HK Cinema - 1935
Ruan Lingyu was called the Chinese Garbo and was
one of the great stars of their silent films. She has continued to fascinate
Chinese audiences to the present. Her life was perhaps too unorthodox
for those days and she was on the receiving end of a great deal of malicious
gossip from the newspapers. Unhappy with all of this, she took her life
leaving a note stating “words of people are fearful”. She was 24 years
old. On the day of her funeral, three women killed themselves, their
suicide note reading: "If Ruan Lingyu is dead, what else is there to live
for?".
In 1991 Stanley Kwan directed the film Actress
with Maggie Cheung that depicts the life of this great star. The film is
a mix of clips of her films, interviews and Maggie recreating moments of
her life.
