A new direction
With an alternative style and unwilling to do promotion, Lim quickly found himself blacklisted by record companies. On top of that his albums sold poorly, and overnight the pop idol was an average person once again. His income was much lower than it had been. Though it was all his own choice, Lim admits that at this stage he had some internal struggles.
"It's a good thing that Hou Hsiao-hsien appreciated my work and found another path for me," Lim says.
The director Hou Hsiao-hsien is a pivotal figure in Taiwan's film world. The two met when Lim was filming a video for his single "The Old Oden Seller" with the national-treasure puppeteer Li Tien-lu. Hou was in the process of filming The Puppetmaster, a film based on Li's life, and they met on set.
When asked why he'd want to work with Lim, who had little acting experience at the time, Hou says that the power and creativity in Lim's singing performances left a deep impression. "There's a kind of intangible self-confidence there that is hard to forget," Hou says. "I thought maybe I could get him to put that power into a film performance."
Lim didn't let Hou down. The two collaborated on The Puppetmaster; Good Men, Good Women; and Goodbye South, Goodbye. Lim starred in all, and all received good reviews. Even so, with his lack of formal training Lim says himself that it is obvious that he couldn't act and his performances were weak in the first two.
"In the end, Hou taught me a way to do it," Lim says. "He said, 'Since you can't act and don't know how to interpret the characters' feelings, just be real!'"
While playing a gangster in Goodbye South, Goodbye he heeded this advice, putting on a tacky floral-print shirt every morning and carrying a pack of betel nut and two packs of cigarettes. He'd go out like this and hang out with some gangster acquaintances of Hou's producer in front of their clubhouse.
"Gambling, smoking pot, going out to hostess bars-during that time I did all the things that were against my morals. I only discovered later that if someone wants to indulge in these things, it happens faster than you can imagine and once you've tasted the thrill of sin you can't go back," he says.
However, Lim, whom Hou describes as the most self-aware actor and artist he knows, was very clear about what he was doing. He used this period of moral discovery to let out the long-repressed frustrations of being a mainstream pop star, and he successfully interpreted his gangster character.
Lim has created countless pieces of music over the past 18 years, ranging from pop to commercial and film soundtracks, and multimedia music. He's touched on all manner of subjects and styles.
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