Yu So-chow (; 9 July 1930 â 12 May 2017) is a former Chinese actress from Hong Kong. Yu has a star at Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong.
Yu was born in Beijing, China. Yu came from a Peking opera family. Her father was Yu Jim-yuen, who ran the China Drama Academy, a Peking Opera School in Hong Kong.
Yu learned Peking Opera at the age of eight and made her stage debut at the age of nine. She specialized in playing female warrior roles in which she could skillfully demonstrate her footwork by continuously juggling and kicking back twelve red-tasselled tuo shou (è«æÂÂ) spears, as seen in one of her famous stage Peking operas, The White Snake (ç½èÂÂå³), and in the 1951 film Amazon on the Sea (æµ·ä¸Â女é¸çÂÂ).
Yu started her acting career in 1948. Yu made over 240 films in the wuxia, kung fu, action, detective and Cantonese opera genres. Her films were successful at the box-office and she was one of the most popular superstars of the 1960 in Asia and Hong Kong.
Her first movie was made in 1948. She was one of the three actresses in the 1950s who really knew martial arts. Off the screen, she was virtually a heroine: at the age of sixteen, she alone successfully fought off a group of gangsters with only a silky belt on the streets of Shanghai.
Her early wuxia pictures from 1948 to 1957 were in both Mandarin and Cantonese dialogue, with stories intended to increase cooperation of the Northern Style and Southern Style of martial arts, as seen in The heroine of deadly darts (女俠é¿尾追éÂÂé¢) in 1956. These remarkable wuxia films were mostly based on kung fu novels, e.g. Burning of the Red Lotus Monastery Pt 1 & Pt 2 (ç«çÂÂç´ è®寺) in 1950, The Golden Hairpin Pt 1 & Pt 3 (碧è¡ÂéÂÂéµ) in 1963, BuddhaâÂÂs Palm (å¦Âä¾Âç¥ÂæÂÂ), a four-part film, in 1964 and The Burning of Pingyang City (ç«çÂÂå¹³é½åÂÂ) in 1965.
Her performances in Cantonese opera were quite different; she brought in a mixture of Peking Opera, in which she performed a lot of footwork, as in Suet Ting Shan and Fan Lai Hua - Meeting on the Weedy River (èÂÂè±河æÂÂæ¯Â) in 1961, Giving birth on the bridge â the White serpent (æ·æ©Âç¢åÂÂ) in 1962 and How Zhong Wuyan Conquered the West (é¾ç¡è·æÂÂ帥å¾Â西) in 1962. She also played a male lead as seen in movies Execution of Lui Po at Pak Moon Lau (ç½éÂÂæ¨ÂæÂŒÂÂå¸Â) in 1961, Two hunters in a pursuit (æÂÂæ¦çÂÂå ÂçÂÂ彩鳳) in 1962 and The beauties (é£é£ç¾Â人å¨Â) in 1964.
Apart from action films, she did a few rare contemporary and melodrama films, for example Midsummer nightâÂÂs romance (å¤Âå¤Âä¹ÂæÂÂ) in 1953, Bachelors beware (溫æÂÂéÂÂ) in 1960 and Two mouthy ladies from the north and south (Ã¥ÂÂÃ¥ÂÂéµåÂÂéÂÂ) in 1965. Her golden age of filming was between 1963 and 1966, when she made at least thirty movies in a year. Her surprise roles in The big revenge part 1 and 2 (çÂÂæ±Âæ²³çÂÂè¡Âæµ·ä»Â) (1963) and Heaven, Hell and Crystal Palace (天å Âå°çÂÂæ°´æ¶宮) (1965) did not destroy her popularity nor upset her fans; instead they won the hearts of the audience. Her last major movie was filmed in Taiwan (Decree of the fire dragon (è¡Âç«é¾Â令) in 1968) and she made a guest appearance in Secret agent no.1 (ç¥Âæ¢ä¸ÂèÂÂ) in 1970.
In 2004, Yu was one of the celebrities honoured on the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong. To date, Yu still holds the record among actresses of making more than 170 wuxia movies.
Yu ended her acting career after she married, in 1966, Mak Bing-wing (; 1915âÂÂ1984), a Chinese actor active in Cantonese opera. Mak Bing-wing began his acting career in the 1930s. He left Hong Kong in 1941 for a tour of the United States, returning in 1947 after the Pacific War had ended.
While in the United States, Mak appeared in numerous Grandview Film Company productions.
Yu So-chow was his second wife. They had three children and later moved to the United States.
On May 12, 2017. Yu died of pneumonia in San Francisco, California. She was 86 years old.
This is a partial list of films.