Veteran Cantonese opera star Hung Sin-nui (real name Kuang Jianlian) is set to introduce the first-ever animated Cantonese opera film to local audiences today at the Sunbeam Theatre in North Point.
The cartoon, which will screen at the Sunbeam at 2.30pm, 4.30pm and 7.30pm, is based on one of Cantonese opera's most enduring love stories about a princess and a general called Diao Man Gong Zhu Gang Fu Ma.
Hung (left), who will be at the theatre at 9.30pm tonight to share her thoughts about the production with audience members, says she spent almost two years working on the project in which she provided the voice for the princess.
Hung says she found working on the animation a challenge. 'We had to dub the same line over and over again and I found it quite tiresome,' the 84-year-old says. She adds, however, that she enjoyed pushing herself to bring out the best performance she could.
Explaining how the cartoon project got off the ground, Hung says that because she loved watching cartoons as a child she thought that animation would be a good way to introduce Cantonese opera to a much wider audience.
Hung began her opera career at 14 and went on to feature in more than 100 operas during her seven-decade-long career.