In 2000, Wai Ying-hung turned her back on show business to open an aromatherapy boutique, seemingly an odd career move for someone who made her name as Hong Kong's premier action heroine in the 1980s. But Wai remains one of the local film industry's most recognisable faces.
'I couldn't stand the fact that I was hitting my 40s,' says Wai. 'I couldn't stand the fact that all the screenplays I received had me down as a mother or the elder sister of the leading character, rather than the lead character.
'It's something I just couldn't get my head around, so I spent three years dividing my time between my company, greeting people who would go, 'Oh, you're that Wai Ying-hung' - and playing mahjong with my friends.'
Wai has since sold her businesses after coming to terms with getting older and today her acting career is back on track. She's now thriving in the very roles that forced her into 'retirement'.
Wai has played matriarchs in Shock Corridor, Jiang Hu and A Chinese Tall Story, and motherly figures in a string of successful serials she has done for TVB in recent years (such as Beyond the Realm of Conscience, the Tang dynasty-set royal court drama being screened on TVB Jade now).
'You have to know your own station,' she says. 'Yes, I was once a top-billed actress whose films always sold, but there's a time when you need to give your place up. It's an inevitable rule in this business and it doesn't really mean you've regressed. It's just that I now do something else.'
