Hong Kong Film Archive
Tomorrow-Nov 11
More than 150 personal items that belonged to late actress Lin Dai - from hairbrushes to costumes she wore in her films to a love letter - are going on display at the Hong Kong Film Archive tomorrow as part of its new retrospective titled The Legend & the Beauty - The Films of Lin Dai. Also on show is footage of her wedding day that was captured on 16mm film.
'Some of the exhibits would not have been publicly shown before or at least not in the past 40 to 50 years,' says Winnie Fu Wai-yee, the show's curator. 'This show presents items that give a very detailed account of the actress' life between 1961 and 1964, the year she died.'
Lin was a four-time winner of the Asian Film Festival best actress award and her beauty and talent made her one of the most popular stars of her generation. The actress appeared in more than 50 movies but shocked her legions of fans when she committed suicide at the height of her career at the age of 29.
After Lin's death, her husband Lung Shun-shing kept all the furnishings and possessions in their bedroom undisturbed for more than 40 years. After Lung passed away in 2007, their son Lung Tzong-hann decided to donate Lin's personal belongings to the Film Archive.
Fu says the biggest challenge of staging this exhibition is to recreate the bedroom of her Jardine's Lookout flat where most of the exhibits were kept.