Ms Helena Law Lan
1934-
Actress
Originally named Lo Yin Ying, Helena Law quit secondary school education in the early 1950s because of poverty. By chance, she started working as a film extra, appearing in such iconic films as The Kid (1950) and In the Face of Demolition (1953), and was later promoted to a contract actress.
In 1960, she was invited by Wong Cheuk Hon, the owner of Lan Kwong Film Company, to join his studio, adopting her screen name ‘Law Lan’ and rising to become a B-list actress. She was typecast as a vicious woman in films such as A Lily in the Storms (1962) and The Childless Wife (1964) because of her strong and striking features.
As Cantonese cinema declined in the 1970s, she turned to television and briefly appeared for Rediffusion Television, before signing to Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) in 1971. She joined the variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight and appeared in a variety of TV dramas, building a strong career in which she appeared in more than 160 titles. She is best remembered for playing Kau Chin Chak in The Return of the Condor Heroes (1983), a role that she also reprised in the remake a decade later.
Law also appeared in films, becoming a household name for the role of ‘Granny Lung’ in Thou Shalt Not Swear (1993) and its sequel, July 13th (1996), which earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards. She continued to impress with her portrayal of a mysterious medium in the Troublesome Night series (1997-2003) and other supernatural movies.
She became the oldest actress ever to win Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 1999, for Bullets Over Summer, which also earned her Best Actress at the 6th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards, and Best Supporting Actress in the 5th Golden Bauhinia Awards. She was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards for The White Storm (2013). With an impressive career that spans seven decades and almost 380 movies, Law continues to act in Hong Kong cinema.