How Anita Mui held her own in films with popular male stars like Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow

Anita Mui’s remarkable versatility made her characters captivating to watch in films that co-starred names like Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat

Reading Time:4 minutes

Anita Mui and Stephen Chow in a still from comedy Justice, My Foot!. Mui’s remarkable versatility made her characters captivating to watch. Photo: Celestial Pictures Limited

Published: 4:15pm, 13 Oct 2024

The late Anita Mui Yim-fong was a beloved Hong Kong icon, but she was also a technically accomplished actress. A chameleon on stage, but not in the movies, she consistently brought her own forthright nature to her characters, to good effect.

“She was often convincing and often compelling, yet she was never not herself,” wrote critic Sam Ho. “She was an actress with a strong personality, but she was enigmatic enough to allow directors and the public to project their own imagination on to her.”

Below, we look at Mui’s best performances, listed in chronological order.

1. Behind the Yellow Line (1984, directed by Taylor Wong Tai-loi)

This eminently watchable light romantic drama gave Mui her first notable role, and it won her a Hong Kong Film Award for best supporting actress.

Her performance set the tone for many of the films she did later – she is feisty and full of gumption, and she steals the show from a nerdy Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing and a demure Maggie Cheung Man-yuk.

Mui’s shortish hair and her independent stance were out of the ordinary in dramas back in 1984, and marked her out as an actress who could succeed in unconventional roles.

2. Rouge (1988, dir. Stanley Kwan)

After Behind the Yellow Line, Mui starred in some relatively forgettable films before her dramatic triumph in Rouge, in which she plays Fleur, a ghost from the 1930s trying to find her lover, played by Leslie Cheung, in modern times.