Four-time Best Supporting Actress Golden Horse award winner dies

TAIPEI - Four time Best Supporting Actress Golden Horse award winner Wang Lai died last Wednesday, aged 89, Apple Daily reported.

Hong Kong film-maker Kam Kwok Leung announced her death on Weibo yesterday with a photo of the veteran actress and also said her funeral will be on Monday in Hong Kong.

Moviegoers will remember Wang, whose Golden Horse record has remained unbroken, in Lee Ang's directorial debut 1992 Pushing Hands.

She played the widow Mrs Chen, who was befriended by the protagonist (Lung Sihung), in Lee's tale about social alienation within the family.

Born Wang Delan in Bejing, Wang moved to Hong Kong in the 1950s, where she acted in films by Shaw Brothers and other film companies such as the musical comedy Spring Is In The Air (1954) opposite the late Lin Dai.

She was a recognisable face in much of Chinese cinema, acting in hundreds of movies in nearly 50 years and working with top directors such as Yan Jun, Doe Chin and Lee Han-hsiang.

She became known for her character roles, playing parts as diverse as a mother, an abandoned wife, a brothel owner or a colleague, and earning the nickname "Actress of a thousand faces".

She won her Golden Horse awards for Father And Son (1963), Unsinkable Miss Calabash (1981), People Between Two China (1988) and Pushing Hands.

For the latter two movies, however, she felt that the roles were more deserving of Best Actress nominations and had to be persuaded before she was willing to accept the awards.

Citing health reasons, she emigrated to Canada in 1992.

This article was first published on Oct 6, 2016.
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