Hsia Kuang-Li
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Biography
She was the 4th child of (6) sisters. Her father was so strict, that when she did something wrong, he would make her kneel in front of a Jesus statue. Discovered by veteran director Lee Tso-Nam, this Taiwanese beauty was first cast in Fatal Claws, Deadly Kicks. In Taiwan, she was nicknamed "The Lady Kicker" -- because of a specialty kick, where she could touch the back of her head. She studied Peking Opera as a child at the Lu Kuang Academy, where the training was said to be extremely hard. She was classmates with Venoms Lu Feng and Kuo Chiu.
In normal life, she preferred to dress in "T-shirts and jeans" -- yet on the sets of her kung-fu films, her colleagues didn't treat her like a girl. She said, this made her feel, like she wasn't attractive. Other than the pay, she was given $100 daily, as her pocket money. She said she wanted to continue her career in films until the age of (27), before she would even think about getting married. While, she had the skill to become a well-known star, her output of films didn't do her justice.
She's played in a handful of films (most showcasing her skills), but none that were the types of films that would establish her (onscreen) persona. I wished she had more to do in the excellent Shaolin Invincible Sticks, because this limber beauty could kick (though, her acting seemed to suffer in certain films). I think another problem area for her was the fact that she didn't fare well in Kung Fu Comedy. This was a genre, that some seemed out of place and (even) while doing comedy, they appeared as though they were doing Drama (Wang Kuan-Hsing, comes to mind). Had she played in more films like The Leg Fighters with Tan Tao-Liang, this lady could have been a household name. Yet, she came into the film world, at a time when the (classic) genre was almost over and most women were interested in Modern film roles.