Golden Gate Girls

Feature Documentary, 90 minutes, HDV, color and B/W

Written and Directed by S. Louisa Wei

Produced by Law Kar and S. Louisa Wei

Original Score by Robert Ellis-Geiger

Animation by Anna Walter

Sound Design by Charles C.W. Chan

Art Direction by Brian Chang and Max Willis

Sponsored by Hong Kong Art Development Council

Produced by Blue Queen Cultural Communication Ltd.

The stories of pioneering women are often lost in time because historians often find it difficult to “place” them within various larger historical contexts. This documentary is by no means a conventional “bio-pic” as it weaves together the life of Esther Eng (1914-70), a San Francisco-born “Golden Gate Girl” who made ten Chinese films on two sides of the Pacific, and juxtaposes it with the fascinating stories of two other pioneering women of the silver screen. One woman is Anna May Wong (1905-61), the first Chinese American actress to rise to international stardom and who inspired Esther to get into the filmmaking world. Anna May’s encounters in Hollywood reflect the limitation Esther may face in the American film industry due to her race, but her success in Hong Kong proves how she turned her American identity into an advantage within the Chinese film industry. The other woman is San Francisco born Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979), the first and only female director to successfully transition from Hollywood’s silent to the sound era, who poses as Esther’s American double with a similarly stunning style and lesbian identity. Esther and Dorothy are two of the real exceptions in the history of women directors who managed to build a successful directing careers without a mainstream identity. The three contemporaries lived in a period when war afforded them rare opportunities to achieve greatness, and yet their accomplishments were soon forgotten afterwards.

Esther Eng, once honoured as the “first woman director of China” and the only one during her directing career from 1937 to 1949, was a true pioneer in many senses. She crossed boundaries of language and culture by making 10 Cantonese language films for Chinese audiences during and after WWII. She was in fact the only woman directing feature-length films in America after Dorothy Arzner’s retirement in 1943 and before Ida Lupino began directing in 1949. When changing times made it no longer possible for her to continue making films, she turned her powers of innovation towards establishing a tradition of Chinese fine dining in New York City as early as 1949. The traces of her restaurants have long been integrated into an iconic part of the cityscape and period she once occupied. Drawing on the marks she left in both the Chinese and English press, this film begins to recover some of her lost stories. Clips from her two surviving films, stills and posters from her eight other motion pictures, photos from her six personal albums, newsreels of San Francisco as she saw them, as well as hundreds of archival images, are all collected to present her life and time in a display of stunning visuals.

Golden Gate Girls is not strictly a biography of Esther Eng, as almost none of Eng’s writings have been found. The documentary is a tribute to pioneer women filmmakers working on both sides of the Pacific and crossing the boundaries of language, culture, race and gender.

Esther Eng early photos.

My first encounter with Esther Eng took place in 2001 when I began conducting research on Chinese women directors. This research originated from the realization that women’s stories often got lost in the course of history writing, particularly in film history. Recovering such stories has become the main focus of my academic career. I did not consider making a documentary on Esther Eng until early 2009 when over 600 photos from her personal collection—including many stills from her films—fell into my hands. Her career, her life seemed to be an extraordinary case in the history of Hong Kong filmmaking, one that gave rise to many intriguing questions.

Wai Kim Fong starred in Heartaches.

When I began to dig further into materials concerning Esther Eng, I found a few factors that together seemed to contribute to her success. First, she started her career with Heartaches (1935), a film with a patriotic mission. This helped her establish a positive public image with audiences on both sides of the Pacific as the second Sino-Japanese War was under way. Second, the fact that her first film was filled in a Hollywood studio was stressed and even exaggerated in local press, which gave her immense credibility as a new and young filmmaker. Third, her directorial debut was also a critical and box office success that opened up opportunities for more projects. Finally, she was able to draw talent from the many Cantonese opera performers who visited North and Central America during the 1940s during and after WWII. For 14 years of her life, she was an active professional filmmaker; but by the time of her death, she was mostly remembered as a restauranteur.

The movie poster of It’s a Woman’s World (1939).

When reconstructing Esther’s life, I was constantly amazed by how many times she had personally journeyed across oceans but even more so by her casual boundary crossing in her everyday life. In order to find the narrative that would leave the most vivid impression of Esther and her time on the mind of today’s audience, this film has already gone through 8 complete versions.

S. Louisa Wei

1. Lin Shunqi, “Documentary Golden Gate Girls: Focusing on Legendary Chinese Woman Director Esther Eng” (in Chinese 林順祺《紀錄片〈金門銀光夢〉：聚焦傳奇華裔女導演伍錦霞) in Sinovision Net, Sept 10, 2014
2. A Dialogue with Deirdre Boyle on Two Documentaries by Hong Kong Women Filmmakers
3. Golden Gate Girls Cornerhouse Post-screening Talk Moderated by Sarah Perks
4. The 20th Taiwan Women’s International Film Festival, Closing Film, Post-screening Q&A第二十屆台灣國際女性影展閉幕電影《金門銀光夢》映後問答
5. Opening of 2nd China Women’s Film Festival 北京電視臺報道，中國第二屆女性影展開幕電影《金門銀光夢》
6. Loving Documentary, “Dialogue: Narrating through Lens with an Independent Spirit”愛上紀錄片，“独家对话 | 独立掌控镜头的讲述者—— 魏时煜”
7. Shanghai International Film Festival Post-screening Q&A《金門銀光夢》上海國際電影節大光明電影院映後問答

• 2014-12-13. “The Trajectory of Hong Kong Women Directors:1937-1997” [香港女導演脈絡考：從許鞍華談起], Mingpao Daily News, D4.
• 2016 “Finding Her Voices through Her Images: Golden Gate Girls as an Attempt in Writing Women Filmmakers’ History” in Feminist Media History, 2:2, 32-46.

Elizabeth Kerr (Critic, The Hollywood Reporter)

Documentary filmmaker S. Louise Wei sheds some much-needed light on a hidden piece of Hollywood, Hong Kong, women’s and Asian-American film history. … One of Golden Gate’s strengths is its seamless ability to weave history, Sino-U.S. relations and social standards together to allow for inference and context.

Derek Elley (Film Critic, Film Business Asia) Hong Kong film teacher Wei frames her film

as a personal journey of exploration, following the traces of Eng’s trail from Asia to the US, tracking down any survivors who knew of her, and assembling every piece of information that still remains. The portrait that emerges is of an energetic, sunny and determined woman for whom “boundaries of race, language, culture and gender… did not seem to exist.”

Kevin M. Thomas (Critic, The Examiner)

“Golden Gate Girls” is a wonderful documentary by Louisa Wei who digs deep into the past to tell us of pioneering lesbian director Esther Eng, one of the first female (and queer) Chinese American directors. Wei’s film is more than a loving tribute to Eng, set to the most amazing jazz music, but Wei also pays tribute to other pioneering and lesbian filmmakers such as Dorothy Arzner, who paved the road for many of our more recent female directors –gay or straight. The 90 minute film also is a beautiful refection of early San Francisco, where Eng made a lot of her movies. The film is able to cover a lot of ground with its short run time.

Kimberly Chun (Critic, San Francisco Bay Guardian)

What gets lost in translation? These directors, more often than not, foreground their attempts to read between the lines and penetrate a fog of forgetfulness and counter-histories in order to get to a few truths, subjective and otherwise. Such is the case of Hong Kong documentarian S. Louisa Wei, who unearths the once-dumpster-relegated tale of SF Chinatown-born-and-bred Esther Eng, the first Chinese American woman director, in Golden Gate Girls — with rich, mixed results.

Patricia White (Professor and Chair, Film and Media Studies, Swarthmore College, Board member, Women Make Movies)

In Golden Gate Girls, Louisa Wei tells the story of one remarkable woman and uncovers a rich chapter of film history that challenges both gender hierarchies and national narratives. With a captivating archive of hundreds of newly discovered images, prodigious research, and interviews with those who knew her, the film tells the story of San Francisco-born Esther Eng, the first woman to direct Chinese-language films in the US and the most prominent woman director in Hong Kong in the 1930s. She was also out as a lesbian—she sported mannish attire and lived with her leading lady. While Eng later became a celebrity as a New York restaurateur, her contribution to film history is sadly overlooked, her 11 feature films mostly lost. Golden Gate Girls restores Eng to her place in history, weaving her story in and out of those of Hollywood contemporaries, director Dorothy Arzner and actress Anna May Wong. With her oeuvre of women’s pictures, proud sexual and ethnic identity, and transnational career, Eng is an ideal subject for the novel forms of historiography scholars have devised to illuminate those fascinating figures. Wei, in turn, is an ideal interpreter, animating the archive with very contemporary questions of agency and cultural exchange. Through commentary on the tantalizing photographic record, she invites viewers to project their own movie fantasies onto the gaps in the historical record.

Bérénice Reynaud (Curator for San Sebastian Film Festival and Vienna Film Festival, Professor of Film at California Institute of the Arts)

Esther Eng gave Bruce Lee his first role, as an infant (talk about “casting intuition”). She made films on both side of the Pacific, in Cantonese, for the larger Chinese diaspora. She was openly gay at a time when few women were out, and won respect both in the film industry and the restaurant business. Born on the first year of WWI in San Francisco, she lived and made films through WWII and died in New York on the cusp of the 1970s. Yet, until the last few years, there was virtually no account of her life and work. Louisa Wei is an uncommon director: she teaches film theory while making films and writing books that investigate hidden corners of Chinese history, or the untold achievements of female directors. Golden Gate Girls is alluringly posited at the intersection of these fields: how women’s contribution to film history overlaps with the tumultuous History of the 20th century. Professor Wei taps onto her own trajectory as a diasporic Chinese woman (born in Shandong, educated in Canada, living a few years in Japan, working in Hong Kong) to try and re-create what it must have meant “to be Esther Eng.” Through her minute research and intuitive editing, Eng’s beautiful face looks back at us, forcing her to reconsider what we thought we knew; we decipher the subtle traces she left in the streets of San Francisco and New York; and, at moments, it seems that we hear her silenced voice whisper in our ears.

Gina Marchetti (Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Hong Kong University):

Louisa Wei takes us on a journey of discovery in the footsteps of the remarkable Esther Eng, who defied gender expectations and racial hierarchies as an early Chinese American woman filmmaker. While investigating Eng’s screen career and personal life, Wei opens up the world of the Chinese diaspora in the interwar period to a greater appreciation of the role women played in the film industry. A woman pioneer in her own right, Wei provides a sensitive portrait of this intrepid, but largely neglected filmmaker who too easily fell through the cracks between Asian American and Chinese screen history.

Staci Ford (Hon Associate Lecturer, Department of History, Hong Kong University):

Golden Gate Girls is cultural history at its best. Esther Eng’s life is a transnational tale of connecting pasts and her films an understudied and (until now) unappreciated archive of transpacific flows. Louisa Wei’s formidable talents as a scholar/researcher and as director are lovingly poured into 90 minutes of lively and thoughtful recuperative biography. In addition to restoring Eng to her proper place in the history of film, US and transpacific history, Wei manages to tell several other stories that show how women’s networks have been shaping Hollywood as well as individuals and communities for decades.

Esther Eng: Cross-ocean Filmmakers and Women Pioneers  Hong Kong

Chung Wa Books, 2016. 

This book includes stories of early Chinese and Chinese-American women filmmakers from the 1910s to the 1970s, with well-researched accounts of Marion E. Wong (the first Chinese woman director),  Anna May Wong (the first Asian to achieve the status of an international star),  Olive Young (first Chinese American woman to become a major star in Shanghai), and Esther Eng (gay, Chinese American, and first female director of Hong Kong). With over 200 rare images from Esther Eng’s private collection and other sources, this book is an excellent visual guide to cross-ocean (or should we say, transnational) Chinese cinema from the early years.

The book was also published in simplified Chinese by Beijing Times Chinese Publisher in 2018 with a different title: Esther Eng: First Generation Ocean-crossing Filmmakers and Modern China

Not only does this book tell the story of a female pioneer of Chinese-language cinema, it is also an important source in film history and Asian American studies. S. Louisa Wei’s gender perspective is both sharp and powerful. I had never heard the name Esther Eng before, but now I know she is an artist with an independent spirit and entrepreneurial skills. The author cites a lot of early Hong Kong film documents, which is very precious. Even translated into English, it is a major contribution to the history of Hollywood cinema.

這本書不僅講了一位華語電影的女性先鋒的故事, 也是 電影歷史和美籍亞裔研究中一份重要的檔案。魏時煜所 選取的性別角度既敏銳又有力。我以前從沒有聽過伍錦霞 的名字, 但是現在我了解到她是一位具有獨立精神和企業 家本領的藝術工作者。作者引用了大量早期香港影壇資料, 彌足珍貴。即便翻譯成英文出版, 也是對好萊塢影史 的一大貢獻。

– Leo Ou-fan Lee, Professor of Chinese Culture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 李歐梵 香港中文大學中國文化教授

After reading this book, if you ask me: would you rather be Ann Hui or Esther Eng? I will definitely answer: Esther Eng! If you ask me why, I will say: Just read this book and you will know, it is really a life freed! 看完《燦若錦霞》,假如你問我:你寧願做許鞍華還是做伍錦霞呢? 我一定會回答: 伍錦霞! 你問我為什麼, 我會說: 看看這本書你就知道了,真是一個釋放了的人生呀!

– Ann Hui, Film Director 許鞍華 電影導演

This book is both interesting and profound. Thanks to S. Louisa Wei and Law Kar, from the pictures to the text, we got to know Esther Eng, a filmmaker who is very persistent in film. Film resources in all aspects were relatively scarce in her life, and she faced so many difficult times! It really makes our generation of filmmakers think deeply about what we should do to contribute more to the cinema.

《燦若錦霞》一書既有趣又深刻。感謝魏時煜和羅卡兩 位, 從圖片到文字, 讓我們認識了伍錦霞這位對電影有 著無比執著和堅持的電影人。在那各方面電影資源都相對 匱乏, 又面對困難的年代! 真叫我們這代電影人深思, 是否該努力地為電影更多地出心出力。

-Stanley Kwan, Film Director 關錦鵬 電影導演

This book is not only the legend of Esther Eng, but also one of several female filmmakers lost in film history. S. Louisa Wei’s determined yet sensual account reminds me to re-focus on the outstanding achievements of female filmmakers. Their “absence” in film history stems unmistakably from the injustice of gender in history and its narrative. We almost missed the legend of Eng, and we should not continue to make the same regret.

《燦若錦霞》不僅是伍錦霞的傳奇,也是失落於影史的更多女電影人的傳奇。魏時煜堅定而不乏感性的創作, 提醒我重新註目女性影人的傑出成就。她們之於電影史的“不在場”確鑿無誤地緣於歷史及其敘述對性別不公正的待遇。我們險些錯失霞哥的傳奇,不應該繼續製造同樣的 遺憾。

– Sha Dan, China Film Archive Programmer  沙丹 中國電影資料館節目策劃

On October 9, 2013, Hong Kong director S. Louisa Wei attended the event, which was also part of the “Chinese Cinema In and Outside China” international conference hosted by Chinese Film Forum UK and Cornerhouse Artist Film.

A Dialogue with Deirdre Boyle on Two Documentaries by Hong Kong Women Filmmakers

*For videos in Chinese, please refer to the Chinese page of this website.

Duration: 90 minutes | Aspect Ratio: 16:9 |

Language: Cantonese, English | Subtitles in Chinese & English

【kanopy】| North America

【Pay TV】| Hong Kong/Macau

【Cathay Play】 Bilingual Version  English version