At the age of four, many little girls start kindergarten. But for Fung Bo Bo, the 'Shirley Temple of Hong Kong', turning four marked the beginning of an acting career that spanned a half century and more than 100 movies.
The daughter of the famous actor Fung Fung made her debut in the movie Du Zhang Fu ('Drug-Addicted Husband') in 1958 and quickly became an extraordinarily popular child actress who could carry a movie. At one point in the 1960s she was starring in four films playing at the same time, with at least one showing in virtually every cinema in Hong Kong.
Later, at the age of 16, she went to Britain to study interior design for six years. But she found acting more financially rewarding and returned to it in 1986, playing a variety of roles from a modern Hong Kong housewife in Eight Happiness to Tang dynasty empress Wu Zetian in a famous TV drama. She has starred in more than 100 movies and more than 1,000 hours of TV shows - in comedies, musicals, martial arts roles, historical dramas and love stories. She was twice named best supporting actress at the Hong Kong Academy Awards and in 1989 was voted ATV's most popular female star for her role as Empress Wu.
Fung, who turned 54 this month, divides her time between Hong Kong and Malaysia with her second husband - who is Malaysian Chinese - and their combined family of two sons, two daughters and five grandchildren.
Q. How much did you earn from your first movie?
A. I was paid a daily rate of HK$30. It was good at the time, considering 30 cents got you a bottle of Coke, HK$2 could buy enough rice for a whole family for a month, and HK$300 could buy a tael of gold. With HK$10,000, you could purchase a 1,000 sq ft apartment. By the time I was seven, I was earning enough money to pay tax.