Lisa Lu, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival, joined a packed audience for a post-screening event celebrating “The Arch,” the landmark 1968 Chinese arthouse film in which she starred.
The actress, who turns 100 years old this year according to traditional Chinese age calculations, made a surprise appearance after the screening and received a big round of applause from the audience.
Her arrival at “The Arch” was by chance. The film’s director, Cecil Tan Shuxuen, had originally cast another actor in the lead role, but this was later rejected. “At the time, I volunteered. I was incredibly lucky to be in this movie,” Lu said.
Lou praised both the director and the film’s music. “The director has a deep cultural literacy and every frame is breathtaking,” she said. “Most importantly, Rui Tsunyuan’s score enhances the entire production, highlighting the inner emotions of all the characters through music.”
“The Arch” marks the directorial debut of Hong Kong filmmaker Tan Hsu-Hsien, who uses traditional Chinese poetry and painting as his subjects to form a visual language. Its restrained cinematography helped establish it as a benchmark for Chinese arthouse films.
The film underwent a full 4K restoration in 2025 and was screened as part of the Cannes Classic at the 78th Cannes Film Festival prior to screening in Shanghai.
The Shanghai screening brings further honors to Lu, including making him the oldest person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and being unveiled last year as the 2,811th star at 1708 Vine Street.
Lu is perhaps best known to audiences around the world for her role as Ah Ma, the matriarch of Singapore’s richest family, in Warner Bros. “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018). She has the distinction of being the only person in Hollywood with voting rights in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Television Academy, and the Screen Actors Guild, and has been designated a “Living Legend” by the Chinese government.
