''Golden Gate Girl'', also known as ''Tears in San Francisco'' or ''Jinmen Nü'' is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

made in San Francisco in 1941, directed by

Esther Eng Esther Eng ( – January 25, 1970), born Ng Kam-ha, was a Cantonese–American film director and the first female director to direct Chinese-language films in the United States. Eng made four feature films in America, and five in Hong Kong.Wei, 20 ...

and veteran filmmaker

Kwan Man Ching Kwan may refer to: People * Kwan (surname) (關), a Chinese surname * Kwan Cheatham (born 1995), American basketball player for Ironi Nes Ziona of the Israel Basketball Premier League * nickname of Kwandwane Browne (born 1977), Trinidadian field ...

, the film was released in San Francisco but wasn't shown in Asia until 1946. The film is notable as it marked the film debut of

Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines that ...

, just an infant at the time. It tells of a widower (Moon Kwan) who is concerned that his daughter, Chain-ying (Tso Yee-man), spends too much time at the theater. When she falls in love with Wong, one of the company's leading actors, the enraged widower forces the theater to close its contract with Wong, resulting in the actor's deportation to China. But Chain-ying is already pregnant and dies after giving birth to a baby girl (played by Bruce Lee- then aged three months). The widower's former employees look after the baby, who, like her mother, grows up (Tso Yee-man again) with a passion for the theater. After a series of complications, tears, and comic moments, she is eventually reunited with her father, Wong, when he visits the United States to perform in a national defense play (to aid China then at war), and they are finally reconciled with her aging, remorseful maternal grandfather. Stories about the making of ''Golden Gate Girl'' is reflected in a 2014 feature documentary titled

Golden Gate Girls ''Golden Gate Girls'' is a 2013 documentary film focusing on the life and works of Esther Eng (1914-1970), once honored as the first woman director of Southern China. She crossed boundaries of both gender and culture by making Cantonese language ...

directed by S. Louisa Wei, who constructed the story around the life and time of woman film pioneer Esther Eng.

Cast

Nom Liu NOM may refer to: * National Organization for Marriage * Natural organic matter * New Order Mormons * Nickelodeon Original Movies * ''Nintendo Official Magazine'', official British Nintendo magazine; now discontinued, superseded by ''Official ...

Fee Luk Won A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in contra ...

* Wong Hok Sing *

Man Tso Yee A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chrom ...

References

1941 films Cantonese-language films Hong Kong black-and-white films Films set in San Francisco Films shot in San Francisco Films about Cantonese opera {{HK-film-stub