Best known for her sensual roles in 90s movies, actress Carrie Ng Ka-lai has returned after a 10-year break in the adultery drama Hi, Fidelity. She started out in television before a switch to films in the late 80s and went on to win several awards. Ng's work in the action film City On Fire with Chow Yun-fat won her a best supporting actress nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 1988. In 1993, she bagged the best actress prize at the Golden Horse Film Awards for suspense drama Remains of a Woman, and the best supporting actress prize at the Hong Kong Film Awards with The Kid in 2000. Ng appeared in French directors Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud's erotic thriller Red Nights last year. In Hi, Fidelity, the 48-year-old co-stars with Patricia Ha and Michelle Ye playing tai-tais looking for toy boys in a Shenzhen nightclub. Directed by Calvin Poon Yuen-leung, the film recently premiered at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
We haven't seen you on screen for ages. Where have you been?
I was on the mainland making television dramas. I usually made two drama series a year and had to stay on the mainland most of the time. But after the Sars outbreak in 2003, I returned to Hong Kong and only went to the mainland to make a few television programmes and do some commercial work. Hong Kong actors and actresses who were active in the 80s and 90s are very popular on the mainland.
I didn't aim to reduce my workload. It's just that there aren't many opportunities for actresses like me in Hong Kong - I'm too young to play a mother in movies about young people and there are very few female characters in martial arts movies.
In other countries, the experience and quality of veteran actors and actresses such as Al Pacino and Meryl Streep are valued. They have movies about middle-aged people which are very popular. But that's not the case in Hong Kong. I've had offers but the roles only involved two or three days' filming. In the end, I turned them down because I thought I would not be satisfied playing those roles.
What led you to take on the role in Hi, Fidelity?