Last week, mainland singer/actress Tian Yuan announced on her blog that she had turned down an offer to be the supporting act at German musician Maximilian Hecker's concert in Beijing next month. She says her decision echoes the discontent shown by Chinese at home and abroad at the way in which the western press handled its coverage of Tibet and the disruption of the Olympic torch relay in Paris, London and San Francisco. 'I'm not a politician. I don't know much [about politics]. I'm just doing something by following my instincts,' says the 23-year-old who was in Hong Kong during the weekend to promote Barbara Wong Chun-chun's comedy Happy Funeral, in which she has a top-billing role. 'Some people may think I'm naive. But it's something I genuinely think I should do.' Tian has never considered herself particularly patriotic. Instead, she says she is more like your average apolitical and drifting twentysomething - a persona that's more akin to Kay, the young singer she plays in Happy Funeral, who declines to properly pursue a musical career despite her talent. 'In fact, I'm a person with no particular direction,' says Tian, who nevertheless has two published novels (Zebra Woods and Double Mono). 'I just take whatever opportunities come to me and develop myself step by step.' Tian (right) joined mainland band Hopscotch as a vocalist and lyricist when she was only 16. The band released an English album in 2002 and received encouraging feedback from critics and fans. However, they split up after a contract dispute with their record company. Tian shifted her focus to films, making her acting debut in Yan Yan Mak Yuen-yan's Butterfly. Playing a young singer who falls in love with a married woman (Josie Ho Chiu-yee), Tian was named best new performer at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2005. She was also nominated for the same award at Taiwan's Golden Horses in 2004. Since then, she has acted in a number of independent movies such as Mak's romantic drama August Story and Tang Danian's Young and Clueless, Wang Chao's Luxury Car (which won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar competition at Cannes in 2006), Jia Zhangke's short film, Ten Years, and Shanghai-based young Dutch director David Verbeek's Shanghai Trance. Tian says she still finds it hard to fit into the production of Happy Funeral, despite her experience of Hong Kong filmmaking in Butterfly. 'I'm from a background and culture that is quite different from the rest of the Hong Kong actors. So at the very beginning it was a bit hard to fit in. I also didn't know much about some local stuff,' she says. A sequel to Wong's Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat, Happy Funeral takes up its predecessor's cue by setting its scene among a group of money-minded youngsters sharing a flat in a creaky tenement block. The film's cast reads like a list of Hong Kong's up-and-coming pop stars: there's Cheng Sze-kwan and Luk Wing-kuen from hip hop duo Fama, radio DJs Jim Yan Chi-hong and Donald Tong Kim-hong, singer Elanne Kong Yeuk-lam and actor Law Chung-him. Tian, who will release her first solo album and write another book this year, says she will keep her acting options open by trying different kinds of movies. 'I don't want to set a particular goal for myself because I think it'll just give myself too many restrictions and limit my possibilities,' she says. Happy Funeral opens today
