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Taiwan People:

Hao Siao-wen

The following was to be included in the Atrium Books trade paperback, "ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA" but did not make the final cut. Some of my other material did. It will be available for $15, at a book store near you in November, 2003!

Hao Siao-wen: At his peak, this portly child star entertained or - depending on whom you ask - annoyed the hell out of audiences in his native Taiwan and in Hong Kong. Now pursuing higher education, Hao found fame thanks to the prolific Chu Yen-ping (the pattern should by now be obvious).

Making his debut with 1994's SHAOLIN POPEY (AKA Shaolin Popeye), Chu's base, foul-mouthed humor transformed the tyke into a pint-sized slob, often paired with Chinese kung fu kid Siu Shiao-lung or Stephen Chiau sidekick Ng Man Tat. Indeed, Chu went on to pair Hao with Ng and Siu in the sequel, SHAOLIN POPEYE II: MESSY TEMPLE (1994).

For quintessential Hao, however, check out Hau Sau-hin's DRAGON FROM SHAOLIN (1996), a truly surreal cinematic experience. By the late Nineties - just as Hao was entering puberty - his 15 minutes of fame had expired. One of his last and most unusual films was the Chu Yen-ping-directed ME AND YOU AND A GIRL NAMED UGLY (1996), in which the 10-year-old is paired up with Taiwanese entertainment magnate Jacky Wu Jong-shen to battle crooks, in this Mandarin/Fukienese-language amalgam of Hao's naughty-boy banter and Chu's now exhausted military conscription comedy.

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