Screen empress Liu returns in '37'

November 20, 2009 Once the most celebrated actress in China, award-winning Chinese screen legend Liu Xiaoqing will return to film in Hong Kong director Dennis Chen’s drama “37, in a role that rendered her unrecognizable, Liu told the Hollywood Reporter. Famed for portraying strong women on screen and her outspoken self-regard off screen, she was a six-time Hundred Flower/Golden Rooster award winner, and a shrewd businesswoman who appeared on the inaugural Forbes China rich list in 1999.  She has turned to starring in television series in recent years, and has only made one film, “Plastic Flowers” in 2004, after reprising the role of Cixi in “The Last Eunuch” in 1991, opposite frequent collaborator and close friend Jiang Wen, with whom Liu is planning a new project. In “37, Liu’s character took under her wings a mother and daughter from Hong Kong, played by Charlie Young (“Bangkok Dangerous”) and Lin Miaoke, the 10-year-old child performer spotlighted in the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Life on the Mongolian great plains transformed the city dwellers. “It’s a story about a humanist subject, a contrast between the simple lives of the Mongolians and the excess of modern cosmopolitan living. The message in the story and the role appealed to me,” said Liu, who has put her business life to rest and now focuses only on acting.

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