Kenneth Tsang, pillar of the “golden age” of Cantonese cinema, was found dead on Wednesday in a quarantine hotel room in Hong Kong, after spending a stay abroad.
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For Hong Kongers and Cantonese film lovers, Kenneth Tsang was a renowned actor. The artist of 87-year-old was discovered by hotel staff, two days after returning from Singapore, several local media outlets revealed, including NowNewsthe South China Morning Post and theOrientalDaily. The police said around noon French time that they had been informed that a “body” had been discovered by hotel employees. The deceased was an 87-year-old man named Tsang, according to the incident report.
While he began acting in earnest in the 1960s, his most memorable roles were in Hong Kong’s golden era of cinema in the 1980s and 1990s, in films such as The Killer, super cop, Peking Opera Blues and Once A Thief.
He was also one of the few Hong Kong stars of that era to break into Hollywood by playing supporting roles, mostly villains, in movies like The Replacement Killers, Die Another Day – a James Bond movie – Anna and the King and Memoirs of a Geisha. Her career spanned six decades for 200 roles in total.
He was returning from a trip to Malaysia
In what appears to be his final interview, Kenneth Tsang told the Sin Chew Daily that he had just returned from a two-week trip to Malaysia and had returned to Hong Kong via Singapore. He said he relished the solo trip after being looked after by others on nearly every previous trip in his life.
“I will quarantine if necessary”, he told the newspaper. Like China, Hong Kong has adopted a zero Covid strategy, including closing its borders to foreign travellers. For residents, a period of isolation in a quarantine hotel is mandatory. For much of last year the period was 21 days, recently it was reduced to seven days.