White Powder and Neon Lights (1947)

This is the first 16mm Cantonese film in full colour shot on 1940s stateoftheart Technicolor film stock Opera star Manha Leung Bikyuk enjoys tremendous popularity during her performances in San Francisco but drowns herself in the vices and temptations of the big city Increasingly she fails to show up for performances almost causing the theatre to go bankrupt When she sees her lover for the scoundrel that he is she also sees the errors of her own ways and saves the theatre restoring it to glory Joseph Sunn Jue established the Grandview Film Company in Hong Kong during the 1930s and continued making films in the USA during wartime by collaborating with Chinese opera performers in exile there Wong Hoksing an opera actor himself directed wrote and starred in this film He staged a spectacular playwithinaplay at the end not only to promote the art of Cantonese opera but also to boost solidarity among overseas Chinese through difficult times