My 10 favourite Anita Mui film roles

The Cantopop superstar Anita Mui passed away from cancer exactly ten years ago.

I remember what I did ten years ago when I heard of the news. It was morning, my family and I were heading off to Singapore for vacation. Her death cast a pall upon my heart, that day, on the road to Singapore, the songs of Anita Mui constantly played on radio.

While I grew up listening to her songs (Bad Girl, with the memorable "Why, why, tell me why" lyrics, was a childhood favourite) and had even attended one of her concerts in Singapore, I knew Anita Mui more as an actress who starred in many great Hong Kong film classics.

It's been a decade since her passing. I will sift through my own memories and list out ten of my favourite Anita Mui films (or film roles), from earliest to latest.

My Hou Hsiao-Hsien marathon

I'm ashamed to admit that prior to the beginning of this month, I have only seen two Hou Hsiao-Hsien films, and both are his latter day works: MILLENNIUM MAMBO (2001) and CAFE LUMIERE (2003).

Every time I watch MILLENNIUM MAMBO's opening, my heart flutters.


In order to rectify my lack of knowledge regarding Hou Hsiao-Hsien's body of work (and also for filmmaking reasons), I decided to go on a Hou Hsiao-Hsien marathon of sorts. I have heard that his best works are the ones from the 80s to 90s, those were times when he was more interested in making films related to Taiwan's history.

An essay I wrote at the age of 10 made me seem like a closet psychopath

A friend back in primary school managed to dig out a book of collected student essays. Turned out that my autobiographical piece was in it.

Lav Diaz's 6-hour film, CENTURY OF BIRTHING (2011)

For the past few years, I have always wanted to catch a film by the Filipino director Lav Diaz. Most of his films are longer than four hours (his longest being close to 10 hours), yet he is prolific to make at least a film a year. How is that even possible???

Finished the principal photography on Woo Ming Jin's SECOND LIFE OF THIEVES

After 14 gruelling days, we're finally done with Ming Jin's SECOND LIFE OF THIEVES shoot. For me, the strange about film shoots is that they always seem longer than they really are. It's not because they are miserable so time seems to flow very slowly, it's just that so many things happen in one day that when everything is over, you realize you've gone through a range of emotions that you usually would go through in a longer span of time.

More misadventures on the set of Woo Ming Jin's new film SECOND LIFE OF THIEVES

Here's a photo by our Art Director Gabby, which showed actress Emily practising her slapping moves on Ming Jin and I. Epic. That was the 7th of November.

Post by Edmund Yeo.

Woo Ming Jin's SECOND LIFE OF THIEVES begins principal photography

SECOND LIFE OF THIEVES is Woo Ming Jin's latest feature film that I'm producing, co-writing and (probably) editing. We have been shooting the film since Nov 4.

This marks Ming Jin's first independently-financed project since 2010's THE TIGER FACTORY (between this period of time, he also did commercial fares like the found-footage horror SERU, this year's hit zombie film KL ZOMBI and the upcoming MAMAK CUPCAKE)

An epic film that spans more than 30 years, SECOND LIFE OF THIEVES is about a village head trying to investigate a series of mysterious deaths in his village while dealing with his catatonic daughter, and remnants of feelings from a passionate affair during his youth.