‘I hate violence. But audiences love it’, Brigitte Lin, queen of martial arts fantasy films, says in previously unpublished 1993 interview
- An ever-present in Hong Kong fantasy martial arts productions, Lin was an immensely popular actress in the early 1990s, often working on several films at once
- In this interview on the set of The Bride with White Hair 2 in 1993, she talks about her violent on-screen acts, piercing eyes and gay following
The Bride with White Hair (1993), directed by Ronny Yu Yan-tai, shows her in fine form, slicing adversaries in half with a whip and throttling them to death with her long tresses of hair. The film is nominally based on a 1950s wuxia story by Liang Yusheng, and features Lin as a vicious martial artist who has been trained by a malicious cult to wipe out an alliance of local clans.
Problems arise when Lin’s character Lian falls in love with the clans’ master swordsman, played by Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing. When the romance goes wrong, her black hair turns to white, and she goes berserk.
Taiwan-born Lin did not know martial arts, but the veteran actress could pose majestically, and brought two decades of experience playing dramatic roles to the part.
Below is an extract from an interview by this writer on the set of the film’s sequel, The Bride with White Hair 2, in 1993.