Xia Meng

Hong Kong actress and film producer

Xia Meng (16 February 1933 – 30 October 2016), a. k. a. Hsia Moon and Miranda Yang, born Yang Meng, was an actress and film producer from Hong Kong. She appeared in Hong Kong films in the 1950s and 1960s, and was involved in the region's left wing film scene. In the 1980s, Xia Meng worked as a film producer and was involved in the Hong King New Wave.

Xia Meng was born Yang Meng on 16 February, 1933 in Shanghai. She was first exposed to drama at McTyeire School, an elite girls' school established by Methodist missionaries in Shanghai. In 1947, she moved with her family to Hong Kong, where she attended Maryknoll Convent School. In 1949, In conjunction with an event at her school, She was chosen to play the leading role in McTyeire School's English language production of Saint Joan. Xia Meng's younger sister, Yang Jie, played on the China women's national basketball team from 1954 to 1957.

In 1950, Yang Meng (birthname) and her friends visited a film set of the Great Wall Movie Enterprises Ltd. This was where she was first spotted by the crews, as well as studio manager Yuan Yang'an. Through the help of Yuan's daughter, Mao Mei (an actress and ballerina), Yang Meng accepted his invitation and joined the studio at the age of 17. Inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the new actress decided to rename herself Xia Meng (literally "summer dream").

She was given her first role as the title character in Li Pingqian's A Night Time Wife (1951). The comedy was a hit and rocketed Hsia Moon to stardom. Many other roles followed, including a tragic demimondaine of Cao Yu's Sunrise and the virtuous widow of A Widow's Tears, both in 1956. She portrayed the scapegoat of the feudal moral value in the critically acclaimed film The Eternal Love (1960), the deprived bourgeoisie in HKFA Archival Gem's Romance of The Boudoir (1960), and played a man masquerading as a woman in The Bride Hunter (1960). Xia Meng was one of the few Hong Kong movie stars whose films were released in the People's Republic of China before the Cultural Revolution. Xinhua News has compared her to Audrey Hepburn.

In the summer of 1967, Xia Meng visited Guangzhou and witnessed the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Hong Kong cinema was soon influenced by the Chinese Communist Party, and Great Wall's movies no longer had the same cachet as before. Xia Meng, who was pregnant at the time, excused herself from involvement in the political movement. Soon after appearing in Oh, The Spring Is Here (1967), she resigned from the studio in September, and quietly left for Canada before the film was released.

After the end of The Cultural Revolution, Xia Meng was invited by Liao Chengzhi, then vice chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC), to attend the 4th National Congress of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles(CFLAC) held in Beijing from 30 October—16 November 1979. This is considered to be her first public appearance after her final screen performance in 1967. Under the encouragement of Liao, she decided returned to the movie industry as a producer after an absence of ten years. In 1980, Xia Meng formed Bluebird Movie Enterprises Ltd, and produced the debut film Boat People (Ann Hui, 1982), a movie and landmark feature for Hong Kong New Wave, which won several awards including the best picture and best director in the second Hong Kong Film Award. After producing Young Heroes (Mou Dunfei, 1983) and Homecoming (Yim Ho, 1984), Xia Meng sold her film company to Jiang Zuyi. She had no involvement in any film production after that.

Xia Meng's performance in Peerless Beauty (1953) and A Widow's Tears (1956) won her the Greatest Individual Achievement Award given by the Cultural Ministry of the People's Republic of China. In 1995, Xia Meng was honored the Chinese Film Stars Special Award, in conjunction with 90 anniversary of Chinese Cinema.

She was also involved in political activities, being selected as a committee member of the Chinese National Cultural Alliance and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Xia Meng has a star with a hand print and autograph by the name of Miranda Yang on the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, Hong Kong. In August 2005, China honored 128 movie stars in a commemorative stamp collection marking 100 years of Chinese language cinema, Xia Meng was one of the honorees.