The Great Wall Crown Princess
Xia Meng was given her first role as the title character in Li Ping Qian's A Night-Time Wife (1951), rocketed to stardom in her debut. The comedy was a hit and decades later stands out as a genuine classic of Hong Kong cinema. Many other hits followed. There was the tragic demimondaine of Sunrise, at her best as the virtuous widow of A Widow’s Tears (both 1956), and perhaps most remarkably, her gender-bending turn as a man masquerading as a woman in the all-female Shaoxing opera comedy The Bride Hunter (1960).
Xia Meng's grace, talent and beauty has made her the prima donna of Hong Kong left wing mandarin movie scene, and also one of the Chinese language cinema brightest movie stars in 1950s-1960s. In 1959, Xia Meng emerged as the most actress in the Hong Kong Top Ten Mandarin Movie Star Election, organized by The Great Wall Pictorial. No doubt she is dubbed as the 'Crown Princess' of Great Wall. (The 'second princess' is Shi Hui (Shek Hwei), while the 'third princess' is Chen Sisi (Chan Sze Sze), three leading ladies were as Great Wall's Three Princesses)
A rare actress who embodied the beauties of a modern woman and those of a historical maiden, Xia Meng was often described as "the God's Masterpiece", and she was one of the few Hong Kong movie stars whose films were released in the People's Republic of China before the Cultural Revolution, she exuded glamour in a manner that was then no longer permitted among her mainland counterparts.
It has been widely reported that Jin Yong has deep affection towards Xia Meng, apparently Jin Yong joined the studio as a scriptwriter to be near her. She was Cha's muse, inspiring him to model the ethereal Xiaolongnü character in his novel The Return of the Condor Heroes on her. Although his devotion to her was unrequited as Xia Meng was already happily married to a businessman in 1954, But he remained infatuated even after Xia Meng left showbiz in 1967. To Jin Yong, her leaving Hong Kong for good was a big newsworthy event. For days, he splashed the news with front-page headlines in the newspaper he founded, Ming Pao Daily News.
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