00:07Piano music
00:52In 1937, San Francisco-born Esther Ng directed her first feature film in Hong Kong.
01:00National Harrowing.
01:13Although an American citizen, Esther made all of her ten known features in Chinese,
01:20becoming recognized as the first directoress of southern China.
01:24I was looking at film reviews from 1941.
01:26One caught my eye, which was a review of a film called Golden Gate Girl.
01:30And I looked at the credits, and it said directed by Esther Ng.
01:34And immediately I realized that I had stumbled across something very unusual
01:37because it was a Chinese language film made in San Francisco, directed by a Chinese woman.
01:44You know, it's the first time of the movie.
01:47Bruce Lee was just born.
01:49So I was looking at her as a woman as a woman.
01:52I've been doing it for a few years.
01:54In 1940, you were doing it for a movie?
01:57Oh, it's a movie, right?
01:59Yes, it's a movie.
02:01It's a movie.
02:02It's a movie.
02:03Mad Fire, Mad Love opened in San Francisco in 1949.
02:09This was Esther's last independent production.
02:12How many years did you see her first?
02:14I saw her first in 1939.
02:19In 1961, 42-year-old Sue Yingfei and 47-year-old Esther
02:25collaborated on what proved to be the last film for both,
02:30Murder in New York Chinatown.
02:37In 1946, when asked by journalist Betty Cornelius if she had been nervous about beginning a career
02:45in a medium of which she knew virtually nothing, Esther answered,
02:51It just came to me. I don't know why.
02:53I just went ahead and I wasn't afraid of anything.
02:56I am the only one in our family interested in pictures.
03:00I wonder why.
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