Sihung Lung
The actor who plays the central protagonist of the film escaped to Taiwan after the communist takeover of mainland China by Mao. This was no mere ideological decision, but literally a flight for life as he had been soldier fighting on the side of Chiang Kai-shek. It was while still in the army that Lung began to make the transition to acting when he was chosen to become a member of an entertainment section f the military that has resettled in Taiwan. A long, successful and varied career had already come to an end when director Ang Lee began looking to someone to fill the crucial in his first feature film Pushing Hands. For that performance, Lung would take home Taiwan’s equivalent of the Best Actor Oscar at the annual Golden Horse Awards. He would go on to appear in a number of other films directed by Lee before his death in 2002.
Kuei-Mei Yang
Although having appeared in a number of films prior to being cast as Chu’s eldest daughter, Yang was primarily familiar to Taiwan moviegoers as a result of her role on a popular television series Grassland Champion on which she appeared throughout its two-season run. Two years before prior to her breakout movie role as Jia-Jen, she received a Golden Horse nomination for Best Actress. It would be the first of three Golden Horse nominations before finally striking gold on her fourth try by scoring a Best Actress win for The Moon Also Rises.
Chien-Lien Wu
Chu’s middle daughter is portrayed by an actress who had already appeared in a number of films prior to being cast and would subsequently go on to become one of the busiest actresses in the country for the rest of the 1990’s. Since the turn of the millennium, however, she appeared in only a handful of films and has not been seen on the big screen since the 2004 Hong Kong crime thriller known as Triad Underworld in American theaters.
Yu-Wen Wang
The youngest daughter in the film who is infamously introduced working behind the counter of a busy Wendy’s fast food restaurant is played by Yu-Wen Wang who sported the least robust resume of the three actresses playing the siblings. Interestingly, her resume since appearing in the international sensation has not been much thicker. After appearing in a few more films, Wang began popping up as a familiar face on Taiwan TV.
Winston Chao
Jia-Chen’s love interest is assayed by Winston Chao who made his made his feature film debut in Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet just one year before the release of this film. He has essentially not been out of work since then. He has played the legendary Chinese figure Sun Yat Sen in five different projects as well as taken on the title in the TV series Confucius. Outside the films of Ang Lee, he is probably most familiar face-wise if not name-wise to American viewers for his role as Dr. Zhang in the unlikely cult favorite The Meg.
