Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia as she appeared in The Bride with White Hair...
I remember seeing Taiwanese actress, Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia sporting an incredibly long white hair in a Hong Kong movie, The Bride with White Hair in the 90s. The Ronny Yu's movie which starred Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia and the late Hong Kong hearthrob, Leslie Cheung Kok Wing had been adapted from a martial art novel, Romance of the White haired Maiden written by the late Liang Yusheng. Liang Yusheng whose real name was Chen Wuntong recently passed away of bladder cancer in his adopted country, Australia at the age of 85. Liang Yusheng was said to be one of the pioneers in writing Chinese martial arts novels. There were a few other famous martial arts novelist like Gu Long, Jin Yong and Wang Du Lu. With Jinyong and Gu Long, Liang Yusheng were dubbed the three legs of the tripod of wuxia, which probably means they were the pillars of novels of the martial arts genre. Perhaps, Liang Yusheng's demise may remind some fans of Gu Long's death in 1985. Gu Long whom I come to know through Shaw's and TVB adaptations of his work The Romantic Swordsman or Xiao Li Fei Dao (Xiao Li's Flying Daggers), passed away at 48 of hepatocirrhosis or hardening of the liver. Needless to say, that was the result of his love of drinking which he did with much gusto throughout his life and even in death too, I suppose since his friends had placed 48 opened bottled of Hennessy XO brandy in his coffin!
Liang Yusheng
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