Actress Tsai Chin talks about working with two James Bond`s

18-Mar-2007 • Bond News

James Bond's good luck charm is spending the weekend in San Francisco, and it's been quite a week for Tsai Chin - reports SFGate.

On Tuesday, the new James Bond film "Casino Royale" was released on DVD, and you can see Chin perched to Bond's right, like a guardian angel, during the climactic card game that takes up some 30-40 minutes. It's an affectionate inside reference for Bond fans, who might remember Chin in bed with Sean Connery at the beginning of 1967's "You Only Live Twice," before her Chinese double-agent character traps 007 in an assassination attempt. ("I was in bed with Sean Connery for three days," she smiles.)

This weekend, she is helping to present three of her films at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. On Friday, it was David Kaplan's "Year of the Fish," a New York-filmed "rotoscope animated" Cinderella-like fantasy (in which the actors' images are rendered to look like animation by computer, as in Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly"). On Saturday, it was Disney teenage superstar Brenda Song's first starring feature-length role, "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior," which packed them in at the AMC 1000 Van Ness. Sunday night at the Castro, she is a featured guest at the world premiere of Arthur Dong's documentary about Asian struggles in the American film industry, "Hollywood Chinese."

"There was a time (in 2005 and '06) I went to six countries and nine cities within the space of 14 months for work," said Chin, 72, who is best known for her roles in "The Joy Luck Club" and most recently "Memoirs of a Geisha." "And I ain't no spring chicken anymore!"

She filmed her Bond scenes in Prague (the cast, including new Bond Daniel Craig, spent several days taking poker lessons) and her "Wendy Wu" scenes in New Zealand. "Geisha" took her to Japan and London.

Chin was born and raised in Shanghai and moved to London, appearing as a very young woman opposite Ingrid Bergman in "Inn of the Sixth Happiness" and going on to great success swinging in London in the wild 1960s (she introduced the British to Suzy Wong on the London stage, and appeared on film in such diverse projects as Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blowup" and the "Fu Manchu" series in which she played Christopher Lee's evil daughter). After the success of "Joy Luck Club" she moved to Los Angeles, appeared as the judge hearing Richard Gere's case in "Red Corner," landed a part for Sydney Pollack in "The Interpreter" and has a recurring role as Sandra Oh's mother on "Grey's Anatomy."

"She's such an inspiration for me," said Song, who turns 19 later this month and is in the midst of filming episodes of the Disney Channel hit "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," which is in its final season. "She's like a flaming, old-Hollywood diva. At first I was intimidated -- she really was like, 'I don't like this lipstick color. You: come here.' And I was like, 'OK!' Later, she sat down and gave me advice (on her life and burgeoning career). She became like my grandma."

Chin spends her non-acting time studying classical Chinese poetry and literature, and might collaborate with a college professor on a book. She is also working with playwright David Henry Hwang on a one-woman stage show based on her memoir, "Daughter of Shanghai."

"That's what's making me excited right now," Chin said. "It's like a goal. It will be produced by the Hong Kong Arts Festival. It will be a really great challenge, and it's something I'd like to do because I have not been onstage for awhile -- except I did 'The Vagina Monologues' recently for charity.

"Acting is getting harder because of the logistics. All I know is I just go on, do one thing at a time, and try to do things I either enjoy, or get challenged, or make money. (laughs) Because I have to live as well!"