Career
His contributions to Cantonese opera significantly influenced Hong Kong"s reform and development of the genre beginning in the late 1930s. He also wrote the film scripts adapted from his own operas, directed the movies and at times acted in them himself. A few of his most famous works include Bird at Sunset (落霞孤騖 cantonese: laai6 haa4 gu1 mou6), Red Tears of an Aspen (白楊紅淚 baak6 joeng4 gung1 leoi6), Sweet Dreams (花都綺夢 faa1 dou1 ji2 mung6), and his last piece The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (再世紅梅記 zoi3 sai3 gung1 mui4 gei3).
Tang was born in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China.
Upon graduating from the Guangdong Sun Yat-sen Memorial Middle School, Tang reportedly attended the Shanghai Fine Arts School and also the Shanghai Baptist College. Tang worked as a copyist and assistant to Fung Chi-fen (馮志芬) and Nam Hoi Sup-sam Long (南海十三郎), two famous writers for the troupe.
With the encouragement of Sit Kok Sin, Tang began his career as a playwright in 1938 with his first opera The Consoling Lotus of Jiangcheng (江城解語花 gong1 sing4 gaai2 jyu5 faa1). Throughout the next twenty years Tang wrote a total of 446 opera scripts, while 80 of those were adapted to movies.
He also directed nine films himself, and acted in four of them.
