7 Influential Hong Kong women to inspire us all

Film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor Ann Hui is one of Hong Kong’s most critically acclaimed filmmakers of our New Wave cinema. After studying in the London Film School, Hui began her screen career as an assistant to Chinese film director King Hu, then later produced documentaries for TVB and RTHK, which eventually kick-started her famous Vietnam Trilogy when she transitioned from TV to films – incidentally, the third film Boat People (1982) was what launched Andy Lau into stardom. 

Her movies, offering a vivid female perspective, address topics like race, sex in Asian cultures, women’s issues, cultural diaspora, and other societal phenomena. Hui’s Hong Kong-based films carry a distinctively local flavour that highlights the working class. Some of her must-see works include Song of the Exile (1990), Ordinary Heroes (1999), The Way We Are (2008), and A Simple Life (2011). Only two films have ever won a Grand Slam at the Hong Kong Film Awards (which means sweeping Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress in one go), and both these works, Summer Snow and A Simple Life, are Hui’s.

Eunice Lam, also known as Lin Yanni, was well-known for many things – a TV personality, a writer, a columnist, a businesswoman, and a socialite – but it is arguably her skill with a pen that is the most worthy of attention. Lam first gained popularity as one of Hong Kong’s first weather girls on television. In 1974, she launched her literary career with a collection of essays titled Lazy Afternoon, and became especially prolific in the 80s. During her lifetime, she published more than 80 books, many of which have been adapted into films, including Crazy, Fate, and The Burial of Youth, earning her the Best Writer Award at the Hong Kong Artists’ Guild in 1989.

Lam also became a regular columnist for Ming Pao and the Hong Kong Daily News, lauded  by famed novelist Jin Yong as the ‘best modern woman essayist’. Accounts say that she  spritzed perfume on her manuscripts before sending them off, which we reckon is such a girlboss move. Despite her many accomplishments, it was often Lam’s personal life that put her in the spotlight. She was related to Bruce Lee through marriage with his brother Peter Lee, and allegedly had a decade-long affair with celebrated songwriter Wong Jim.

Lee Lai-shan, a world champion windsurfer, etched her name in history by winning Hong Kong’s first Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The Cheung Chau native started windsurfing at the age of 12 and joined the Hong Kong team by 19.. Hong Kong had never won a single medal prior to Lee’s victory, which makes her gold medal all the more memorable. This victory also marked Hong Kong’s last international sporting event as a British territory, making Lee’s medal the first and last under the Hong Kong team, as opposed to the current Hong Kong, China team. The medalist famously declared to world media that ‘Hong Kong athletes are not rubbish!’.

Lee has since gone on to receive a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to sport, and was the first person to carry the Olympic torch during the Hong Kong leg of the relay in 2008. Visit Cheung Chau’s beachfront to see a windsurf board monument that has been erected in her honour.

Actor and singer Anita Mui is arguably one of Hong Kong’s most iconic Cantopop divas. Her fame catapulted to the extent that western media dubbed her ‘Madonna of the East’. She was particularly well-known for her flamboyant stage costumes as well as her low, husky contralto vocals – a rarity in female singers. Mui got her big break when she won TVB’s New Talent Singing Awards in 1982, though by then she already had over a decade of performance experience under her belt during her younger years as a singer in nightclubs. Her stardom continued to rise in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia, selling tens of millions of albums, topping charts, sweeping industry awards, and selling out concerts. In 1988, she was invited to sing at the opening ceremony of the Seoul Summer Olympics with Janet Jackson, and eventually voluntarily announced in 1990 that she would not be receiving any more music awards so as to give a fair chance to new musicians. Apart from music, Mui was also a prolific actor, starring in many films from the early 80s to the 00s, ranging from martial arts comedies to dramatic award-winners.

Leveraging her celebrity status for philanthropy, she organised a fundraising concert to benefit families that were affected by the SARS outbreak – despite suffering from cancer at the time. She also donated profits from her book to the Children’s Cancer Foundation and founded the Hong Kong Performing Artistes Guild. Tragically, Mui passed away in 2003 from cervical cancer, after symbolically ‘marrying the stage’ in a series of farewell concerts. Her creativity, spirit, and talent is immortalised in a statue on the Avenue of Stars, as well as in the 2021 biopic Anita.

Gigi Chao became a global sensation in 2012 when her father, Hong Kong billionaire Cecil Chao, offered $65 million to the man who would marry his daughter, later increasing the reward to $180 million in a couple of years. The whole thing would have just sounded like a weird, rich people problem – but Gigi Chao is a lesbian who had already married her long-term partner Sean Eav in a civil ceremony a year before. She retaliated by speaking out publicly against the tycoon’s homophobic actions, publishing an open letter in a newspaper saying she will not cave to her father’s wishes despite her love and respect for him, asking instead for acceptance if understanding was not possible.

With such a high-profile manoeuvre from a high-profile family, Chao quickly became crowned as a champion for gay rights by Hong Kong’s LGBTQ+ community. She has not let them down since, advocating fiercely for LGBTQ+ rights over the years. She founded the Hong Kong Marriage Equality social campaign to fight for the legislation of same-sex marriage, pushing for the marriage equality in the city.

Margaret Chan, ranked by Forbes as the 30th most powerful woman in the world in 2014,  is a physician who served as the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) from 2006 to 2017. She joined the British Hong Kong government as a medical officer in 1978 and by a decade later had been promoted to assistant director of the department of health. In 1994, Chan became the first woman to lead Hong Kong’s department of health, a post that she held until 2003. During the H5N1 avian influenza of 1997 and the SARS outbreak of 2003, she received lots of public criticism for adopting a ‘business as usual’ stance, but did eventually manage to exert control over the situation by culling 1.5 million chickens despite stiff political opposition.

Chan joined the WHO in 2003, was appointed director-general in 2006, and got nominated by the board for a second term in 2012. No matter how people might personally feel about her, taking charge of healthcare and humanitarian affairs is a role that is always going to attract some form of criticism, and there’s no denying that Chan is still a Hongkonger who broke fresh ground for career-driven women.

Entertainment all-rounder, Lydia Shum Din-ha was a comedian, MC, actor, and singer known for her puffy, coiffed hairstyle and her plus-sized frame in an industry full of skinny women. Since things were not quite politically correct around the 70s when she became famous, Shum was widely referred to by her nickname ‘Fei-fei’, which translates to ‘Fat Fat’ or ‘Fatty’ – but despite the negative moniker, she was a very well-loved TV figure and a household name in Hong Kong. In a society that enforced a narrow beauty standard and mocked those who didn’t fit in, Shum embraced her body for the nation to see and was unashamed in showing herself for what she is.

Over the years, Shum brought immeasurable joy and laughter to Hong Kong’s citizens by hosting TV shows like Enjoy Yourself Tonight, singing in a Cantopop group named the Four Golden Flowers along with actor Liza Wang, and also starring on the big screen in movies such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World (1987). Shum passed away in 2008 due to health issues, but her daughter with actor Adam Cheng, Joyce Cheng, has followed in her entertainment footsteps. June 1, Shum’s birthday according to the Chinese lunar calendar, was proclaimed as Fei-fei Day in Vancouver, and in 2022, she was featured as a Google Doodle on July 21, her birthday.