伍錦霞（Esther Eng，1914年9月24日—1970年1月25日），祖籍廣東台山，在美國三藩市出生，是家中十名子女中的第四位，為在美成長的第二代華僑。她自小隨家人出入唐人街的粵劇戲院，耳濡目染，對電影產生興趣；父親是當地殷商，十分注重子女的中華意識，使她雖居海外仍學習中文與粵語，為日後回港拍片奠下基礎。1930年代，伍錦霞投身電影圈。1935年，她與友人合組公司，參與製作粵語有聲片《心聲》，該片在荷里活拍攝，被宣傳為當地首部粵語有聲劇情片。1936年她來港，其後執導抗戰題材的《民族女英雄》，影片於1937年3月13日在港首映，獲廣東女權協進聯會嘉許。1938年，她先後為大觀公司執導《十萬情人》、為天樂公司執導《妒風花語》。1939年，她執導全由三十六位女演員演出的《女人世界》，在當年華語影壇屬罕見嘗試；同年戰事擴大，她離開香港。1941年，她與趙樹桑、關文清合作攝製《金門女》，該片在美國上映，片中飾演女嬰的嬰兒正是後來成為武打巨星的李小龍，成為他的銀幕處女作。她與父親另合辦公司，購入粵語片在北美及中南美發行。伍錦霞一生製作十一部粵語片，分佈於荷里活、香港、三藩市、夏威夷及紐約等地，全部以華人觀眾為對象。她長年作男裝打扮，行事爽朗，行內人尊稱她「霞哥」。二戰後，她長住紐約，經營餐館與夜總會，1950至1967年間先後開設多間食肆。1970年1月25日，她在紐約病逝，終年五十五歲。導演魏時煜拍成紀錄片《金門銀光夢》（2013），在香港國際電影節首映，重新發掘她的事跡。
English
Esther Eng (24 September 1914 – 25 January 1970), born Ng Kam-ha, was raised in San Francisco in a family with roots in Taishan, Guangdong, one of ten children and the fourth, a second-generation Chinese American. She grew up around the Cantonese opera theatres of Chinatown and developed a taste for film; her father, a local merchant, was keen that his children keep a Chinese consciousness, so she learned Chinese and Cantonese even abroad, which later helped when she came to Hong Kong to make films. She entered the film world in the 1930s. In 1935, having formed a company with a friend, she co-produced the Cantonese sound film Heartaches, shot in Hollywood and promoted as the first such Chinese-language talkie made there. She came to Hong Kong in 1936 and went on to direct National Heroine, a patriotic film premiered in the colony on 13 March 1937 and commended by a Guangdong women's rights association. In 1938 she directed two films for different studios. In 1939 she directed It's a Women's World, performed entirely by thirty-six actresses, an unusual undertaking at the time, before the widening war forced her to leave Hong Kong. In 1941 she worked with Chiu Shu-sun and Kwan Man-ching on Golden Gate Girl, released in the United States, in which the baby playing a girl was the future martial-arts star Bruce Lee in his screen debut. With her father she also ran a company that bought Cantonese films for distribution in North and Central America. Eng made eleven Cantonese films in all, spanning Hollywood, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Hawaii and New York, all aimed at Chinese audiences. She habitually dressed in men's clothes and was known to colleagues as Ha Gor, or Brother Ha. After the war she lived largely in New York, running restaurants and nightclubs and opening several eateries between 1950 and 1967. She died in New York in 1970, aged 55. She was rediscovered in the 2010s through S. Louisa Wei's documentary Golden Gate Girls (2013), premiered at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
