One of Taiwan's highest-ranking government officials landed in Shanghai last night, after his only daughter, film producer Wendy Kuan, died early in the morning following a fatal fall from her 27th-floor Xuhui district apartment.

The 34-year-old's father, Kuan John Chung, president of the Examination Yuan in Taiwan, the body responsible for recruiting civil servants, appeared solemn after landing at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, where his wife, also the mother of his daughter, had earlier arrived.

The senior Taiwan official declined on Wednesday evening to speak with local press about his daughter's "unforced" death as determined by a preliminary police investigation.

Her time of death was recorded at 4 am, after she fell out the kitchen window of her International Metropolitan City home on Nandan Road, where she lived with her Chinese mainland movie director husband Lin Zhele, said police.

Although police ruled out the possibility of murder, the city's public security bureau would not say whether she jumped and failed to classify her death as a suicide on Wednesday.

The police did, however, say that a will was found at her home, but declined to provide further details on Wednesday, with a press officer for the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau, who asked not to be named, saying that the investigation was ongoing.

Wei Wenbing, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of Shanghai, said on Wednesday that authorities would cooperate with the investigation, but also declined to discuss the cause of her death.

Fans of Wendy Kuan gathered outside her Yan'an Road Middle studio and organized an online memorial service on Wednesday afternoon.

The producer was perhaps best known for her 2006 film Soul Carriage, which tells the story of a young Chinese man, who leaves his small town home for the bright lights of Shanghai.

A short poem translating to: "Wet street, dim light; sucking the night with each other; gay masochism; died sadism; each setting their moves on the chessboard secretly," was the last post made to her weibo.com microblog around 2 am on Tuesday, roughly 24 hours before her death.

Wendy Kuan is survived by her and her husband's months-old baby girl.

Go to Forum >>0 Comments