Kelly Chan in "Lost and Found"

Kelly Chan Wai-Lam was the perfect actress to play Lam, the lead in Lost and Found and it was the perfect movie for an actress of her looks, talent and emotional range. Lost and Found hits the audience with successive waves of pathos and bathos, each more fierce than the last, demanding that we succumb to its "Love means never having to say you are an actress" gestalt. Which is not to say it is a bad movie--it is a very good three handkerchief weeper that charts the life and loves of a sublimely lovely woman who is stricken with cancer and who gets more beautiful as the disease progresses. Add the gorgeous Kaneshiro Takeshi fighting back tears, a child bravely mourning her mother and an all but homeless (although still cute, clean and funny) family of kids trying to stay together and only the hardest heart will keep from breaking.

Kelly Chan's narrow emotional compass and lack of connection with the other actors in the movie serve her well. Lam would be present physically to her friends and family but her mind/soul/spirit is busy as a subject of the Kingdom of Cancer so Chan's lack of affect is exactly what is called for.

First and most importantly she plays a person dying in the hospital:

Still dying and not happy about it:

And dying some more:

But it isn't all wasting away against the dark peach sheets of the hospital. What she does best as a ravishingly beautiful performer is simply look at the camera:

But part of shooting a movie with Kelly Chan is to make sure she varies her expression to the extent she can, something which director Lee Chi-Ngai didn't do. Here she is with Kaneshiro Takeshi. He looks shocked and surprised while she looks like she (almost) always does:

There is a shot of her eavesdropping on a tragic phone conversation:

And another of her on the craggy, wind-swept highlands of Scotland where she has gone in search of what she thinks is her true love (but we know it isn't, since it is Michael Wong):

In case the audience hasn't surrendered after watching Kaneshiro Takeshi stay dewy-eyed and noble for the entire movie (he has eyes that rival Bambi's for expressiveness) Lee, who wrote and produced Lost and Found as well as directing it, brings out the biggest of big guns at the end. Lam, still as exquisite and inexpressive as she was when she was alive, gets to observe her own funeral and see how her life and death have brought together those who knew her:

What works best, though, is exactly why this movie was cast the way it was--the face that may not have launched a thousand ships but has sold a lot of tickets:

Gossip, Hong Kong style

One of the many distractions and drawbacks of making one's living in public is the constant drumfire of gossip that is part of the price of fame. Young female entertainers--singeres and actresses--seem to be particular targets and the gossip items themselves don't have to be true or even credible. This was made clear in a story from the United Kingdom that reported on how easy it is to dupe the tabloids there into running false stories. Chris Atkins, working on a film, simply called the newspapers with outrageous (and outragously false) stories, ones that could be fact checked and disproven with one or two phone calls. No calls were made, most the stories were run the next day. Some of the embarrassing details are here. The subjects of the published gossip aren't always victims, of course. Some court the gossip rags, some have publicists who alert websites like PerezHilton or TMZ of the comings and goings of their clients. But much of it can be vicious, hurtful and dangerous.

The gossip surrounding film and singing stars in the Chinese press, particularly Hong Kong and Singapore has a different texture and tone than what one might be familiar with from the United States. I was thinking of this upon seeing that Kelly Chen's son, Chace, met the press for the first time. It was covered, as is everything of note to fans of Hong Kong movies (and Chinese movies generally) by Dennis Lee in his invaluable blog. The Hong Kong celebrity press--not sure if one should call it the "gutter" press--abetted by outlets in Singapore and elsewhere decided to cover the happy news of the birth of Chace by speculating that he was not her son but that a surrogate had given birth to him and that Kelly and her husband, Alex Lau, had gone to the hospital only to pick up the infant. Some of the stories or accounts of them are here and here (this forum post refers to and paraphrases a story from Yahoo! Singapore that is no longer available).

To a western observer--or at least this one--unsourced (or based on the speculation of the ubiquitous "netizens") and fantastic stories concerning the birth of a child is what might be found in the scummiest of supermarket tabloids. In this case the story ran in CRIEnglish, the English language web portal for CRI, which, according to its website, "is the only overseas broadcaster in the People's Republic of China. CRI was founded on December 3, 1941 and is owned and operated by the state." One assumes they had more important issues to report in 1941.

The venue may be the main difference between Chinese celebrity gossip and that in the USA--here it can be more easily dismissed if it shows up in "The New York Post" or Perez Hilton while in China, because of the scarcity of outlets for any type of reporting, it appears on a state owned and controlled website. Clearly this doesn't make it any more real but it may have more credibility due to its placement.

Fortunately the Chinese media also reports the silly ephemera that should be the stock in trade of the gossip business--a lovely example is the brief but intense outcry over Rachel Kum, currently serving her island nation as Miss Universe Singapore, 2009. It began with a story disputing her reported bust size after she won the title. According to this report her measurements might not have done in "accordance with international standards". What might be more shocking is that anyone would believe that such standards exist. But at least it brings things back to where they belong in the scurrilous world of peeping at the famous and infamous--discussing the breasts of attractive young women who are happy to have them discussed (and seen) by as many people as possible.

Rachel's story continued for a few months until she was threatened with the loss of her tiara and sash since "sexy" pictures of her had surfaced. They were less sexy than stupid but that is in the eye of the beholder. Behold a story with some of the sexy/stupid pictures here. Everyone wins: Miss Kum gets a lot more press than she would have as just the current Miss Universe Singapore; the diva-starved masses get another scandal to contemplate; I get to post a few pictures of Rachel Kum--although not the sexy/scandalous/stupid ones, of which there is no shortage on the web. You know you have found them when you run across and image of a young woman doing something with a penis shaped birthday cake.

Rachel Kum, Miss Universe Singapore, 2009, posing with a fresh-faced Miss Philipines, a "who ya lookin' at" Miss Russia and a suspiciously bright eyed Miss Unknown, her identifying sash not visible.

Another generic but still lovely shot.

And because this post started with Kelly Chen and because this is one of the most striking and insanely sexy photographs I have ever seen of anyone, here is Kelly Chen picking up some pocket money modeling lingerie for Triumph.

One more:

Kelly Chan

Could Kelly Chan Wai-Lam get any more beautiful? That didn’t seem possible based on her movies. However at a recent public appearance on Valentine’s Day at the time of the announcement that she is three months pregnant she now looks even more devastating. Like many Hong Kong actresses she is also a singer--each career complementing the other.

Kelly Chan isn't asked to do much more than look beautiful and move gracefully--and occasionally to be awkward in a graceful way. She hits her mark and says her lines. She has looked fetching but not very threatening as a command officer in the Hong Kong Police Force ("Breaking News"), unhappy but not quite heartbroken as a bride left at the altar ("Tokyo Raiders"--top picture) and constantly annoyed when her life is disrupted ("Lavender"--second picture). With Kaneshiro Takeshi as her co-star in "Lavender" the comeliness quotient was extremely high so any actual acting was a bonus. There is nothing at all wrong with this--gorgeous women will always have an honored place in the movies in (almost) any language and culture, particularly if, like Kelly, they bring the star power of a successful music career with them.

In her recent Valentine's Day appearance she is dazzling--confident, in control, bringing glamour to what looks like a run of the mill promotion. The pictures below which depict this very well are from sina.com, the Internet news service of the People's Daily http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/h/p/2009-02-13/16092374867.shtml There is a video with sound that starts automatically several seconds after the page is opened.