Actress spins concert into drama
By Chen Jie ( China Daily)
Updated: 2004-11-10 08:50

Taiwan actress and singer Rene Liu Ruoying

Taiwan actress and singer Rene Liu Ruoying will give her Beijing concert at the Capital Gymnasium on November 19, following her acclaimed Shanghai debut in March.

Produced by Huahan International Culture Development Co Ltd and Liu's album contracting company Virgin Music, Liu's show will feature dozens of her hits in six parts.

Considering Liu a talented actress as much as a singer, the concert will be much more like a theatrical production with some drama involved, according to Guo Zi, director of the show.

"We will make Liu on stage as she is in life, keeping her usual air of being approachable and sincere," says Guo, who was a famous Taiwan pop song writer and turned concert director some two years ago. He also directed Liu's concert premiere in Taipei a few years ago.

The six sets include: Place Where Dreams Start; Falling in Love Upstairs; Reminiscing Downstairs; Songs of an Actress; 20, 30, 40 and One Night in Beijing.

Guo introduced two parts among the six at a press conference in Beijing late last month.

In "Songs of an Actress," Liu will sing songs from her movies and TV series while "One Night in Beijing" will share songs by other singers with the local audience and invite members of the audience on stage to sing with her.

As the two titles of "Falling in Love Upstairs" and "Reminiscing Downstairs" suggest, the stage will be built as a three-floor apartment where Liu leads her daily life.

The part "20, 30, 40" comes from Liu's award-winning movie of the same title directed by well-known Taiwan actress, director and singer Sylvia Chang and starring Chang, Liu and Angelica Lee.

Chang and Lee will also appear in this part of the concert as guest performers.

"20, 30, 40" is the only Chinese entry at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

The film focuses on contemporary women in Taiwan and their complicated lives. The title's three numbers represent the ages of the main characters. In search of happiness and fulfilment, the three stories intertwine with humour, sadness and self-discovery.

Playwright and director Chang plays one of the leads - a 40-something divorcee adjusting to single life again. Liu is a jaded, cynical flight attendant turning 30, and Lee is a naive 20-year-old who dreams of becoming a pop star.

Liu successfully portrays a woman who has many boyfriends but is unsure of what she really wants from love and life.

Born in Taiwan and a student of classical music in California, Liu joined the Taiwan record company Rock Records upon graduation.

After three years as an assistant, she began to launch her own career in popular music in the mid-1990s. But before her first album was released, she was tapped by director Sylvia Chang to appear in the latter's film "Siao Yu."

Liu's performance was so accomplished that she won the Best Actress award at the Asian Pacific Film Festival in 1995, securing her place in the film industry.

Liu followed that with celebrated turns in a series of acclaimed films.

"Murmur of Youth" (Meili Zai Chang'ge, 1997) won her the Best Actress at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 1997 and "Double Vision" (Shuang Tong, 2002) won her the Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2003.

With a remarkably expressive face, Liu always portrays her character well. Taiwan director Chen Kuo-fu, who directed "The Personals" (Zhenghun Mingzi, 1998) calls her "definitely the best actress in Taiwan."

The 34-year-old Liu admitted that she accomplished more as an actress than as a singer. But the mild woman with a normal appearance and voice does have a large number of fans, who call her "Milk Tea" for her soft and mellow songs which contain a sense of nostalgia and sad romance.

Having 10 albums under her belt since 1991, she just released her latest "Hear Say" under the Virgin Music label in late October.

The 10 songs include folk melodies, electronics and pop. Each of the song titles is posed as a question.

Liu's answer is that "all these songs tell about the uncertainty and questions of love."

At the press conference held in Beijing, Liu said 2004 is her luckiest year, because she played the leading role in the blockbuster "Yesterday Once More" (Tianxia Wuzei) by famous Beijing director Feng Xiaogang, published her first book "Falling in Love Downstairs" (Xialou Tanlian'an) and recorded two CDs "My Failure and Greatness" and "Hear Say," and completed a successful solo concert in Shanghai.

She told the press: "I am not one of those born singers who can sing everything beautifully, I don't have a golden voice, therefore I have to pay 100 times more attention to my lyrics to touch others. And now I am doing my best to prepare for the Beijing debut."

She also shared with her fans that her biggest dream is to become a screenwriter.

"I want to write a very romantic love story and have it put on the big screen. I want to give lonely people a very happy, peaceful feeling. I want to do this because I've made many films and I've never had a happy ending in any of them."