My Love/Hate Relationship with Brigitte Lin

I was born under the sign of Scorpio at the end of 1969 and Brigitte Lin (Lin Ching-hsia) made her debut in the world of cinema in the early 70s, becoming immediately popular. Because her debut Outside the Window (1973) was banned from Taiwan due to a copyright dispute, she appeared for the first time in Taiwanese theaters along with the sixties super diva Tang Pao-yun, who played her big sister, in Gone with the Cloud (1974). Looking back now, it almost seemed like a handover.

In other words, ever since I have cinema-related memories, Brigitte Lin has always been one of its brightest stars. Only that in my story as a cinephile, for over half of the time she was my idols’ ‘opponent.’

Pearl Chang vs. Brigitte Lin

The first star I became a fan of was the wuxia actress Pearl Chang. From the point of view of the cinema history, one cannot really compare her to Cheng Pei-pei, Polly Kuan, Hsu Feng and others who topped the charts collaborating with King Hu. However, in the 70s, she was a celebrity for some time both on TV and on cinema. The series Bodyguard, broadcast continuously in 256 episodes from 1974 to 1975 (except for a one-month interruption when Chiang Kai-shek died), was the opening act of this genre, with a degree of popularity that involved not only common people but also politicians and artists. A superficial boy like me had not yet seen masterpieces like the Dragon Inn (1967) and A Touch of Zen (1971). I only had a predilection for Zhao Yanling, the third sister of the ‘security guards’ played by Pearl Chang. Her leaping motions in the clouds and her sword piercing through her enemies’ hearts for me the highest level of imagination in the wuxia world at the time. Compared to the weakness of the first sister and the arrogance of the second, I identified myself in this tenacious and reliable character. After the end of the TV series, the film adaptation Genuine Bodyguard (1976) followed closely, and naturally, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Brigitte Lin at the time was also a guarantee of box office sales in romantic films. In that same year (1976), she starred in director Pai Ching-Jui’s The Autumn Love Song and Forever My Love, then also in Hsu Chin-liang’s Sea of Love and Chen Yao’s The Chasing Game. Of course, she was also given a role in the patriotic propaganda film Eight Hundred Heroes, by means of which she won her official first prize (best actress in the Asian Film Festival).

Chang was a wuxia star and Lin was a drama idol, in theory they wouldn’t interfere with each other, so why did I decide to put them in the fighting ring?

It was 1977 or 1978, when the China Times Weekly of Taiwan decided to launch a reader survey, which went on for a long time, to choose the ‘Top ten cinema superstars.’ I was eight or nine at the time, and I regularly paid a visit to the hairdresser next to my house just to read the latest gossip news in the magazines. Even though my Chinese wasn’t good enough to understand everything they wrote, I completely memorized those rankings and even those customers who were busy ironing their hair had fun listening to my ‘reportage.’ Pearl Chang, who obviously was on top of my preferences, competed with Brigitte Lin for the first position. If I remember correctly, the final result was: 1. Brigitte Lin, 2. Pearl Chang, 3. Chin Han, 4. Joan Lin, 5. Zhen Zhen, 6. Chelsia Chan, 7. Niu Tien, 8. Ku Ming-lun, 9. Terry Hu, 10. Charlie Chin. As a second-ranking fan, do you think I could not hate her competitor? The problem is that fans are always biased, it’s not the celebrities’ fault if someone hates them!

Joan Lin vs. Brigitte Lin

When I was little, I didn’t have much to play with and watching movies was my greatest pleasure. The adults liked to take me to the cinema because I was good and silent, I never protested and watched all films. Especially before the age of ten, in those suburb cinemas in Taipei with nonstop showings and no numbered seats, I didn’t even have to pay the ticket because of my height. Therefore, whether it was a reward for a good grade at school or being the third wheel in adult dates, I spent the happiest moments of childhood watching Hong Kong and Taiwan films. My mother also liked to discuss with me about who was the most beautiful woman in Chinese cinema at the time: she preferred Zhen Zhen, I obviously didn’t like Brigitte Lin, favoring the other “Lin”, her rival Joan Lin.

The ‘Two Lins’ and ‘Two Chins’ (Brigitte Lin, Joan Lin, Chin Han and Charlie Chin) were the superstars with the highest commercial value in Chinese language cinema after Alan Tang and Zhen Zhen. I ‘preferred’ Joan Lin, not only for that ‘old duel’ with Brigitte but also because of the different screen image that the two conveyed. Just as our friends in Hong Kong discussed rivalry and friendship between Josephine Siao and Connie Chan, Joan Lin’s grace won my heart more than the rebellious modernity of Brigitte in Chiung Yao’s films.

Especially in the late 70s, with the release of several films by director Li Hsing, I came to know the Joan Lin that I came to adore. In the role of the infatuated Wu Jizhao who, in the pouring rain, goes looking for Zheng Fengxi in a stormy night in He Never Gives Up (1978); in The Story of a Small Town (1979), where she plays A Xiu, a mute girl who expresses her feelings with sign language; in My Native Land (1980) she is Zhong Pingmei, hunted by forest police for stealing the wood she needs for her family. In short, she embodied the ideal feminine model I had in mind when I was young. This is why many years later when I happened to watch the underrated Ask My Love from God (1978) by Sung Tsun-shou, I was literally terrified by that ‘dark side’ that had been hidden for so many years behind her “good girl” appearance.

Brigitte Lin is just different; she’s so beautiful that she does not even need to pretend. In the history of Chinese filmmaking, only she could make the two superstars Chin Han and Charlie Chin appear in the same film while acting as supporting roles. Yes, I’m talking about Cloud of Romance (1977). So it turns out that for a woman to fall in love with two completely different men at the same time is not only the privilege of Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (1942)! It’s just that in the latter, set in a period of war, the protagonists all survive, while the fragile characters in Cloud end up dead, crazy or lonely. Well, at least they reached that Chiung Yao-style climax with an out-of-the-line ending and the performers becoming gods!

The extreme nature of Chiung Yao’s novels (films) made Brigitte Lin fall in love with her pupil’s father in The Misty Moon (1978), and even fall in love (intentionally or not) with two brothers at the same time in A Love Seed (1979) and The Wild Goose on the Wing (1979). However, both in the novels and on the big screen, screenwriters always managed to deceive us with those happy endings that made everyone content, while I didn’t buy that idealized love, and I was just fascinated by Feng Fei-fei’s soundtracks. In her films, Brigitte Lin occasionally flirted with Chin Han, some other times she paired with Charlie Chin, while in the real world there was endless gossip on their love triangle, which ended only when Brigitte fled to the United States to ‘find herself.’ However, these events never hit me as much as Joan Lin’s farewell for the sake of Jackie Chan.

Sylvia Chang and Loretta Yang vs. Brigitte Lin

Brigitte Lin’s leaving was not just an escape from tabloid journalism; it also saved her from changes in Taiwan’s film trends. She was not involved in the ‘female revenge films’ craze erroneously called ‘social realism;’ instead, she was twice rewarded for Magnificent 72 (1980) and The Switch (1982), belonging to two completely different genres. More importantly, this paved the way for her collaboration with Hong Kong filmmakers. In 1977 she had acted in Li Han-hsiang’s The Dream of the Red Chamber, but that was just a brief experience (though prefiguring endless future possibilities), not comparable to her subsequent collaborations with Patrick Tam (Love Massacre, 1981), Tsui Hark (Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, 1983), Ringo Lam (The Other Side of Gentleman, 1984) and Jackie Chan (Police Story, 1985). Because it was not only a farewell to the Taiwanese film scene, but also marked the end of her initial image and the transition to experimental, thriller, wuxia, fantasy, comedy and adventure cinema.

However, at that time I was fond of Loretta Yang, with an admiration for Sylvia Chang, and not for Brigitte Lin. This was because my biggest interest was Taiwan’s new cinema.

Among the old divas, probably only Sylvia Chang was able to transform herself so realistically into the office clerk in In Our Time (1982), or to face the challenge of That Day, on the Beach (1983), playing the junior high school student and the mature woman without apparent effort. Not to mention her becoming a producer, bringing up a new generation of directors with the TV series Eleven Women, and determining the success of Edward Yang and Christopher Doyle thanks to her company, Taiwan Xinyicheng. Eventually, she was also a writer and director, for example with a masterpiece like Passion (1986).

Although we are talking about celebrities, of acting, my eyes were also bewitched by the Loretta Yang’s fascinating hands in Jade Love (1984). With those hands, she washed her master’s face, threw away his white hair and then tried to get it back from the fire, and finally pushed a blade into her beloved’s chest. See, I was precisely looking for that width of acting in a star (actor) during that period of my life as a film critic. In the mid-80s, for me, the synonym of diva was just Loretta Yang. Kuei-mei, a Woman (1985) with its persuasive force given by the actress gaining weight, then This Love of Mine (1986), with its nihilism dictated by the disillusionment of the middle class... in a very few years and just three films (all directed by Chang Yi), she reached an unsurmountable artistic peak.

Idol of the masses vs. Cinema icon

Only later did I notice that impulsive and free-spirited Brigitte Lin in Peking Opera Blues (1986) by Tsui Hark, and then in Starry Is the Night by Ann Hui (1988). Without the use of makeup, with a simple change of hairstyle and her acting skill, she played two different stages (18 and 40) of a woman’s life. Suddenly I realized how this actress, whom I had always seen in ‘opposition’ to my idols at various stages of life, was actually an unshakable pillar of cinema art!

Written by San Mao and directed by Yim Ho, Red Dust (1990) seems to be tailor-made for Brigitte. Thanks to the rigorous structure and technical support, the beauty and skill of this woman that I loved/hated so much gave her a completely new look, and the proof (if you ever needed one) was her victory in the Golden Horse Awards. With this success, even the theatrical and cinematographic representation of Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring (1992) was obviously a triumph, a great return to her native place. The most interesting thing is that in an era when every great star had their dubbing actor, we rarely heard their original voice (unless they appeared on TV), and I think that Secret Love was the first time in life when I heard Brigitte’s true voice. Seeing the diva performing in the Taipei National Theater was truly an unforgettable experience.

Red Dust is the proof of Brigitte Lin’s acting skills, but Swordsman II (1992) was what made her become a real icon. Actually, her reputation from the 70s was enough to guarantee her a place in cinema heaven. The character of Dongfang Bubai (Asia the Invincible) castrates himself with a knife to train his martial arts according to the Sunflower Manual: whether you consider him masculine-gifted or not, it is indisputable that ‘he’ falls in love with Linghu Chong. However, this character is played by Brigitte Lin. ‘He’ can also be a ‘she,’ and this is enough to accommodate projections of various sexual types and orientations. It is the queerest but also the most extraordinary image in the history of Chinese language cinema. The ‘beauty’ of Brigitte Lin seems to take on a special meaning here. It is no longer a disguise hiding her acting abilities; it is also a subversive and inclusive power, which is reflected in her eyes so fierce and tender, in each of her brave poses. Who would have thought that the ‘jade girl’ of the 70s could ‘turn male and female upside down’ in the 90s, becoming even a special topic in the introduction to the encyclopedia of gay film Images in the Dark!

Tsui Hark expands the definition and the boundary of Brigitte Lin’s ‘beauty.’ However, Chungking Express (1994) and Ashes of Time (1994) by Wong Kar-wai will uncover the neurotic part of this beauty, throwing Brigitte Lin into an even more chaotic world than the ending of Cloud of Romance, in a condition similar to Blanche DuBois, the leading role in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Symptoms of neurosis in Chungking Express are the ubiquitous pair of sunglasses, raincoat and golden wig. It is interesting to note that when Kaneshiro Takeshi meets Brigitte Lin in the pub and tries to know her in Cantonese, English and Japanese without success, he finally succeeds only with Mandarin Chinese. Here’s how two guys from Taiwan in Hong Kong, a foreign land, find a way to talk and interact. Only in this way will they get rid of the masks and symbols mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph.

Ashes of Time is even more intense. In this Jin Yong-adapted film that has nothing to do with the author, the characters from the ‘central plains’ interpreted by Hongkonghese actors speak in Cantonese dialect, while Brigitte Lin, the princess of the remote kingdom of Yan, speaks standard Chinese (putonghua). In order to leave her house, the woman disguises herself as a man and changes her name from Murong Yin to Murong Yang, a swordsman who raises explosive waves of water on the lake surface with a simple blow. At first glance, it would seem a parody of Swordsman II, while actually it is the tragedy of a person who was never rejected in her life, falling into mental chaos and madness. The empty cage that Brigitte Lin holds in her hand and the perpetually fragmented light on her body clearly illustrate her emptiness and schizophrenia.

Brigitte Lin gives us some very special performances in Ashes of Time. For example, when, in front of the camera, wearing men’s clothes (Murong Yang) she plays the parts of the girl (Murong Yin), and in her alienation she lets out those sincere words that reveal her torment. Being very close to the camera, she has only limited movements from the neck up to convince the audience that she has mistaken Leslie Cheung (Ouyang Feng), standing in the background, for Tony Leung Ka-fai (Huang Yaoshi), pouring into him her own desperation. Just like when Brigitte Lin’s moves at night on Leslie Cheung’s body while she is thinking of another man, this situation is similar to Fallen Angels (1995), where Kaneshiro Takeshi and Michelle Reis are entwined inside the car, but at the same time they are thinking about someone else entirely. When Murong Yin/Murong Yang eventually changes her/his name to Dugu Qiubai (‘Loner Who Seeks Defeat’), he actually is already a torn, destroyed character.

With such a special performance before leaving the big screen, there is no reason to complain. Since 1994, Brigitte Lin has virtually disappeared from theaters, but she was never forgotten by the public, the media and the world of cinema. Her every move was always monitored and analyzed.

I often wonder, what other show-business stars would have the patience to wait until a stubborn viewer like me changed their mind? It takes the personality of someone who dominates the trend without ever being conquered by it. Brigitte Lin had already made a name for herself in Taiwan, but in Hong Kong, she reached new artistic heights and this, together with her transformation from an idol to an icon, has really made her an extremely rare star in the cinematic firmament.

This is not a love/hate relationship, because I actually adore Brigitte Lin!

Translated from original Chinese article in Brigitte Lin, Filmmaker in Focus courtesy of Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.
Translated from Chinese by Francesco Nati.