The classic 1958 Ingrid Bergman film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is the story of a Liverpool missionary who led a group of orphans across the mountains of north China to escape the invading Japanese army. The producers couldn’t get permission to film in China so they shot the film in Snowdonia, using hundreds of British Chinese as extras. It was a seminal moment for many Chinese living in Britain and launched the careers of actors such as Burt Kwouk and Tsai Chin.
David Yip, who went on to play The Chinese Detective, recalls Liverpool being emptied of all its half-Chinese children hired to play the orphans. In the crowd scenes, Grace Lau describes how Cantonese restaurant workers and rich Malaysian students from London found themselves side by side – many of the latter arriving in expensive sports cars and casting off their designer suits to don the rags of the poor Chinese peasants they were portraying
