'촉산' '동사서독' '백발마녀전' '폴리스 스토리' '중경삼림'

중성적 이미지로 인기 절정...1994년 40세에 은퇴  

 

 

대만 출신으로 홍콩 무협영화 '동방불패' '신용문객잔'에서 중성적인 매력으로 한 세대를 풍미했던 여배우 임청하(Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, 林青霞, 70) 영화제가 맨해튼 메트로그라프에서 열린다. 음력 설날을 맞아 1월 18일부터 2월 2일까지 '동사서독' '중경삼림'(이상 감독 왕가위), '촉산'(감독 서극), '폴리스 스토리'(감독 성룡), 그리고 '백발 마녀전'이 상영된다. 

 

1954년 대만에서 태어난 임청하는 1973년 인기작가 경요(瓊瑤) 원작  사랑하는 여고생 역을 맡은 대만 영화 '창외(窓外)'로 데뷔한 후 주로 멜로 드라마에 출연했다. 1980년대 이미지 변신을 위해 홍콩으로 활동 무대를 옮겨 1983년 서극 감독의 무협영화 촉산'에서 정소추, 원표, 홍금보 등과 함께 출연했으며, 1985년 숏커트 헤어 스타일로 성룡(재키 찬)과 공연한 '폴리스 스토리'에 등장했다.  '도마단'(1986)에서 남장여인으로 출연한 후 38세에 서극/정소동 감독의 '동방불패'(1992)에서 중성적인 매력으로 카리스마를 발산하며 인기 절정에 올랐다. 

 

 

동방불패 Swordman 2, 1991

 

이어 양가휘, 장만옥과 공연한 '신용문객잔', 왕조현과 콤비를 이룬 '동방불패 2', 장국영과 호흡을 맞춘  '백발마녀전'까지 크게 성공하며 한국에서도 폭발적인 인기를 누렸다. 1994년 왕가위 감독의 무협물 '동사서독'에서 1인 2역을 맡고, '중경삼림'에서 금발의 킬러 역을 마지막으로 1994년 40세, 결혼과 함께 영화계에서 은퇴했다. https://metrograph.com

 

*'황비홍' '동방불패' '소호강호'...  ‘아시안 스필버그’ 서극 (Tsui Hark) 감독 인터뷰, 2011

https://www.nyculturebeat.com/index.php?mid=People2&document_srl=4058250

 

*'그랜드마스터(일대종사)' 왕가위, 양조위, 장쯔이 인터뷰, 2013

https://www.nyculturebeat.com/index.php?mid=Film2&document_srl=2899040

 

BRIGITTE LIN ON SCREEN

 

Beginning January 18

Metrograph In Theater

 

Metrograph Celebrates the Icon of Chinese Language Cinema with Five Film Showcase Just in Time for the Lunar New Year

 

Metrograph presents Brigitte Lin on Screen, a program of cinematic delights from the decades-long career of the iconic on-screen presence, beginning January 18 at Metrograph In Theater. 

 

Born in Taiwan in 1954, Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia was still in her teens when she established herself as one of the most in-demand actors in her country’s popular cinema during the 1970s, eventually bringing the Hong Kong industry calling. Known especially for her steely eyed intensity and androgynous, gender-bending roles—of which her portrayal of a brother/sister duo in Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time is but one example—Lin’s adventurous career, celebrated in this series, encompasses romantic melodrama, wuxia epics, supernatural fantasies, and more; and just in time for the Lunar New Year we’ll be screening highlights from an incredible body of work that includes crucial collaborations with directors Wong, Jackie Chan, Tsui Hark, and Ronny Yu.

 

Brigitte Lin on Screen runs from January 18 to February 2, with select encore screenings to follow.

 

Titles include Ashes of Time Redux, The Bride with White Hair, Chungking Express, Police Story, and Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain. 

 

동사서독 ASHES OF TIME REDUX

dir. 왕가위 Wong Kar-wai, 2008, 94 min, 35mm

 

The cream of Hong Kong/Taiwanese screen acting, including Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and Leslie Cheung, unite in this otherworldly, elliptical, impressionistic, and entirely intoxicating arthouse wuxia, shot on location (with great difficulty) in the remote Gobi Desert. Prompted by a necessary undertaking to preserve the original 1994 film’s surviving elements, Ashes of Time Redux is not merely a restoration but a stunning re-orchestration of Wong’s sweeping wuxia epic, creating an even more intensified expression of the director’s singular sense of cinematic construction.

 

 

백발마녀전 THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR

dir. Ronny Yu, 1993, 92 min, DCP

Hell hath no fury like Brigitte Lin scorned in this high watermark of the early ’90s wuxia revival, in which Cheung’s swordsman goes gaga for Lin while battling a nefarious cult led by conjoined twins, only for the two to separate over a misunderstanding, causing the bereaved Lin to turn into an ivory-tressed killer with a mania for revenge. An exuberant, kinetic, and dazzlingly daffy work of pop moviemaking from veteran director Yu which played to packed Hong Kong cinemas in the summer of ’93.

 

 

중경삼림 CHUNGKING EXPRESS

dir. 왕가위 Wong Kar-wai, 1994, 102 min, DCP

 

A hotshot to the heart, Wong’s blissful, woozily seductive pop masterpiece tells the stories of two lovelorn cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung) and the women who evade and baffle them (Brigitte Lin and Faye Wong, the former playing a blonde-wigged drug smuggler), with a bifurcated structure that’s like the A and B-sides of a 45. Wong’s international breakthrough, shot with a freewheeling, run-and-gun sensibility by DP Christopher Doyle, introduced audiences around the globe to a rich, sensorial brand of filmmaking to disappear into, sink into, and live inside a voluptuary cinematic universe bigger and brighter than our own, where romantic yearning grows to majestic stature.

 

폴리스 스토리 POLICE STORY

dir. 성룡 Jackie Chan, 1985, 100 min, DCP

 

A bone-cracking landmark in Hong Kong beat-’em-up action, Police Story stars director Jackie Chan as Ka-kui/Kevin, an inspector assigned to protect a key witness in a drug case, Selina (Brigitte Lin, nominated for Best Actress at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards), from the agents of her nefarious former employer, a task which will require him to dangle from a speeding bus by umbrella, go through (conservative estimate) one billion plate glass windows in the film’s department store finale, and maintain the affections of his fickle girlfriend, May (Maggie Cheung). Chan never looked better as a full-body performer, while Lin, doing her own stunts with gusto, throws herself into the action with little regard for life and limb.

 

 

촉산 ZU: WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

dir. 서극 Tsui Hark, 1983, 98 min, DCP

 

Blood Demons, psychedelic lighting, cutting-edge special effects courtesy imported Hollywood technicians, head-lopping flying swords, physics-defying wire stunts, two Sammo Hungs, and Lin a vision of frigid majesty as an imperious Ice Queen—Hark’s brazen, eye-popping Tang Dynasty-set action-fantasy bonanza has a little bit of everything, and was one of the first wuxia to make a splash on the other side of the Pacific, an admitted influence on John Carpenter’s Hong Kong action-indebted Big Trouble in Little China (1986). The baroquely intricate plot involves a mystic mission into the mountains of Western China in search of legendary twin swords, while Hark himself is on a mission to see how much gonzo action he can fit into a single movie—one that’s breezily accomplished.

 

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New York City, NY 10002

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