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Winnie Chung

S HE is reportedly the territory's highest paid actress at up to $3.5 million a movie. But Lin Ching-hsia has learned to her cost that the heady world of Hongkong showbiz stardom often goes hand in glove with gangland violence.

  Two weeks ago, two bombs were thrown on to the Fanling film set of The Woman With White Hair in what police believe was an extortion bid.

  It was enough to reinforce Lin's plans to take a break from filming - despite earnings of an estimated $30 million this year - at least until things have quietened down.

  She has also hired a personal driver so she knows the same person will take her home each night. It is a woman because rumours are rife in movieland about the risk of rape late at night.

 It all takes the gloss out of the celluloid world of silver screen stardom pictured in the fan magazines.

  But then, at 38 and enjoying a spectacular second take-off in a career which began 20 years ago, Lin is under few illusions.

  In the past year she almost lost an eye during filming, and was rumoured to have been blacklisted by Taiwanese film-makers. And then there was last month's bombing.

  ''I decided a few months back not to accept any more contracts until I finish those I have in hand.

  ''At the very least, that would take until March next year. I'll take a couple of months off and see what the situation is when I return,'' she said on the set of the big-screen version of the TVB costume-drama, The Demigods and the Demidevils.

  And the bombing?   ''We were filming quite far away when the bomb went off. There was a loud explosion and we were all stunned into silence. We didn't know what had happened. I thought the generator truck - or a gas line - had exploded. Even after we finished filming, all we knew was that there was a large crater in the ground.''   The irony of her recent tribulations is that Lin originally shifted her base to Hongkong from Taiwan in the early 1980s because things were too chaotic there.

  ''The [Taiwanese] film industry was in chaos,'' she said. ''Some of the production companies even employed guards with guns or knives to escort me to locations. If I rejected some of the bad guys' requests, they threatened to give me trouble. It got so bad I didn't want to continue making films.''   Lin said the past two years had seen the situation in Hongkong take a turn for the worse.

  ''I have been more careful and usually make my conditions quite clear before I sign the contract,'' she said.

  To minimise personal risk, Lin has hired a full-time driver to take her to and from shooting since she usually has to return home in the small hours.

  ''Production companies usually hire vans or light buses from independent companies, and it is difficult to know the backgrounds of the people who drive you home every night.

  ''At least with a full-time driver whom I am familiar with, I can rest easier travelling around in the middle of the night.''   Rumours and whispers of celebrity rapes and kidnappings have haunted the industry for years. So, on the advice of her manager, Lin has decided to hire a woman driver.

  ''The driver is there to make sure I get to and from work safely, and not as a bodyguard. So in that respect, hiring a woman is better,'' she said.

  But Lin said she had little to fear from thugs or triads.

  ''As long as I keep to the terms of my contract and do what I have been paid to do, I do not think there is any reason for anyone to come after me.''   Because of the sensitivity of the blacklist issue, her agent said: ''There's no blacklist.''   Hongkong has been good to Lin, although she admits the initial months did dent her self-confidence.

  ''In Taiwan, female roles are often heavier, but in Hongkong most productions place importance on the male roles. I wasn't quite used to it and felt terribly unsure of myself.

  ''Taiwanese film-makers also had a preference for romances, but in Hongkong the market called for comedies and kung fu movies . . . more light-hearted stuff.

  ''Directors thought I looked too noble and elegant, and felt there was a gulf between the audience and I. They wanted me to go for a more common image, but I didn't like those roles.''   Then along came Tsui Hark's Swordsman II, a smash hit last year and one containing a character who broke all the rules but was perfect for Lin.

  She exploded on to the screen as the arrogant but electrifying hermaphrodite character, Invincible East. Ironically, she said, the wider the gulf her character created with the audiences, the more they loved her.

  Although she had long ago gained respect from peers and public, and won a Golden Horse best actress award for Red Dust, the success of Swordsman II still had a remarkable effect.

  ''I knew the show would be successful but I never expected it to be such a runaway hit,'' she said. ''But I was very happy with Swordsman II because it broke through all those barriers.

  ''It showed you didn't have to bring yourself to a lower level to reach the audience. Everyone liked it . . . the young, the old, the smart, gays, straights and even foreigners.'' Last week the film was screened at the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in San Francisco.

I N HONGKONG, Lin found herself in the unlikely role of a new idol. Everywhere she went, people were calling her ''Dong Fong Putt Pai'' (Invincible East) and quoting her lines from the film.

  ''It was fun leading a trend,'' she said. ''Some of the people I met even pretended to be characters from the film!''   But on a more serious note, she said it was her pent-up frustration and anger that helped unleash the fire and fury needed to make the character come alive.

  ''I was going through a really bad patch then, professionally and personally, and it all came out like an eruption.''   Lin almost passed on the chance to play Invincible East. While she knew the role would offer her a challenge, she was not sure if Asian audiences were ready.

  ''It wasn't just being a male impersonator. I've done that before in Dream of the Red Chamber and Peking Opera Blues. There were sexual messages here that I didn't know if audiences were ready to receive.

  ''I mean, here was a hermaphrodite who loved both a man and a woman. I was afraid it would turn people off.''   Swordsman II opened up a new world. Suddenly, she was in demand as a kung fu star.

  ''Before that, martial arts movies and I had very little to do with one another,'' she said.

  She found herself fighting off ''enemies'' in deserted wastelands or woods where previously she was sitting pretty in ''nice air-conditioned restaurants''. She was also inundated with role offers of male impersonators, and accepted two - The Royal Tramp II with Stephen Chiau Sing-chi, and The Proud Twins opposite Andy Lau Tak-wah.

  Lin fears she is being stereotyped and is looking for more feminine roles.

  ''This year I will concentrate on being a woman,'' she said.

  The only thing Swordsman II failed to win her was a best actress award. Despite two nominations (the other was for Dragon Inn ), Lin lost out to Maggie Cheung Man-yuk.

  ''I'm used to not getting awards. They're not that important,'' she said.

 ''Not that I wouldn't like an award. It would be an encouragement. But it makes no difference to the film roles I accept.''   Although she hadn't found the ''perfect role'', the nearest she came was with Red Dust, for which she won her first Golden Horse award.

  ''That was the role I understood most. I was very sure of how the character should be interpreted because the author, San Mao, had explained and demonstrated it to me.''   The film also reunited her on-screen with her long-time beau Chin Han for the first time in a decade. But Lin would not be drawn into discussing her love life.

  ''There was no time for distractions. I was concentrating very intensely on the role I had to play. I had to clear my mind of everything else.''   Lin is not dreaming of international fame, but has an ambition to play a historical figure like the Empress Dowager Wu or Jiang Qing, widow of Mao Zedong.

  Meanwhile, she has to contend with 10 martial arts dramas and two contemporary comedies.

  ''That is the business these days,'' she said. ''To get results, you have to put in a lot of effort and make sacrifices.''   To ''get results'', she almost sacrificed an eye while filming Dragon Inn in Dunhuang, China, when a misdirected spear hit her in the eye.

  Lin is looking forward to her two months' break. ''Come March, all I'll want to do is rest, travel and spend money,'' she said.

  And that may take some time considering this year's work will net about $30 million. Not bad, for a born-again star.



Why I'm taking a break from my $30m career