Julie Lee Wa-yuet, born in 1956 and originally named Choi Chung-lai, is a Hong Kong actress and singer active in the 1990s. She entered show business in 1990, at the age of thirty-four, making her debut in the supernatural erotic film Liao Zhai Yan Tan, and over the following years she appeared in pictures such as Personal Lover, The Forbidden Imperial Tales and Fatal Love, gradually becoming one of the decade's best-known faces in Hong Kong's Category III and erotic cinema. The scene that drew the most attention came in The Untold Story (1993), in which her character is raped and killed by the part played by Anthony Wong; Wong later called her a thoroughly professional performer who did not utter a complaint even when a beating scene made her vomit. In 1995 she launched the notorious Trilogy of Lust, bringing in Golden Harvest executive Chua Lam as producer and serving herself as co-investor, director, writer and star, choosing the male lead personally, the role finally going to newcomer Chan Wai-tik. Marketed for its unusually explicit adult content, the film caused a sensation on release and became a talking point in the debate over film standards and censorship. She capitalised on the attention with an all-nude photobook, was paired in the press with the erotic actress Lily Lee as the 'two Lees', and followed up with a sequel in 1996. That year she also self-financed and released her first and only album, Gow Gow Jun, mixing original songs such as 'Hot Sweat' with a large number of prank telephone recordings. Her films were mostly low-budget productions that drew audiences with sensational subject matter, and by the end of the 1990s she had gradually retired from the screen.
Through her 1995 erotic film, Lee became the first performer in Hong Kong to make a genuinely explicit adult movie, pushing the era's erotic cinema to a controversial extreme and fuelling public debate about film censorship. Serving at once as investor, director, writer and star, she embodies both the commercial logic of the 1990s Category III market and an unusual attempt at self-direction by an actress.
Achievements
- 1990 · Entered show business with the supernatural erotic film Liao Zhai Yan Tan.
- 1993 · Appeared in The Untold Story, whose rape-and-killing scene with Anthony Wong drew the most attention.
- 1995 · Co-financed, directed, wrote and starred in Trilogy of Lust, produced by Chua Lam.
- 1996 · Released a sequel and self-financed her first and only album, Gow Gow Jun.