This is the fourth instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.
Not only does Isabella Leong Lok-sze’s first name rhyme with Cinderella, her life story bears more than a passing resemblance to the classic fairy tale.
The Macanese actress, born Luísa Isabella Nolasco da Silva Leong Lok-yau in 1988, grew up in a single-parent household after her father died when she was six months old.
Leong’s Eurasian father was a descendant of the Nolasco da Silva family, one of the most prominent and longest-established families in Macau. Her Macau Chinese mother worked as a casino croupier.
Despite the influence and wealth of her paternal family, Leong took her mother’s surname.
In 2001, she was signed to a modelling contract with Hong Kong’s Emperor Entertainment Group (EEG).
At 16, in 2004, she debuted as a singer and released an album, Isabella. Then she moved into acting, taking a supporting role in the 2005 horror movie The Eye 10, directed by the Pang Brothers.
Leong won best actress at Portugal’s 27th Fantasporto festival and best new performer in Hong Kong’s 11th Golden Bauhinia Awards for her role in Pang Ho-Cheung’s 2006 Macau-set drama Isabella. The film had a high-profile premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.
In 2007, Leong played a tattoo artist opposite Taiwanese actress Rainie Yang Cheng-lin in Zero Chou’s indie LGBTQ drama Spider Lilies, which again screened at the Berlin festival.
In 2008, at the age of 20, she scored her first Hollywood role in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, a US-China co-production budgeted at US$145 million and co-starring Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh.
It was Leong’s biggest film project to date and led to a life-altering event which halted her journey to international stardom – she started dating tycoon Richard Li Tzar-kai.
Li is the younger son of Li Ka-shing, who is the wealthiest person in Hong Kong and one of the 10 most powerful businessmen in Asia, with a net worth of over US$38 billion. Li, then 42, was reported to have been visiting Yeoh, a long-time friend, on set when he met Leong. Despite their age gap, they began a relationship.
In March 2008, a few months before the film’s release, Leong sought an early end to her modelling contract with EEG on the grounds that it was signed by her mother when she was only 12.
EEG filed a writ seeking damages from Leong for breach of contract and a court order forcing her to perform her duties.
That November, Leong and EEG settled out of court. A statement said Leong did not pay any money to settle the case and received a “reasonable payment”, with her “free to pursue her career”.
In 2009, Leong gave birth to Li’s first son, Ethan Li Cheung-chi, in Toronto, Canada. According to the father, it was a planned pregnancy, with the baby’s Chinese name given by his grandfather Li Ka-shing.
At the time, Li told media that he had no plans to marry Leong.
The pair welcomed twin sons a year later in San Francisco. It was reported that Leong had been “rewarded” with an entourage of carers, including five bodyguards, four full-time nannies and a personal attendant.
By now, Leong was 22 – which is also the number of years in age between her and Li.
In March 2011, having never married, they announced their separation. Both parties stated that the split was amicable and that they planned to co-parent their three sons.
Leong took the next couple of years off to raise her toddlers before re-entering the limelight in 2014 with a part in the stage play Sign of Happiness, which was written by Jim Chim Sui-man – her acting coach when she was 15.
At an event to promote the play, Leong declared she was an independent girl and considered acting very important, but also added that she had “no plans to relocate from Canada to Hong Kong” and that her “three little boyfriends” kept her very busy.
In 2015, she took a leading role in Sylvia Chang Ai-chia’s Murmur of the Hearts, playing a pregnant artist abandoned at a young age by her mother. She has not taken any other major roles since.
In recent years, she has made minor appearances in films Missbehavior (2019), a Lunar New Year comedy that reunited Leong with Isabella director Pang; and Love After Love (2020), Ann Hui On-wah’s adaptation of Eileen Chang’s 1943 novella Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier.
According to her Instagram account, Leong spends her time between Hong Kong and North America. It has been said she owns at least two mansions – one in San Francisco and one in Hong Kong – gifted by Li.
Sections of the Hong Kong media have long speculated that a “break-up fee” was paid to the actress. Both parties, however, have affirmed that Leong did not receive anything else from Li aside from child support.
Leong, now 35, has eschewed the trophy wife life to become a working mother of three. She is a brand ambassador for Japanese luxury beauty brand Clé de Peau.
A devout Buddhist, Leong has been spotted attending Buddhist seminars and was one of the 28 artists whose work featured in “The Signless Phenomena”, an exhibition of Buddhist art at Hong Kong City Hall in January 2023.
According to an Instagram post, she painted Kṣitigarbha – a bodhisattva revered in East Asian Buddhism.
One of Leong’s most recent public appearances came at the 41st Hong Kong Film Awards in April 2023, where she was a presenter alongside model and actor Jeffrey Ngai Tsun-sang.
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