JULIE Riva, the little rich girl who just happens to make steamy sex films, is back in the news again.
Riva, whose career turned distinctly cold after the bizarre drug-related death of her estranged husband in late 1993, has finally completed her pet project: a film she is billing as the first sex feature produced by a local mainstream actress and targeted at the international market.
Under the guidance of heavy-hitting producer Chua Lam and the Golden Harvest film company, Riva wrote, directed, produced and starred in the film which she says makes Nagisa Oshima's classic In The Realm Of The Senses look like The Way We Were. Chua even came up with the English title Trilogy Of Lust for the film which has yet to be distributed.
'The film does have a story to tell,' Riva says. 'It's about a social phenomenon that few people are aware of. It's the story of how some Hong Kong men buy wives from China, get them to Hong Kong by any method, and then just abuse them like a piece of furniture. In the film, the wife takes comfort in a young lover. It's an adulterous affair that ends in tragedy.' Riva, whose late father was a KMB director and left her well off, has - to say the least - lived a colourful life. A rebellious child, she was sent overseas and ended up in New York where she developed her own cabaret act. During a Hong Kong holiday, she got involved in Category III movies and took to the skin trade like a duck to wet leather. She's not in it for the money: her art collection is worth millions and she has apartments in Hong Kong and Manhattan.
Her mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease and needs round-the-clock attention from Riva and a nurse.
Frank Gonzalez, who committed suicide in a Kowloon Hotel room, was her second husband. Although she was pictured grieving in local papers at the time, she recently said of Gonzalez: 'He was a neurotic, and I don't feel sorry for him.' Riva has since married again, to a German picture frame manufacturer with business interests in Hong Kong and China. She will not disclose his name but says he encourages her in her work.