Ting Hao: What's Up, Tomcat?

This post goes out to YTSL, who mentioned Kitty Ting Hao's gender-bender You Were Meant for Me (1961) as one of the Cathay films whose DVD release she had been eagerly awaiting. Alas, it failed to materialize before the series was discontinued, and the movie now remains tantalizingly just out of sight.

I'm sure that YTSL and I aren't the only ones turned on by the notion of seeing Kitty in drag. Doesn't she look dashing with suit and cigarette? Whenever I look at this photo, I can't help but think of Anita Yuen in She's the Man, He's the Woman (1994) — that wonderful film which helped turn me into a Hong Kong movie fanatic so many years ago.

Hopefully, Kitty's You Were Meant for Me will become available to the masses some day in the not so distant future. In the meantime, long live the People's Republic of YouTube!



* Photo of Kitty comes from the Yau Leung collection 昨夜星光 (1940s-1960s).

Remembering Kitty Ting Hao

Oldflames sent me these charming pinups of Kitty Ting Hao a few days ago, and I felt that I should pay tribute to Miss Kitty, just in case anyone got the impression from my recent post that I was a hater when it comes to MP&GI's "Little Darling".





Both photos exhibit that mixture of cute and spunky that made Kitty the cat's meow for movie fans then and now. It turns out that today happens to be her birthday (she would have been 70 years old). In memory of her unique charm and talent, here's a clip from one of her best films, Between Tears and Laughter (1960).