‘90s Hong Kong star Sharla Cheung makes rare appearance in Douyin skit

Sometimes you want to hitch a ride and a gorgeous former actress just happens to be around to let you take a spin on her motorbike.

Obviously this isn’t a common occurrence for most of us but that was the premise of Purba Rgyal’s Douyin video uploaded on Sunday (Oct 16), and the woman in question was none other than Hong Kong movie icon Sharla Cheung.

In it, Sharla — who had an illustrious career of over 60 film appearances — beckons Purba, a Chinese singer-actor of Tibetan descent, to take a ride on her bike. Purba, 37, is flabbergasted, but perhaps for different reasons than the audience.

Sharla, 54, has largely been absent from showbiz since the mid 2000s, after having settled in mainland China, devoting her time to practising Buddhism. She only updates her Weibo account periodically to keep in touch with fans, so seeing her in the skit came as a surprise to viewers.

“How did these two get together? What a magical circle of friends,” a comment on Purba’s video read.

Purba seems to be friends with Sharla, who has appeared in many of his posts, as well as with her boyfriend Shi Xiongfan.

In fact, in the video, Purba’s daydream is shattered when he realises it is not a beautiful woman offering him a ride but a stony-faced man, played by Shi.

Sadly for him, he has to ride pillion on Shi’s bike and appears to be quite bored of the situation, yawning.

Purba captioned his video post: “There are two versions of myself in the world: one who rides the motorbike and the other who rides pillion.”

Sharla rose to popularity in the 1990s acting alongside Stephen Chow in more than 10 films, including classics such as All for the Winner, God of Gamblers II, Fist of Fury 1991, Fight Back to School, Royal Tramp, and King of Beggars.

In 2019, she gave an interview to Apple Daily Hong Kong, stating that her religious beliefs did not bar her from returning to showbiz.

“I still have to work anyway. It takes a lot of time to learn and practise Buddhism, but my senior said that I can do all of them together due to the worldly dharma law,” she said at the time.

“It means that you can do perfectly well in everything you do, then it will all be perfect. So I can still work.”

In 2022, she acted in the short film Inn.