Zhuang Xue Fang in the April, 1959 issue of Southern Screen
I'm sure my buddy Ral never imagined I would end up in the obscure wilderness of late 1950s Amoy-dialect cinema when he introduced me to Hong Kong movies via Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, and his legendary "girls with guns" clip videos more than ten years ago. But sometimes life takes us down unexpected paths, and so it is that I find myself very excited about Dev Yang's new post about Amoy movie queen Zhuang Xue Fang.
If you are like me, you probably thought that Chinese cinema was neatly divided into Cantonese and Mandarin, just like a VCD with the left audio channel devoted to one dialect and the right channel to the other. But for a brief period back in the late 1950s, films made in the Amoy dialect (which was the predominant dialect spoken by Chinese living in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines) actually outnumbered Mandarin films being made in Hong Kong at the time.
Although the boom was short lived and the movies were often cheaply produced copies of popular Cantonese and Mandarin films, the Amoy industry did produce its own share of beloved and memorable screen stars. To give you a taste of the world of Amoy-dialect cinema and its movie queen Zhuang Xue Fang, here is an article from Southern Screen No. 14 (April, 1959) about her film Beauty and the Beasts (1959), plus a rare clip from Shrews from Afar (1958). Zhuang's costar in that film was another popular Amoy actress named Xiao Juan — who would go onto even greater fame later in the 60s after she signed on with Shaw Brothers and became known as Ivy Ling Po.
Zhuang Xue Fang and Xiao Juan (aka Ivy Ling Po) in Shrews from Afar (1958)
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