Right place, right time, lots of prizes

It should not be inappropriate to describe Lee Sin-jie (李心潔) as the lucky girl of Chinese language films last year. For the film The Eye (見鬼), she took both Taiwan's Golden Horse award and the recently announced Hong Kong Academy Award for best actress. And last week, she also received the Media Award for Chinese-language Films of the Year (華語電影傳媒大獎) for her performances in The Eye and Princess D (想飛), both ranked among the most popular films in Hong Kong in 2002.

The Eye is only Lee's fourth film, the third in which she has had a starring role. Her impressive acting in The Eye as a blind womon haunted by ghosts after cornea transplant surgery, proves that her success is due to more than luck. Over the last few months, Lee has established herself as a new star in both the music and film industries.

Lee has arrived in Taiwan to shoot 20, 30, 40, a film by her mentor, agent and director Sylvia Chang (張艾嘉). Her latest romance is much in the entertainment news, and she was spotted by one tabloid with her new boyfriend, Oxide Pang, co-director of The Eye.

At a press conference Tuesday, Lee steered questions towards her career.

Lee tries to pull the topic back to her career. "I'm a bit worried that after these awards, I'll lose the pure and simple feeling that makes me love acting and singing," she said.

The film 20, 30, 40 is in three segments which tells the story of three women, in which Lee will co-star with Rene Liu (劉若英) and Sylvia Chang. The characters, are in the 20s, 30s and 40s respectively.

"I partly wrote the script for my segment, which is about friendship and the lonely days when I first came to Taiwan," said Lee. Coming to Taiwan alone from Malaysia to become a singer at the age of 20, Lee had a rough time as a rookie pop singer. "My records weren't selling and I didn't know anyone in the business. My only pastime was to ride the bus or watch movies with my roommate," she said.

These days, Lee has a much busier schedule. Apart from 20, 30, 40, she is the 2003 model for fashion brand Hang Tan (replacing 2002's Karen Mok). She also is tagged for the staring role in producer Hsu Li-kung's (徐立功) new film, and also a part in Fruit Chan's (陳果) to-be-announced new project.

Like Lee's mentor and agent Sylvia Chang said, "Now that Lee has enough awards, it's time to make some money."