«——[·Preface·] ——»
At the beginning of this year, Maggie Cheung, who has been silent for 18 years, suddenly registered a Douyin account and posted some news.
Netizens commented: "The goddess is finally back!" ”
She in the video is low-key and temperamental, and although she has not been a "man god" for many years, you can still see that her every move is still very charming.
However, some people also speculate that the goddess came to bring goods this time?
In 2019, Hong Kong media photographed Maggie Cheung once in the local slum, when Maggie Cheung was leading her dog and visiting some stalls.
Sharp-eyed netizens found that Maggie Cheung was wearing a 19-yuan shirt. For a time, many people talked about it, and some people expressed great sympathy for her.
We are also curious, what exactly did a generation of goddesses go through to end up like this?
The age of naïve idols
Maggie Cheung, a naturally beautiful girl, but also a complete counterculture representative.
This girl from Kent, England, moved to Hong Kong with her family when she was eight years old, and grew up in a free and open family atmosphere, forming the casualness and freedom of her unique personality.
In 1982, Maggie Cheung, who was still an ordinary student, was once taken in by an advertising agency on the streets of Hong Kong and invited her to work as a part-time model.
Originally a naughty and lively character, Maggie Cheung accepted it without thinking about it, and treated work as an entertainment game.
Unexpectedly, as soon as the advertisement was filmed, Maggie Cheung's sweet and touching smiling face instantly attracted countless lights.
She became popular overnight, originally just playing tickets, so she inadvertently entered the entertainment industry.
A year later, Maggie Cheung saw the Miss Hong Kong election advertisement in the newspaper and impulsively signed up for the competition.
She didn't care about this originally serious beauty pageant, and just wanted to find an opportunity to "show" her personal charm on TV.
Unexpectedly, Maggie Cheung won the runner-up and became famous in one fell swoop with only her natural beauty.
After participating in the Miss World contest, Maggie Cheung's popularity was further enhanced, and various film companies flocked to it, making this little Hua Dan with a fresh image quickly become a popular idol.
In the first few years of her acting career, Maggie Cheung still presents her innocent side.
She has no idea about acting, and is arranged by the director to play whichever role she plays, all relying on her appearance to please the audience.
In many light comedy blockbusters such as "The Frog Prince", "Fate", "Police Story" and so on, Maggie Cheung is basically the heroine of the standard love drama "vase", and the only role in the play is to dress up beautifully and attract popularity.
The audience only regards her as a sweet and cute idol, and does not ask a newcomer to have any acting skills.
Although Maggie Cheung's screen image is single and empty, she herself has another side that does not match the image of "vase".
In order to complete difficult actions without a stand-in in action scenes, Maggie Cheung always trained tirelessly, and never pretended to be sick during filming.
In "Police Story" with Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung's professionalism to fight bravely to complete the role task despite her injuries impressed her peers.
The baggage of popular idols did not bind Maggie Cheung's self-pursuit, and she never regarded the entertainment industry as a lifelong career.
Perhaps because of this, Maggie Cheung can usher in the real peak of performance in the future, completing the gorgeous transformation from idol to actor.
Meet Wong Kar-wai and start the road to acting
Maggie Cheung has been in the entertainment industry for many years, and her performance has been stuck in the initial stage of repeatedly shaping the image of "vase".
It was not until "Carmen in Mong Kok" with young director Wong Kar-wai that it became an important turning point in her acting career.
In this urban tragic film set in Mong Kok, Maggie Cheung plays Carmen, a simple girl from a remote village.
She no longer desperately sells cute to please the audience as before, but concentrates on portraying this simple and ill-fated character.
She uses subtle expression changes to bring out the complex emotions in the characters' hearts, and uses her eyes to convey the fragile side of this ordinary girl's attachment and expectation of love.
This is the first time Maggie Cheung has felt the three-dimensionality and depth of the character, and it is also the first time that she realized that the performance should not only stay in superficial external expression, but also require the actor to explore the inner world of the character.
Inspired by Wong Kar-wai, Maggie Cheung found the entry point and method for acting breakthroughs.
She put aside the paradigmatic performance mode accumulated over the years and began to learn to listen to the character's heart and experience every moment of emotion with her heart. The cooperation with Wong Kar-wai opened Maggie Cheung's true acting path.
In the 90s, she began to selectively take on roles that would bring her growth, the most prominent of which was Su Lizhen in Wong Kar-wai's "Chongqing Trilogy".
These three films tell the story of a generation of youthful transformation in the torrent of the times, and Maggie Cheung witnessed the vicissitudes of an era through Su Lizhen's eyes.
From the innocent girl in "A Fei's True Story", to the confused and ignorant young man in "Spring Light", to the cynical middle-aged woman in "In the Mood for Love", the growth and changes of Cheng Dieyi have touched the hearts of countless people.
Maggie Cheung accurately captures the essence and soul of this character with an alternative performance style, and her performance is real and delicate and unconventional, successfully touching the hearts of a generation of audiences.
It can be said that it is here in Wong Kar-wai that Maggie Cheung gradually stepped out of the shell of an idol and grew into a professional and dedicated actor.
She no longer simply relies on external conditions to please the audience, but excavates the connotation of acting skills and interprets the multi-dimensional personality of the characters with heart.
In the successful cooperation between the two for many times, Maggie Cheung's acting skills have been greatly improved, establishing her status in the film industry.
Wong Kar-wai not only opened Maggie Cheung's acting path, but also opened a new era of Chinese films.
Peak: The brilliance of international film queens
After working with Wong Kar-wai, Maggie Cheung gradually stepped out of the limitations of the vase role, and the 1990s was the peak of her acting career.
With her excellent acting skills, Maggie Cheung has won one international film award after another in the past ten years and successfully advanced to the first film queen in Asia.
In 1992, Maggie Cheung won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the 42nd Berlin Film Festival for her wonderful performance in "Ruan Lingyu".
This is the first Chinese actor to win the highest actress honor at the Berlin Film Festival, and Maggie Cheung became brilliant in the international film industry overnight.
In the same year, she won the Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival, becoming the first Asian actress to shine at the "three major European film festivals".
In 1993, Maggie Cheung starred in the literary film "Green Snake" directed by Xu Anhua, she gave full play to her acting skills and flexibly interpreted a charming and eccentric snake spirit into three points.
This breathtaking production brought her the honor of Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
In the same year, she perfectly portrayed a sexy, playful, intelligent and decisive female killer image in Wong Kar-wai's martial arts masterpiece "East Evil and West Poison".
"Green Snake" and "East Evil and West Poison" not only brought Maggie Cheung a breakthrough in performance, but also earned him the reputation of "Kung Fu Actress".
In the following years, she successively picked the main beam in many action films, showing amazing talent for action acting.
Whether it is the black shop owner in "New Dragon Gate Inn" or Yin Shiniang in "Wong Fei Hong", Maggie Cheung can faithfully present the core and charm of the characters, making these tough female characters come to life.
In the 90s, Maggie Cheung took on a wide range of works, and she constantly challenged herself to freely switch between various roles. She knocked on the door of Chinese actors in the world film industry with super high acting demand, and also promoted Chinese films to gain international recognition and attention.
In 2004, Maggie Cheung finally won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival with French director Olivier Assayas' "Clean".
This trophy, the highest honor in the film industry, has drawn the most complete end to her acting career.
The 1990s was the peak of Maggie Cheung's film career, and she used her dedication and passion for acting to write a glorious chapter in the rise of Chinese actors in the world film industry.
She pioneered the international development of Chinese-language films, and proved that excellent film culture can cross regional and linguistic barriers.
Maggie Cheung's brilliance in the world film industry can be called a monument in the century-old history of Chinese film development.
Low-key living: away from the hustle and bustle
Maggie Cheung, after the peak of the film industry, chose a low-key life, away from the hustle and bustle of the entertainment industry.
In 2008, Maggie Cheung officially announced her retirement and shifted her focus to literature, music, painting and other cultural and artistic fields.
Perhaps it was the accumulation of years of high-intensity work, she began to pursue inner peace and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.
In the more than ten years after the film, Maggie Cheung almost disappeared from the entertainment industry and lived a reclusive life.
Even if he occasionally appears in public, he only participates in some close friends' literary and artistic activities, and never gets involved in business cooperation.
In her low-key life, Maggie Cheung re-examined herself and began to try some new possibilities.
I will occasionally return to Hong Kong to gather with old friends and talk freely about life insights. Music and painting became important spice in her life.
Maggie Cheung sometimes learns painting techniques from well-known masters, and she is very pleased to get a little progress and gain.
She would also pick up a guitar and sing softly with her friends, finding the harmony of life in music.
She is also passionate about wellness, focusing on conditioning her body and mind to maintain a positive mental outlook.
In life, she lives very simply, does not waste, does not extravagant, and lives every day in the simplest way.
When she was popular, Maggie Cheung didn't like social networking very much, and now she is more low-key and restrained. Occasionally return to Hong Kong to visit old friends, but other than that, it is basically not in the public eye.
But since registering the Douyin account, we can also see some daily vlogs sent by Maggie Cheung from time to time.
In these videos, we can feel that she is now enjoying this kind of life, although she is unmarried and childless, but she also lives wantonly and freely.
She enjoys such a pure state of life and feels the essence of life in simple daily life.
Maggie Cheung chooses to stay away from the hustle and bustle and live a secluded life, but her inner world is extremely rich, and in this simple daily life, she finds the space to be herself and live a meaningful life.
She interprets what success is in another way, blending into life in a low-key way, and feeling the meaning of existence with her heart.