The Mad Phoenix

A storyteller traces the life of the Cantonese opera legend Kong Yu-Kau, Tse Kwan-ho, a figure whose career mirrors the turbulent shifts of early 20th‑century China and the changing tastes of the postwar era. Kong Yu-Kau, born in 1909 as the thirteenth son of a Chinese government official, proves exceptionally talented and rises to the top of his medical school class.

At a charity ball, he meets a girl named Lily who captivates him. To win her affection, he abandons his promising medical path and follows her to Shanghai, only to be deserted and left stranded in the streets for two years when Lily offers him nothing in return.

Returning home, Kong cannot continue his medical studies and instead takes up teaching. In his spare time, he immerses himself in Cantonese Opera, drawn especially to performances by one of the era’s leading singers, Sit Gok-Seen. He begins writing songs and plays and submits them to Sit, who soon invites him to join his opera company as a playwright. His talent grows, but so does his arrogance; he becomes famous yet notoriously difficult to work with, eventually giving himself the pen name Mr. Thirteen.

His reputation for being exacting and imperious creates a drumbeat of resistance around him, until Tang Ti-sheng steps in as copyist and assistant, forming a longtime friendship with Kong that helps shape his later work. The two men navigate the professional world together through the ups and downs of the industry.

When Guangzhou falls to Japanese forces in the 1930s, Kong relocates to Hong Kong and continues to write anti-Japanese scripts, lending his voice to resistance-themed works even as the political climate grows tenser. After the war, he returns to Guangdong, but his outspoken, eccentric nature earns him powerful enemies. Public taste has shifted, and few are willing to commission or stage his provocative anti-Japanese writings.

In the 1950s, Kong goes back to Hong Kong and wanders the streets, his career fading as time passes. As he grows older, his mental health deteriorates, and he is eventually admitted to a mental hospital. He passes away in 1984 at the age of 74, leaving behind a volatile legacy that captures both the brilliance and the stubborn stubbornness of a man who stood at the crossroads of tradition and modernity.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 10:46