Vividly Maggie

From 13 May to 25 June, ArtScience Museum will leave audiences spellbound by the captivating oeuvre of quintessential Chinese screen icon, Maggie Cheung, through a curated line-up of seven films that have defined her journey to international stardom. Titled Vividly Maggie, the retrospective will be hosted at the Museum’s Level 4 in-house screening room, ArtScience Cinema, which celebrates its one-year anniversary this month.

Exuding classic beauty and elegance, Maggie Cheung is widely regarded as one of the greatest Asian actresses to have graced the silver screen. Her luminous performances have seen her glide as effortlessly between genres as she does between languages – ranging from wuxia epics to experimental arthouse, and from Cantonese to English to French.

During the Hong Kong film boom of the 80s, Maggie transcended stereotypical female wallflower archetypes to become the fresh face of its burgeoning New Wave movement. This sparked a long and close association with renowned director Wong Kar Wai before she broke into the international scene and went on to collaborate with acclaimed French director Olivier Assayas.

Standing out against the western clichés of Asian women, Maggie presents a complex image of contemporary Chinese femininity. She weaves layers of representation into her wide range of radiant and magnetic characters, that not only redefined Asian characterisations in Europe and the West but also eventually led to her milestone achievement as the first Asian woman to win the Cannes Best Actress Award for her performance in Assayas’ Clean (2004).

Vividly Maggie revisits these turning points in her body of work that have signposted her way to Cannes greatness. From her carefully attuned portrayal of the multi-layered immigrant experience in Ann Hui’s rarely shown Song of the Exile (1990), and her sultry, fish-out-of-water cheekiness in Irma Vep (1996), to her career-defining, reluctant radiance in Center Stage (1991), and her portrait of desire and restraint in cult classic In the Mood for Love (2000), this retrospective highlights her projects with some of the most sophisticated auteurs in world cinema.