Bangkok, THAILAND - I couldn’t believe my eyes when the girl who once starred as Xiao You in the hit Taiwan idol TV drama “Meteor Garden” - was standing right in front of me. I confess I was a big fan during my university days.
Dressed in a black loose suit and a pair of star-studded flat sneakers, Rainie Yang (Yang Chenglin), who is presently shooting her latest horror movie “Child’s Eye” in Bangkok, seemed even more sweet and adorable than on the screen.
Our conversation started with her current movie that is being directed by “horror movie veterans” the Peng Brothers. “Child’s Eye” is a story about two lovers (co-starring Shawn Yue) who come across something strange when they travel to Bangkok.
“What made me take it is that it is not a horror movie which takes ‘scaring’ as a purpose. It has an attractive storyline,” Yang said. “As the heroine of the movie, I will not scream as it’s usually like in some other movies of the same kind.”
And the movie tries a new production technique that Asian movies have never used before, according to her.
It is the third time Yang has worked on a movie and the first time she has starred in a horror movie. She made her movie debut in “Merry-Go-Round” in 2001, acting as a nice and ordinary girl named Carlily.
Coming to what she feels like acting in a horror movie, the 25-year-old singer and actress, often dubbed as the “Cute Queen” because of her sweet and pure screen image said it was quite hard for her at the very beginning because she has never tried it before.
Comparing it to her previous work, including TV series and movies, she has to employ all her imagination in the current one to achieve the effects the movie itself needs.
“But I feel lucky that I could try such a special role which others may want to try but could never have a chance,” Yang told China Daily in the interview Tuesday night.
Being a singer who has already published four albums and an actress whose idol series proved to be a primetime hit, Yang was confident of her multitasking.
“It’s not a problem for me to balance between being a singer and an actress. I always enjoy shifting between different areas, which makes up for my simple private life. To meet with different people and do different things everyday just makes me feel happy,” Yang, once a host for a popular entertainment TV program “Guess Guess Guess” said.
Yang, often known for her diversified choices in her career, acted as Xiao Lv in a lesbian-related movie “Spider Lilies” with another Taiwan actress Isabella Leung in 2007. The movie won a “Teddy Bear Award” (in the homosexual movie category) at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival.
“Trying a different genre, like Spider Lilies and the current movie poses a challenge to me. But this challenge would give me more experience in acting,” she said.
Being asked about her movie career, Yang considered herself as a rookie.
“I’m still very new to movies. I’m not so sure whether I could handle it or not,” she confessed.
After finishing this current movie, Yang will return to Taiwan for her next idol drama alongside a “well-known and popular” actor, in her words.
Yang also wants to try her luck in Japan and South Korea where the idol series markets are hectic.
“My company is trying to spread my idol series to the Japanese market now. But it’s not ambitious. And the branch office in Japan helped launch my blog in Japanese on my birthday this year,” she said. “I write it by myself and they translate it into Japanese.”
With a sweet and cute image, Rainie Yang, who got her English name from her singing group “4inLove”, has won a huge young fan base in both Taiwan and mainland China.
Yang gained popularity in her idol drama “Devil Besides You” in 2004 after her tough early years in entertainment circles. She rose to stardom in 2005 when her first album “Intimacy”(ai mei) hit No1 only two weeks after going public.
As a fan of Yang, I don’t expect to meet her, let alone in Bangkok. Aside from her adorable image I previously had about her, she left me an impression of “humble and steady” after the one-hour interview.
“Have an easy mind and do what I should do,” just as she said.
(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)
