Esther Eng

Esther (Ng Kam-ha), commonly known as “Brother Ha”, was born in San Francisco, 1914. She was a second-generation immigrant from Taishan county of Guangdong Province, China and the fourth child in a family of ten children. Her father, a businessman, especially cared about his children’s knowledge on Chinese culture. Hence, Esther had a chance to learn Chinese and speak Cantonese, which in turn planted seeds for her future adventure in Hong Kong film industry.

Esther’s family was avid fans of Cantonese opera and only Esther was a film buff. Young Esther had worked in the box office of a theatre. Exposed to over hundreds of movies, she culminated vast knowledge and became good friends with numerous expatriate filmmakers and Cantonese opera artists, including Wai Kim-fong, Kwan Man-ching and Joseph Sunn Jue. These connections indeed helped her to further lay the groundwork for a film career.

Between 1935 and 1949, Esther was involved in 11 Cantonese film productions. Not only was she one of the first female directors, but also a pioneer on “National Defence” films, injecting the budding feminism of the western world and patriotism of overseas Chinese into the genre. Esther played an important role of bringing Chinese-language films to the rest of the world, but was rarely mentioned in any historic documents of American or Chinese cinema, let alone any study on her. Sadly, her legend is a mysterious subject.

In 1935, Esther’s father founded Guangyi Film Company with friends for his daughter. The first production was a Hollywood-made Cantonese musical Heartaches, directed by Frank Tang and starring Beal Wong and Wai Kim-fong. Then 21-years-old Esther was the associate producer. Perhaps inexperienced but surely enthusiastic, she rented a studio and started production right away.

The film was set in 1932 with Battle of Shanghai as the background. Indeed, the film was about a woman’s sacrifice and love of her country. This debut had already had Esther’s recurring themes of feminism and patriotism that would have grown more obvious in her forthcoming films.

The success of Heartaches not only opened the door for Chinese directors to work in Hollywood, it also raised the national consciousness among overseas Chinese. Esther’s directorial debut National Heroine (1937) was about a woman (played by Wai Kim-fong) joining the army and defending her country side by side with men. The overt feminism was praised and awarded by Guangdong Association of Women’s Right, validating her achievement in depiction of female in “National Defence” films.

Patriotism was in every aspect of art and culture during the time and many artists vowed to defend the country with art. National Heroine advertisement had taglines such as “women’s honour to defend the country with my life,” Esther, then only 22 years old, mixed a lot of musical numbers and comedic scenes into her film, balancing a serious subject with enough relief and showcasing her talent as an artist.

Esther decided to stay in Hong Kong after National Heroine. Out of admiration of the film, fellow expatriate Joseph Sunn Jue invited her to join his company Grandview Film (US) and started the production of melodrama Ten Thousand Lovers (1938), starring Ng Cho-fan and Wai Kim-fong. In the same year, Esther wrote and directed a contemporary drama Tragic Love (1938) and co-directed with Leung Wai-man a tragic-comedy A Night of Romance, a Lifetime of Regret (1938).

First time in Hong Kong film history, her 1939 film It’s a Women’s World had an all-female cast. 36 characters came from all facets of society with different careers and personalities. Through these women and their stories, she unveiled the obstacles and condemned the prejudice women faced at the time.

After Golden Gate Girl (1941), Esther took over the family-owned film distribution business and founded Ngon Kwong Film Company. During the mid- to late 1940s, Esther purchased the right of 30 films from Nanyang Film Company and many other Cantonese films to distribute throughout North, Central and South America. She worked as a film distributor until the 1960s. During the period, she opened Central Theatre in New York, a Chinese-language film theatre, specialised in Cantonese films.

After a six-year hiatus, Esther directed three Cantonese films from 1941 to 1949. The Blue Jade (1947) and Back Street (1948) were shot in California. Mad Fire Mad Love (1949) was shot in Hawaii, the last singly-directed film by Esther.

Feminism popularised in the 1930s and 1940s thus gave rise to the social status of women. Such circumstance enabled the strong-minded and ambitious Esther to create films with vision beyond the boundary of culture and sexuality. In her directorial debut National Heroine, the female lead self-enlisted for war, taking a very proactive stance in comparison to mere monetary help in Heartaches. Esther’s subsequent films might not be so much about war, but her characters were equally brave and straightforward in pursuit of her own identity or love. They were very much Esther’s own reflections.

Although Esther couldn’t break into the mainstream in the US, she was able to draw attention from Chinese American communities and set foot in Asian film industries. Her language skill and American background helped her to open numerous doors in Southeast China. She was naturally gifted and blessed.