Carrie Ng Ka-lai (born 24 February 1963) is a Hong Kong actress and director. Raised in tenement housing in Ma Tau Wai and at Oi Man Estate in Kowloon, she liked drawing as a child and took summer factory jobs while at New Asia Middle School. After finishing Form Five in 1980 she joined TVB's tenth artist training class, graduating in 1981; she began as a 'Happy Lady' on the variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight and went on to appear in television series including Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (1982) and The Return of the Condor Heroes (1983). In the late 1980s she moved into cinema after City on Fire, and on Yuen Chor's advice did not renew her TVB contract. In 1992 she played a wronged widow in Stephen Chow's Justice, My Foot!, drawing notice for her comic timing, and the same year Naked Killer made her known to Western fans. In 1993 she won Best Actress at the 30th Golden Horse Awards for playing the deranged killer Judy in Remains of a Woman (also known as Naked Killer), the first actress to win a Golden Horse Best Actress for a Category III film, a bold treatment that was highly controversial at the time; she had earlier been nominated for Best Actress at the 9th Hong Kong Film Awards for The First Time Is the Last Time. In 2000 she won Best Supporting Actress at the 19th Hong Kong Film Awards for The Kid, directed by Jacob Cheung and co-starring Leslie Cheung. As the local film market shrank in the early 2000s she moved to mainland television and variety shows. In 2015 she directed and starred in Angel Whispers, a story of a ghost and a prostitute. She has appeared in more than 110 films, known for her long hair, full lips and sultry presence, and in the 1980s and 1990s was so busy she was nicknamed 'Nine-crew Ng'. She now also works as a screenwriter, producer and planner.
Carrie Ng moved from a sex-symbol image to character acting, breaking the mould imposed on 1980s starlets and becoming the first Category III actress crowned a Golden Horse Best Actress. She later took on directing, writing and producing as Hong Kong cinema moved from its golden age into reinvention.
Achievements
- 1993 · Won Best Actress at the 30th Golden Horse Awards for Remains of a Woman, the first Category III actress to take the prize.
- 2000 · Won Best Supporting Actress at the 19th Hong Kong Film Awards for The Kid.
- 2015 · Directed and starred in Angel Whispers.