Actress Hong Huifang finds new heights at 64 with Hainanese opera singer role in Kopitiam Days

SINGAPORE – Veteran local actress Hong Huifang is busier than ever in a period of her life when she thought she would be resting.

“I thought I would be retired by now,” says the 64-year-old, who enjoyed a 40-year career starring in series such as The Unbeatables (1993) and The Price Of Peace (1997).

“I felt I had reached a plateau and could not go any further. I thought only young people had opportunities, and there was none left for me.”

Hong was speaking to The Straits Times at a media event in York Hotel Singapore to promote the SG60 anthology film Kopitiam Days.

Then the drama Ajoomma (2022) happened, in which she starred as a widow who becomes stranded in South Korea and embarks on a journey of self-discovery. The film, helmed by Singaporean director He Shuming, earned Hong a Best Leading Actress nomination at the Golden Horse Awards.

Following that achievement, the idea of retirement was shelved.

Her latest projects include local film A Good Child, opening on Oct 9; Taiwanese supernatural series Haunted House Secrets, which aired in June; and the Singapore-Thai mystery thriller series Decalcomania, to be released in 2026.

She is starting production on another local drama series co-starring other veteran actors, with details to be announced later.

“I was lucky to be in Ajoomma. It brought me up to another level. People watched my performance, they saw my potential and they gave me another chance. I’m so grateful, and as long as my physical and mental health is good, I will carry on working and find new challenges,” she says.

In Meet Me At The Pavilion – one of six short films that make up Kopitiam Days – Hong plays Ai Hua, a volunteer performer at a Hainanese opera troupe in danger of going broke unless it can persuade a former sponsor (played by Zhu Houren) to step up again.

Directed by Shoki Lin and based on his own family’s background in the art form, the role required Hong, who was raised in a mainly Teochew-speaking environment, to brush up on what remained of the Hainanese she had picked up from her maternal grandfather, a native speaker.

She practised Hainanese with native speaker and co-star Zhu and also with her opera coach, who is a member of Singapore Hainan Society’s opera troupe.

“Just as spoken Mandarin is not the same as the Mandarin that is sung in Peking opera, spoken and sung Hainanese are not the same, so I had to train in singing as well as dancing, especially the hand movements. The gentle, flowing hand gestures are hard to do,” she says.

In a separate interview, veteran local actor Chen Tianwen spoke about his part in another short film, the martial arts-inspired action-comedy Dragon Gate Assembly – one that was a decade in the making, he says.

Chen, 62, gained fame in local martial arts series in the 1990s, and became known for playing a fighting monk in The Royal Monk (1997) and The Royal Monk II (1998).

At the gala premiere of his 2015 comedy movie Mr Unbelievable, he and Singapore film-maker Eric Khoo chatted, during which the director promised the actor they would work together one day.

Khoo, executive producer and creative director of Kopitiam Days, then suggested to Dragon Gate Assembly director Yeo Siew Hua that Chen be included in the project.

He and co-stars Tay Ping Hui, Xenia Tan, Richie Koh and Kung Cheung Tak play characters who assemble at a coffee shop, representing the famous inns of wuxia.

Chen says: “So when I talked to Eric again for this short film, I told him, ‘I’ve been waiting 10 years for your call.’”