5 Hong Kong comedy film stars who’ve kept us laughing for years: from Stephen Chow’s sidekick Ng Man-tat to ‘Queen of Comedy’ Sandra Ng and ever-hilarious Ronald Cheng

Feb 1 , 2022

Sandra Ng, who played housewife Ching in All’s Well, Ends Well, is among Hong Kong’s most important comic actors, along with Lydia Sum, Ronald Cheng and Stephen Chow’s habitual sidekick, Ng Man-tat. Photo: handout

Lydia ‘Happy Fruit’ Shum’s role in The House of 72 Tenants helped bring Cantonese back to screens and beat Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon at the box office

Brothers Sam, Ricky and Michael Hui further popularised Cantonese films, while Sandra Ng is known especially for hit films All’s Well, Ends Well and Golden Chicken

Hongkongers are comedy lovers. This much is obvious from the outstanding box office figures for comedy films over the years. According to the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association (MPIA), more than half of the highest-grossing local films in the past 50 years (1971 to 2020) were comedies.

Many people may already know Hong Kong’s “King of Comedy” Stephen Chow, but there are many other names that lent important impetus to the evolution of the local scene. Let’s take a look at those comedy actors and actresses who once brought us much-needed laughter on the silver screen.

1. Lydia Shum

Lydia Shum, left, in the movie It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World. Photo: Handout

With her signature dark-rimmed glasses and wig, Lydia Sum Tin-ha – better known as Lydia Shum, dubbed the “Happy Fruit” of Hong Kong and the late mother of the popular singer Joyce Cheng – is inevitably one of the names that needs mentioning.

The Shanghai-born actress’ career took off in 1967 when the popular variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight (EYT) on TVB Jade was first aired. Later, in 1973, Shum played a “Shanghai woman” who ironed clothes in a dilapidated tenement in the famous Cantonese film The House of 72 Tenants. It topped the movie box office that year, surpassing Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon.

Her realistic portrayal of “Shanghai woman” resonated with the general public, leading to besides her leading role in Shanghai Woman, a comedy sketch aired on EYT in 1979. She also took the role of a Shanghai woman living in a public housing estate in the four-film series It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, a Lunar New Year favourite that started in the late 1980s. The role was an extension of her earlier portrayal, a woman fiercely protective of her family, demanding of her husband and children, and longing for a quick fortune.

Whenever the phrase “Shanghai woman” is heard, the first association people make now is with the rapid-fire chatterbox, Shum.

Sadly, “Happy Fruit” left us in 2008 at the age of 62.

2. The Hui brothers

The Hui brothers, from left, Sam Hui Koon-kit, Ricky Hui Koon-ying and Michael Hui Koon-man, pictured at a press conference for their movie Front Page in 1990. Photo: SCMP

The mid-1970s brought transformation to Hong Kong cinema as it underwent a significant linguistic shift. The Cantonese dialect made a comeback, as opposed to the Mandarin that had predominated at the cinema during much of the 1960s and early 1970s, giving local idioms, culture and humour their time in the sun.