'WINSTON Chao made into ground meat by fans of Joan Chen.' Joan Chen Chong giggles like a schoolgirl at the sound of that, a headline she's been toying with to describe one of her recent nights out on the town. Back home in Shanghai to shoot Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan Gum-pan's feature film, Red Rose, White Rose, Chen has been invited everywhere that's anywhere by everyone who's anyone.
'But the other night the whole cast and crew were forced to go to this KTV place [karaoke bar] because the owners were friends with one of the producers,' Chen says, rolling her eyes. When her car rolled up outside this latest bastion of hip on Shanghai's throbbing Nanjing Lu, she realised it wasn't just the cast and crew who were coming that night. There was a giant neon sign flashing the words 'Welcome Joan Chen!!!', which had attracted thousands of screaming fans. The club manager had taken it upon himself to tell the town: 'Joan Chen, beloved hometown girl turned international star, will appear in all her glamorous flesh!' While the police formed a human Great Wall to protect Chen, yelling, 'Move it! Move it now!' as they escorted her inside, they completely neglected her Red Rose, White Rose co-star, Taiwanese actor Winston Chao who, after his starring role in The Wedding Banquet, had his own ego to protect.
Chao finally made it into the club, albeit with perspiration and footprints covering his suit. Chen giggles again at the memory. 'He came up to me and said, 'Thanks a lot, Joan. I was almost trampled to death by your adoring fans'.' Chen is sitting in a coffee shop at the Shanghai Sheraton, where she, Kwan, Chao, Hong Kong actress Veronica Yip Yuk-hing, and the rest of the film crew have been making themselves at home for several months.
She is wearing a pink T-shirt that looks as if it would disintegrate in a strong wind, shapeless, sexless jeans and no suggestion that puff has been put to powder and to face this morning. She looks like a woman who is completely comfortable with her looks and her standing in life, either that or one who's about to run to the corner supermarket.
It's a delicate time to be a China doll, especially when you're at the age when even the finest porcelain begins to chip. In America and, more importantly, in Hollywood, Chen has cultivated an aura around herself by bringing to life some of the most interesting Asian characters of recent American film history; the opium addicted, bisexual empress in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, the babe-with-a-past Josie Packard in David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks, and the black-toothed mama in Oliver Stone's Heaven And Earth.
But Chen has also had to struggle through some terrible roles - like the Cantonese sex slave in Dino De Laurentis' Taipan ('I asked the director, 'do I really have to say aiya! so much?' ') or the Vietnamese prostitute in Stephen Wallace's Turtle Beach who immortalised the line 'Baby wants to f*** you Papa!' ('I don't think I want to work with that director again') or the native American babe in Steven Seagal's On Deadly Ground, an eco-activist who can machine gun an entire town and save the environment at the same time ('I'd rather not talk about that film').
