13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Faye Wong, actress, Cantopop diva and twice divorced mum
Published: 7:15am, 14 Feb 2025 This is the 44th instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.
Faye Wong reigned supreme as Hong Kong's diva of the 1990s. Her distinctive voice, artistic integrity, aversion to celebrity and unique style cemented her status..
While many will recognise her from her cover of The Cranberries' track 'Dreams' or her vocals on 'Eyes on Me' (the theme song for the video game Final Fantasy VIII ), her breakthrough came with her fourth studio album, Coming Home (1992). Faye Wong pictured at Hong Kong Stadium in 1994. Photo: SCMP
Initially, her birth name, Wang Fei, was deemed too mainland Chinese for Hong Kong audiences, so her label rebranded her Shirley Wong, or Wong Ching-man. But after her first three albums achieved only modest success, she was sent to New York for vocal training and cultural immersion.
It was there that Wong truly discovered herself. 'I wandered around, visited museums and sat at cafes,' she later explained. 'There were so many strange, confident-looking people. They didn't care what other people thought of them.
