Lisa Lu

(Photo by Sherman Ong)

Another missing piece of the puzzle. I finally met Lisa Lu this week. Lisa was the producer/actress sent-parachuted by Roger Corman into Singapore just as the Saint Jack shoot was starting, to deal with some of the 'interpersonal issues' that had developed between Pierre Cottrell and Peter Bogdanovich. I'd tried to contact Lisa a few times when I was doing my research back in 2005, but the messages never seemed to get through. Anyway, Lisa was pretty thrilled to get the book and talk about those days. Lisa is a true star, she's worked with everyone from James Stewart to Wim Wenders, Donald Cammell, Ang Lee, Wayne Wang and of course, the legendary Li Han-Hsiang, in two genuine masterpieces for Shaw Brothers in which she played the evil Empress Dowager, CiXi. We had dim sum and bak kut teh at Raffles Hotel, and talked about those days, but she wants to have a longer talk when she's finished reading the book.