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Lin Ching Hsia Thanks “Benefactor” Who Kept Her Wardrobe Malfunction At 1990 Golden Horse Awards Under Wraps

The reporter gave Ching Hsia the film negative of the only picture capturing her wardrobe malfunction, which left her with her chest exposed.

Taiwanese star Lin Ching Hsia marked her 68th birthday earlier this month, on November 3. And on the day of her birthday, she published an article for a Chinese newspaper, titled ‘Meteor’. 

In the piece, she revealed an unforgettable encounter that happened to her in the ‘90s. 

According to Ching Hsia, the incident happened at the 27th Golden Horse Awards in 1990, after she won Best Actress for her work in the film Red Dust.

As she was descending the stairs in a low-cut dress, she was surrounded by staff members and press alike. In the midst of the chaos, she bent down to adjust her shoelaces. The move caused her to inadvertently expose her chest. At that very moment, she saw a camera flash go off.

“It just happened to capture the moment where the left side of my dress shifted out of place, exposing my breast fully,” she wrote. 

A mortifying moment for sure, but thankfully, Ching Hsia had an anonymous “benefactor” looking out for her.

Ching Hsia accepting her Best Actress award.

A while after the event, Ching Hsia was filming in Hong Kong, when she was told that there was a man who wanted to pass a letter to her. He insisted on delivering the letter to her in person. 

Ching Hsia met the man, and found out that the letter he gave her contained the film negative of the photo documenting her wardrobe malfunction. 

For those not familiar with film photography —this essentially meant that copies of photos of said wardrobe malfunction could not be reproduced by anyone else but the actress, since she now held the negative.

“I hope that this world will have more people like him,” Ching Hsia wrote in her article, likening the two of them to “meteors” that happened to pass each other by. She confessed that she has since forgotten the man’s name, and what he looked like.

After Ching Hsia’s article was published, the media managed to track down the anonymous benefactor she mentioned.

Yep, that's one low-cut dress.

The man turned out to be Ke Zhiyun, a senior film critic and media industry veteran in Taiwan. When approached for an interview, he shared that he has a hazy memory of the details, since the incident happened over 30 years ago. However, he recalled that the photograph was taken by a photographer with the surname Wu.

“I told the photographer not to share this with others, and wrapped the developed photograph and the film negative together and placed them in an envelope. Together, the two of us went over to hand the envelope over to Ching Hsia at her home in [Taipei]. However, Ching Hsia was in Hong Kong for work,” he recalled.

Zhiyun eventually managed to get someone to pass the envelope over to the star in Hong Kong. 

Once Ching Hsia returned back to Taiwan, she immediately called the magazine Zhiyun was working at to thank him.

The two would later cross paths years later, with Zhiyun interviewing her and Leslie Cheung together. 

Ching Hsia in Red Dust.

When asked if he had any reservations about immediately sealing the evidence of Ching Hsia’s wardrobe malfunction and returning it to her, Zhiyun answered: “I really did not hesitate, I just felt that this photo should not be seen by others. Thankfully, my photographer was a simple man, and went along with me [when it came] to returning the photograph. After that, we didn’t speak about it to others as well. From the beginning till the end, there was no one else who knew about this.”

He added that he’s now in contact with Ching Hsia, after she reached out to a mutual friend to get his WeChat contact details.

Photos: Lin Ching Hsia/Weibo, Sinchew Daily, TGHFF/YouTube

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Lin Ching Hsia

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