This year’s Golden Mulberry Award recipient is Brigitte Lin, the iconic actress who was at the top of the Taiwanese and Hong Kong film industries from the 1970s to the 1990s. On March 24, 2018, Far East Film Festival sat down with Lin in Hong Kong to discuss some of the most unforgettable moments in her career. The following are excerpts from that conversation.
— On entering the film industry
I was so happy when I was making Outside the Window (1973). I’d never made a movie before at that time. Before I started making movies, people were saying how messy and scary the film industry was. But my mother let me do it after meeting the director. Everyone says that he’s a great guy. My mother asked around to make sure, and finally she let me do it. All the crew members were indeed nice and decent people. All of us were like a family. At the end of the shoot, everyone went home, but I didn’t want to leave because we had so much fun together.
That first experience of making movies was like being in heaven. I was so happy. Everyone treated me so well. I was so curious about acting; I love watching movies, so I really enjoyed it. Once, I was rehearsing on the set, and I felt so sad that people were leaving at the end of the day, but then I was relieved that we could keep doing this on the next day.
Later, too many people wanted me for their films. I began to feel the pressure. I became famous overnight. I’d just graduated from school, didn’t have much experience and wasn’t familiar with the film industry. I suddenly had to face so many things. People usually climb step by step and learned how to handle things. I couldn’t. When I came to Hong Kong to promote the film, I had to face so many members of the press, speak to audiences, get my photos taken and meet many producers. We didn’t have a talent agent system back then, so I had to handle everything by myself.
— On the stages of her career
There were three stages in my career: the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s. I did romantic melodramas in the 1970s. I was searching for different directions in the 1980s, then I mainly did wuxia films in the 1990s.
The first stage of my career was when I was 17, when I was a young girl from a traditional family entering the entertainment industry. I knew then that my life would no longer be the same. I was so worried that I had a stomachache for three days before shooting began. There was so much uncertainty. A good friend told me, “Once you take this first step, your life will never be the same again.” That was absolutely correct. Taiwan was still under martial law at the time. It was hard to go abroad. The only way was to graduate from high school and go to university. But there weren’t that many universities. I needed really good grades to get into them. I wasn’t much for studying, so I couldn’t get in. I was getting ready to try again the next year, but I was scouted by many producers and talent scouts. I was blessed. I met a great director and didn’t have to deal with the shadier side of the industry.
Later, I was working so much that I was under too much pressure. I left Taiwan and didn’t want to see anything related to films anymore, so I went to the United States and stayed there for a year and a half. When I returned to Taiwan in mid-1981, everything had changed. The melodramas were completely gone. That was the first time I felt my value being evaluated and my place in the industry. They lowered my salary; they were being cautious because I had been gone for some time and weren’t sure if I was still a draw. Everything was different because the people who worked on those social realism films were different from the people who worked on the melodramas. The environment was so unhealthy at the time. I didn’t have a manager back then, and I had to handle things on my own. The comedies I did were big hits, and I was getting offered roles that I couldn’t refuse because of the forces at play. It was impossible to turn them down. I could no longer stay in Taiwan. In 1984, Ringo Lam asked me to do The Other Side of Gentleman (1984). That’s when I decided to leave Taiwan for good and move to Hong Kong. That was the second turning point.
The third turning point is Asia the Invincible [in Swordsman II (1992)]. I said yes to Tsui Hark right away. He was so worried that I wouldn’t do it because I had to play a man, but I said yes because I trusted him. I knew that he wouldn’t make me look bad. Still, everyone else objected. [Lyricist, filmmaker and writer] James Wong said, “How can they make a beautiful woman like you play a man?” I was thinking about my pension, so I took on a lot of films! I made tens of millions of dollars. I thought I was set for retirement. By chance, that was also when I met my husband. He changed my life. I had a family and took on a different life. I retired from the entertainment industry for good.
It’s hard to imagine that a long-haired young actress who did romantic melodramas would end up playing a cold-blooded man! What a huge change! I never thought that my life was that eventful, but looking back, I’ve actually led a pretty rich life!
— On handling her own stunts
When I was making Dragon Inn (1992), they had to do a close-up shot of many bamboo arrows coming at me. The action choreographer, Yuen Cheung-yan, told me about this shot, and I was worried whether the arrows would hit my eyes. He said, “That’s not going to happen. Even if they did, your eyes would close by instinct.” I felt at ease, but one of the arrows really did hit my eye. And my eyes really did close instinctively. It was a good thing that I did, or my eye would’ve been gone! Still, getting the movie done was the most important thing to me and everyone on set. The assistant director asked me if I could continue. Of course, I answered yes! I was in pain, but I couldn’t stop because of that.
When I did Swordsman II, there was a shot in which I had to jump from about five storeys high head-first. That stunt was done with only one wire holding me up between my legs. You can imagine what would’ve happened if that wire snapped. I couldn’t think about it because we had to do whatever the director told us to do. It was so awkward, an actress with her legs open and five, six men pulling her up by a wire. When I saw the film in the cinema, I had to see if my face appeared in this shot that I risked my life doing. I watched it a few times, but I couldn’t see my face in the shot. My hair was in the way!
When I was doing Police Story (1985), there were two shots that required stunt work. Jackie Chan told me that he could get stuntmen for those shots, but if I did my own stunts, people would always remember what I did. Those words tempted me. I said that I’d be willing to try it for that reason.
In the first shot, I was supposed to be picked up, flipped and slammed on a table. It was scary because I had never been thrown like that before. I was picked up and I passed out mid-air. Jackie saw the playback and wanted another take because he couldn’t see my face in the shot. There was already a huge bruise on my thigh, but I needed to do it again. He told me to face the camera no matter what, then he told me to stiffen my waist so I wouldn’t get bruised again. I followed his direction and made sure to face the camera. He finally got the shot.
The other shot was me being thrown through a glass shelf. I was scared again. They tried it on someone else before, and his face got cut. Jackie tried to assure me by saying, “That was an accident. It won’t happen to you.” We were ready for the shot, but I ducked to the floor because I got a stomachache from the nerves. I did that five times because I was so scared. Finally, I just went ahead and did it. I remembered that the most important was to face the camera or it would’ve been all in vain. I did it so well that Jackie got really worried, asking me if I was OK. I was fine!
— On Tsui Hark and Wong Kar-wai
Tsui Hark is a good friend of mine. My two best friends in the industry are Tsui Hark and Nansun Shi. Tsui Hark found strengths in me that other people can’t see, and he made those strengths shine. Tsui Hark worked with a script, and I could do my preparations based on that.
On the other hand, Wong Kar-wai doesn’t work with a script. I needed a script to prepare, so I kept asking him for one on Ashes of Time (1994). He wouldn’t give it to me, but he finally relented. I was happy because I could finally prepare, but he said he didn’t want me to prepare. He said he might not even follow the script on set. What was the point in having the script, then?
When we did Chungking Express (1994), I knew that the story was about a has-been celebrity and a policeman. I made the film with that in mind. We kept filming without a script, so I just did what the director told me to do. I had no idea what was happening.
When I work on a Tsui Hark film, I always have a handle on what’s going on. It was the opposite on a Wong Kar-wai film. I’d do a shot not knowing if it would be in the final cut. To be honest, I had no idea what I had done by the time I was finished on Chungking Express. When I saw it in the cinema, I finally found out that I was playing a drug dealer.
I rarely like my performances in my films, but I really like my part in Ashes of Time. I really loved that performance. My expressions and everything else were so precise. William Chang helped me a lot. He explained nearly every single shot to me so that I would understand what to do. In the 100 films I did, I understood Red Dust (1990) the most. Sanmao, the writer, called me up, sat me down and explained every single word to me. She even played records and acted things out for me. So, I knew Red Dust inside and out. On the other hand, I felt the most baffled on Wong Kar-wai’s film, while the director I had the most confidence in was Tsui Hark.
— On retirement
I never complained about the hardships. I just thought this was what I was supposed to do. I did that for 22 years. By the time I was doing Asia the Invincible, I felt like I didn’t have the energy to keep acting even though my heart wanted to. That’s when I thought about retirement. Swordsman II was a huge hit, and I told Nansun Shi that maybe it’s about time I retire.
That was in 1991. I was turning down films left and right. A journalist friend told me, “Brigitte, you’re getting old. You should take the opportunity to make some money.” And I thought he was right, that maybe I should think about retiring and settle down. So, I took everything that came my way as I was still getting offered a lot of money at the time. Swordsman II changed my life. It was a new stage.
— On becoming a writer
How could I have become a writer? I could never finish a composition in school. There wasn’t a single text in my apartment – I didn’t have any book, magazine or newspaper.
I never know if people are interested in hearing what I have to say. Some people said that I can write because I’m so good at speaking. That idea left an impression on me. One time, I met Nansun’s friend, Ma Ka-fai, at a dinner. He asked me if I wanted to write [columns] for a newspaper. I didn’t think that I could write, but he felt that I could. He gave me his name card.
What got me to start writing was James Wong’s death [in 2004]. James had always wanted me to write, too, but I turned him down. I wanted to do something for James, so I wanted to write an essay to commemorate him, and I wanted it to be published in the publication that he wanted me to write for. So, I contacted Ma Ka-fai, and he published my essay on the day of James’ memorial service. That essay got a lot of positive feedback, so I began to feel some confidence about writing.
[Note: Lin has since released two collections of her essays.]
— On visiting Far East Film
To be honest, I’ve been approached with a lot of lifetime achievement awards and retrospectives. But I never said yes to those because I didn’t want to be in the limelight. Nansun told me that Far East Film Festival has been promoting Asian cinema for a long time, and I think it’s such a meaningful thing. Sabrina and Thomas had this dream for the film festival because of Chungking Express, and it’s been a tremendous success. It’s become a festival that many people want to attend. It will mean so much for me to be there on their 20th anniversary. It shows that film is such an important thing that it encouraged Sabrina and Thomas to accomplish so much. I really like to help people with dreams and ideals, so this is something I really want to do.
Kevin Ma