Martial arts goddess Kara Hui
Kara Hui (Wai Ying-hung), Shaw Studios’ martial arts goddess during the 80s and the first-ever recipient of the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress, is making a comeback with a new indie film called “At the End of Daybreak.” She talks to Johannes Pong.
I came from a really poor background. After school in Aberdeen, I’d go to Lockhart Road in Wan Chai and sell souvenirs to the American sailors there.
“Hawker girl” is a euphemism. In reality, I was a little beggar girl.
Those navy boys were barely in their 20s. They knew they might lose their lives in Vietnam, so they didn’t care about their cash, and were really good to us street kids. They’d buy us snacks and tell us stories.
Thirty years ago, “child labor” was everywhere. I became a dancer performing Chinese dances at the Miramar Nightclub when I was just 15. A talent scout came one night looking for new kung fu actresses for Shaw Studios.
I performed nightly for an audience of 1,000 tourists, so I got over stage fright pretty early. And I just went up to the director after casting. “Hey, please remember me!”
I didn’t come from a martial arts background, but as a dancer, I’d have to learn a whole dance in half an hour, so choreographed kung fu came pretty easily for me.