Yu So-chau (Yu So Chow, Yu Suqui) was born in Beijing on July 9, 1930, the daughter of Peking opera maestro Yu Jim-yuen (Yu Zhanyuan). The elder Yu is now remembered primarily as the sifu, or teacher, of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and many of Hong Kong’s other top action stars of the past thirty years.
Young So-chau began training with her father at age 8, and was soon recognized as a gifted performer of female martial roles, or daomadan. While still in her teens, she specialized in demanding parts such as the lead in the opera “Legend of White Snake,” which requires the actress to stand mid-stage while other cast members heave spears at her. She must kick the spears back to the throwers – rapidly to the left, right, and back, and again, and again – using a combination of front, side, and back kicks, and keep it all happening in the percussive rhythm of the score.
Yu So-chau and her father, like so many others from the Mainland entertainment professions, made their way to Hong Kong during the political upheaval that followed World War II. By 1949 she had forged a career as a wuxia star in the newly resurgent postwar film industry. Her earliest work includes THE REVENGE OF THE GREAT SWORDSMAN (1949), a version of the story that would later be remade by Chang Cheh as BLOOD BROTHERS in 1973 (and inspired Jet Li’s newest film, THE WARLORDS). Yu played the wife of the colleague murdered by ruthless official Ma Xinyi. In A BRAVE HEROINE CALLED ROUGE TIGRESS (1950), she played the titular masked avenger, protecting her father from would-be assassins. For THE FIGHTING BRIDE series, also in 1950, she was cast as the martially adept love interest of perennial hero Fong Sai-yuk.
In 1951, director Wu Pang cast her as the female lead in a high profile martial arts epic called THE FIVE HEROES’ DEADLY SPEARS. Wu had struck gold a couple of years earlier with THE STORY OF WONG FEI-HUNG (1949), which literally kicked the kung fu genre into high gear. For DEADLY SPEARS, Wu and his action director Leung Wing-hang planned to address the North-South divide that existed in both kung fu schools and stunt crews in the wake of massive immigration into tiny Hong Kong. Publicity for the film quoted Wu as saying, “In China, we have many refined martial art techniques and skills which have become lost because of selfish reasons, to keep them ‘within family or school’ instead of opening them up for improvement. This is such a pity…”
Yu So-chau in FIVE HEROES’ DEADLY SPEARS (1951), image from promotional brochure for the film.
Yu’s father was one of those who found himself unable to pass on his knowledge of opera technique and martial arts, but not for selfish reasons. It would take capital to open a school of Peking opera. Luckily, filmmaker Chin Tsi-ang, the grandmother of modern action star Sammo Hung, came to the rescue. While Yu So-chau was working on FONG KONG HEROINE (1950) for Chin’s production company, she mentioned that her father had been unable to resume teaching since his arrival in Hong Kong. Chin promptly offered a space in her own home. The school, known as the China Drama Academy, was soon successful enough to move into its own quarters, and, encouraged by his grandmother, Sammo Hung enrolled as one of the first students, becoming “Big Brother” to Jackie Chan, Corey Yuen, Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah, Yuen Qiu, and the many other action aces who are graduates of the Academy. Hung portrayed his own sifu and gave audiences a taste of the arduous Academy training regimen in the bittersweet comedy PAINTED FACES (1988).
Yu So-chau made at least 250 films altogether; in some years, she turned out movies at the astonishing rate of three or four a month. For the most part, these were cheaply made wuxia films, with titles like THREE HEROINES (1963) and THE FLYING FOX (1964). But she also collaborated with the elite action filmmakers of the time, people like Wu Pang, Ren Pengnian (aka Yam Pang-nin), Chan Lit-bun, Yuen Siu-tin, Walter Tso Tat-wah, and Connie Chan Po-chu. She worked with horror auteur Ma Xu Weibang on a Mandarin language film called OUR MATCHMAKER THE SWORD in 1954. Later in that decade she starred in a series of films taken from a popular work of fiction about a woman cat burglar named Wang Ang. Her output included contemporary drama and romance, but her main body of work was in the heavily opera-influenced period action dramas.
Despite her popularity, Yu made the decision to retire from film acting in 1966 when she married Cantonese opera star Mak Bing-wing of the prestigious Da Long Feng troupe. In 2004 she was honored by the city of Hong Kong with inclusion in the Avenue of Stars, a tribute to their best.
This entry was originally posted on Jan. 23, 2007.
Related Topics:women in martial arts movies • Yu Jim-yuen • Yu So-chow
