Philip Chan: from singing inspector to Hong Kong cinema legend

I WAS BORN in Hong Kong in January 1945, during the Japanese military occupation. My parents were from Hong Kong, but my (paternal) grandfather was a general serving in the military in Guangxi. He had three wives and six children. During the civil war, he lost his command, retired to Guangzhou and then came south as the Japanese invaded. It was very tough. In fact, I read in my mother’s diary that when I was a baby, they had no money and she went to her father’s house to ask for a loan. Her father was a well-to-do businessman. He and his partners owned the Tabaqueria Filipina, which was a famous tobacco and wine company. He refused the loan because he didn’t like my father, who was just a foreman in the then-Sanitary Department. He also disliked my father because he was Cantonese and they were all Shanghainese. And my mother wrote in her diary that she was very disappointed.

SHE THEN TOOK my father’s watch and sold it on the waterfront to buy milk powder for me. The most touching part was when she wrote, “It was heartbreaking, but when I looked at my baby Kin, lying in my arms, I said to myself, ‘It’s all worth it.’”

I WAS THE FIRSTBORN, I have one sister and three brothers and we’re very tight. My most vivid memory of growing up is the riots in 1956. We lived in Mong Kok, on the rooftop of an abandoned factory, where there was a big covered area. There were about 12 or 13 households, all living there in separate wooden compartments – cubicles. Our family had two or three cubicles. It was crowded with people of various occupations – bonesetters, photographers and merchant sailors. I remember that day in October 1956, when the government tore down the Nationalist flag in Lei Cheng Uk Estate and there was an all-out riot. I was playing on the rooftop and we heard the sound of sirens. I looked down from our fourth-floor roof and I saw two armoured cars driving into Shantung Street, where our building was. British soldiers were chasing after a bunch of people dressed in black who were throwing rocks, bottles and other stuff at the soldiers. Suddenly there was a burst of machine-gun fire, then there was a boom, and a metal can shot up onto our rooftop and landed behind me. I was suddenly hit by the smoke and smell and I was in tears.

I WENT TO Good Hope School in Ngau Chi Wan, but after two years changed to La Salle College, where I stayed until I graduated in 1965. When I was in Form One or Two, I was in the school choir, and James Wong, who would later become the famous lyricist, was my senior. He played the harmonica and I admired him very much. Another schoolmate was a rhythm guitarist and part of a band called the Astro-Notes and they invited me to become the lead singer. It was the same era as the Kontinentals and Teddy Robin. We would perform at afternoon tea dances, from 3pm to 6pm, including at the Bayside, in the basement of Chungking Mansions. We also did a record with Diamond Records.

MY MOTHER’S BROTHER was a police inspector and I decided to try to enrol. I was a year younger than the minimum age requirement but Brother Casimir, my principal at La Salle, wrote a letter of recommendation, and they accepted me. I enjoyed my six months of training – firearms and combat, drills, discipline and all that. It was heaven for a young man of 19.