Jacklyn Wu (Wu Chien-lien) is a Taiwanese actress who became one of the most iconic and atypical stars of Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s. Her debut was stunning: while still a student, she was chosen by Johnnie To to star alongside Andy Lau in the cult film A Moment of Romance (1990), a role that immediately cemented her stardom. Distinguishing herself from the conventional beauties of the era, Wu won over audiences and critics with her intense gaze, her minimalist yet emotionally repressed acting style, and her melancholic aura. She dominated the decade with a series of memorable performances, navigating between arthouse and genre cinema: she was the rebellious daughter in Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), the protagonist of The Barefoot Kid (1993), and won the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for Ann Hui's Eighteen Springs (1997). At the height of her career in the early 2000s, she almost completely retired from the screen, prioritizing her private life after marriage.