19-11-21
What makes a superstar? The answer is hungry. Most people are hungry, but not hungry enough. Superstars, first and foremost, are self-driven with Lorentz force to succeed. They are assertive and aggressive. Hard work and sacrifice run in the blood.
A superstar is born with natural charms. He or she has the unconquerable stealth to captivate others by connecting emotionally.
We are drawn to superstars. We cannot get enough of them. For the superstars in Hong Kong, there were 2, Leslie Cheung (張國榮) who died in April 2003 and Anita Mui (梅艷芳) who also died in December of the same year, that we are never able to pinpoint what single aspect making them so powerfully enthralling, but they spiritually stay with us forever.
Leslie and Anita were overwhelmingly popular in Asia in the 80s. They were good friends and often together. They sang and acted like inborn teammates surreptitiously admiring each other. One should not miss their best film made in 1988 called Rouge (胭脂扣) in which a handsome rich young man and a mesmerizing girl prostitute fell in love but as they stood against the world, suicide became the sad option for them. Leslie got a very good boyfriend but for some reason that nobody could explain, he jumped down from a hotel at the age of 46. Contrastingly, Anita wanted love despairingly but she could get none. She died alone of cervical cancer at the age of 40. Life is a situation in which there is a weird force of nature that we cannot run away.
Anita (梅艷芳) is a 2021 Hong Kong biographical film about this Cantopop superstar Anita Mui directed by my junior schoolmate of Ying Wa College Longman Leung, telling in fine details her heart-rending life from childhood until her last moments. The film features an ensemble cast inclusive of Louis Koo and Gordon Lam in supporting roles. Production of the biopic started as early as in 2010s when Bill Kong, president of Edko Films, bravely decided to invest in this unusual project to commemorate his unforgettable friend Mui’s eventful existence. It took 6 years or more to finish such an intensively charming historical figure’s drama. Luckily, the film has nabbed the top spot at the Asian box office. Longman told me, “Pain is the first path to accomplishing. To make such a nostalgic film, years of research had to be spent on the fact-finding of stories, characters, costume, makeup, props, music and street scenes. Oh, my god!”
Not having a husband, Anita’s mother, who was an entertainment manager, took the 4-year-old Anita and her elder sister to sing in a local amusement park called Lai Yuen in the 1960s. Anita received no formal education. A long succession of boring days and nights of singing made her nobody. In 1982, when Anita was 18, she won a TV singing contest organized by the biggest station HKTVB because of her exceptionally attractive performance. She got an adorable voice which is low-pitched, unisex, dramatic and confident, and soon became a delight in the sweeping speed of 2 years that people in Hong Kong were in awe of. She was the Asia’s counterpart of Madonna enjoying the same degree of popularity. She honestly admitted that the need for a personable and greater man was like a fire that she could not put out. Pitiably, she was defeated by love, either due to being mismatched or bad timing, again, again and again…. All her love stories, together with supporting juicy photos, were talks of the town.
Her region-wide story is her secret date with the top singer in Japan Masahiko Kondo(近藤真彦) around 1984 and Masahiko did turn up in Anita’s funeral to bid farewell in 2004. The other piece of news which was hot off the press was her quarrel with a man of mysterious background and the incident deteriorated into the mysterious murder of 2 men apparently involved in it. This unhappy conflict fatalistically marks her gravity gradually downslope in the singing career. Anita thus switched to devote more time to serving the community and performing industries as a volunteer. She was the Chairman of Hong Kong Performing Artistes Guild.
I had been the Honourary Legal Advisor of the Guild for many years ago and so worked with Anita. She talked about business slowly and softly. She fixed her eyes on yours firmly and never wavered her belief. She celebrated many evening parties in her huge house but I, of course, was not adequately good to be invited.
It was said that the most important tool that one has in his entire arsenal is integrity. In matters of principle, Anita Mui always stood like a rock. Her natural leadership is the charisma of getting all of us to do good things that she wanted done. I really would like to tell you more about Anita but I do need a long memory. Thanks to the touching movie Anita for reminding me of beautiful things that I missed out and took up such memories with the present Hong Kong. Alas, Hong Kong is not the same anymore; but I love being in a city with good weather.
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