Wang Anyi hardly seems thrilled by the screen adaptation of her award-winning novel Song of Everlasting Regret.
Asked her opinion on Stanley Kwan Kam-pang's recent big-screen effort, Professor Wang had no praise for the adaptation, named simply Everlasting Regret.
The author merely said that the film, starring Sammi Cheng Sau-man as ill-starred beauty Wang Qiyao, showed Kwan's style, and that details she thought important might not be essential in the director's eyes.
The professor, in Hong Kong for Lingnan University's writers-in-residence programme, insisted she was not unhappy someone had chosen to make a film based on her novel.
She also acknowledged the challenge of transferring the book to the big screen.
'My novels are difficult for adaptation,' said Professor Wang. They were descriptive rather than being full of plot twists.