Leong Suet Fei

Biography

Leong Suet Fei was a Cantonese opera actress and Hong Kong film star from Panyu County, Guangdong Province. Raised in an aristocratic family on Yaohua Street in Guangzhou, she was passionate about Cantonese opera from an early age, mastering the complete opera "Jin Sheng Tiao He" by age twelve. She trained under masters Tang Xueqing and later Xue Jue Xian, making her stage debut at the Baohe Theater in Guangzhou. She transitioned to cinema at age twenty when introduced to Tianyi Hong Kong to film movies. She rose to fame with the 1936 film "A Woman from Guangzhou," which won the "Promoting Women's Virtue" award from the Guangzhou government, directed by Shao Zuiweng. That same year she starred in "Universal Love," co-directed by Shao Zuiweng and Wen Yiming, which became a box office hit. During the war of resistance, she starred in the patriotic film "The Last Moment" and was arrested after the fall of Hong Kong, later escaping with the help of Mr. Li Caifa of the Lichi nightclub. She appeared in approximately eighty films throughout her career, excelling in tragic roles. She passed away on February 2, 1938 after her condition worsened due to appendicitis and her mother's refusal to allow surgery.