Director Jingle Ma Chor-shing has explained why he picked Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin and not fellow Twin Gillian Chung Yan-tung, also known as 'Ah Gil', for the lead of his new film Butterfly Lovers.
He said the casting of Choi, also known as 'Ah Sa', had nothing to do with Chung's prominence in the Canto-pop nude-photos scandal.
'As I was creating the character, I was literally thinking of Ah Sa the whole time,' Ma said. 'It was a tailor-made plot for her. Unfortunately, when I approached her about this film project, I was told she could not do it because of her busy work schedule, so Ah Gil was recommended to take up the plot.'
The director said he wanted the lead character to have a boyish appeal and thought Chung would be too 'girly'. He was about to rewrite it to fit Chung but Ah Sa got back to him and said the film would fit her schedule, so the role went back to her, he said.
Choi stars opposite Wu Chun, of Taiwanese boy group Fahrenheit in an adaptation of the folk tragedy Liang Zhu. The most memorable of the many film versions is Li Han-hsiang's 1963 huang mei diao musical The Love Eterne, with Ivy Ling Po and Betty Loh Ti. Filming of Ma's version, which has a martial arts twist, began in Shanghai this week.