Grace Chang: She Goes to 11

"My life was changed was changed by Mambo Girl." So begins Paul Fonoroff's tribute to the Grace Chang film that introduced him to the rich history of Hong Kong cinema. In a similar way, my life was changed when I saw Grace for the first time in The Wild Wild Rose at the Hong Kong Film Archive in 2002. I had read about her and seen pictures of her in Paul's book Silver Light: A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Cinema, 1920-1970. But when I finally saw Grace on the big screen — vamping it up in the movie's first song sequence, belting out a saucy version of "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen — shivers literally went up and down my spine. I felt like the film's hapless protagonist who falls madly, and dangerously, in love with her.

Grace Chang exerts that kind power over those who see her for the first time. Whenever I try to describe her high-voltage charisma, I inevitably think of Nigel the guitarist in This is Spinal Tap, explaining how the group got its title as "England's loudest band". It's because, he says, their amps go to 11: "You see, most blokes will be playing at 10. You’re on 10, all the way up, all the way up... Where can you go from there? Nowhere. What we do, is if we need that extra push over the cliff... Eleven. One louder." That perfectly describes Grace Chang's screen presence. On a scale of 1 to 10, Grace goes to 11.

This post goes out to Grace Chang's nephew Curtis, who recently contacted me after discovering my post about her appearance on the Dinah Shore Show. He forwarded it to her, and she was evidently quite surprised and pleased to see it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who wishes Grace the very best and would like her to know how much pleasure and joy her films and songs still bring us some 50 years later.

Ladies and gentleman, the one and only Grace Chang...!