Annotation

Ling Sing Pictorial shared many similarities with Lingsing (founded in 1930 in Guangzhou) in terms of content and design, almost certainly due to its founder, Wong Fa Chit, having been the manager of the latter. Wong also directed the film ‘The Country Bumpkin Searches for His Son’ (1936), whose script was written by Huang Sumin, the founder of Lingsing.

Only one copy of Ling Sing Pictorial is known to have survived, bearing the words ‘second half-of-the-month issue’ from July 1938. Branded a ‘drama and film pictorial’, its coverage centres on opera and movie news from South China, with many photographs of film and opera stars alongside introductions to and reviews of then-current films. Its main contributors were presumably Wong Fa Chit (Huang Huajie) and Yu Kei Ping (Yu Jiping), supported by a few other named contributors and many anonymously written pieces. The issue also features coverage and advertisements for films made by Wong Fa Chit  and Wong Siu Man (Huang Sumin).