Supplement and support: Elaine Jin, the ‘queen of supporting stars’

This article examines the supporting stardom of Elaine Jin in the Hong Kong New Wave and Taiwan New Cinema. While Jin is appreciated by a wide spectrum of Chinese-language filmmakers, I focus on films directed by Stanley Kwan and Edward Yang, investigating the extent to which her involvement shapes their work. By blending Jin’s supporting characters, her persona, and her stardom, I theorise the functions of supporting characters to show that the supporting actress is more important than previously thought. I will: (1) demonstrate how the hierarchy of foreground (narrative made possible by the leading roles) and background (supporting actors) is ‘deconstructed’ by focusing on the role of the supporting actress; (2) enlist Derrida’s concepts of the supplement and the parergon to show that supporting characters supply what is missing in the centre, and that the supporting actress serves as the parergon, a seemingly unimportant margin to the artwork but that which makes the artwork possible; and (3) examine Jin’s various mother figures in her career. Drawing on these aspects of Jin’s legacy, this paper creates a new framework for understanding supporting roles as a critical concept in general and serves as a prime example to re-examine the Hong Kong New Wave and Taiwan New Cinema in particular.