Talk:Zhi-Gong Chen

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A few comments about this actor's name:

I've come across several different romanizations. I've tried to redirect them all to this article. I've only seen it spelled "Tsi-Hang", with an "h", on a couple French sites. On this page, the site of which has other pages (by other writers) listing her in connection to The Swordswoman of Huangjiang by other names, she's referred to as Xu Qin-fang, which is quite different from the other variations I've seen, and I don't know what to make of it. I googled the name with "Huangjiang" and the only results it returned were the aforementioned page, the film's page at the IMDB, and two Spanish language pages with the same content. Based on the description of the character and the actress playing the character in the movie, it is the same person.

Every page I've seen where she is referred to as "Chi-Ang Chi" or "Chi Chi-Ang" has been in reference to her appearance as "the Amah" in In The Mood For Love, usually only listing her among its cast members, with no further information about her specifically.

Adding to the matter is the fact that as it is a Chinese name, her surname is often written first. I've written the different variations of it with her surname last. I'm not sure what the Wikipedia standard is, if there is one, regarding east Asian names, but since it's an English website, I didn't think it seemed inappropriate to write the names in western-style order. Some Chinese are consistently referred to in the West with their surnames last, while the names of other Chinese celebrities are just as soon written or said one way as the other.

There is also an issue with capitalization. Since the second part of the name after the hyphen is a word in itself, I capitalized it. But I've come to realize that the second part of her given name after the hyphen is at least as often as not left uncapitalized. I'm not sure what the reason for that is. I don't know what the standards are regarding capitalization with Chinese "middle" names.

It might be helpful if someone fluent in English who reads Chinese was able to find and include her name in Chinese characters in the article, and provide a definitive romanization, or at least explain it here, as well as the capitalization issue.Adrigon 03:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed something. In the article I linked to above which refers to Chen as Xu Qin-fang, Mark Pollard is credited as the author. However, here, in another article also by Mark Pollard about the same movie, he refers to her as "Chen Zhi-gong" and nowhere does the name "Xu Qin-fang" appear...Adrigon 03:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Upon further research simply googling the title "Swordswoman of Huangjiang" I've realized that the various versions of Chen's given names are sometimes conjoined as single rather than hyphenated. Such seems to be the case with Xu, which is apparently more often written as "Xu Qinfang" without the hyphen. Also, the original instance I discovered of the use of the name "Xu Qin-fang" for the star of Swordswoman at the website I linked to above lists two cast members in the film, the other being "He Zhi-gang". However, to further confuse things, I noticed that another page at the same website, which I have used as a citation in Chen's article, lists "He Zhi-gang" as an AKA of "Chen Zhi-gong" and makes no mention of the Xu variation.

I want to emphasize that all these different name variations are the same person, based on their use in reference to the star of Swordswoman and the description of the character played as well as her relation to Sammo Hung.

Anyway, having now found several instances where Xu Qinfang is used, I shall add it to the article as yet another variation.Adrigon 12:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I've discovered information at a Chinese film site which lists different filmography pages for Swordswoman actors He Zhigang and Qinfang Xu, which indicates that despite my having gotten the impression from some English-language websites that they are the same person based on both names being variously cited as the star of the Swordswoman serial, they are in fact two different people. I suspect Xu is Chen's female co-star in the films, not simply another name for the same actor who played the title character. Thus I have removed Qinfang Xu as an AKA in Chen's article, although I am still reticent to include Zhigang He as an AKA.Adrigon 05:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)