The family of Hong Kong Cantopop icon Anita Mui has appealed to the public for help after discovering that an urn containing her ashes was taken from a monastery on Lantau Island nearly three months ago.
In a statement released on Saturday, which would have been Mui’s 63rd birthday, her family said a fan visiting Po Lin Monastery on July 18 noticed a screw at the singer’s columbarium niche had been loosened. The urn holding her ashes was no longer inside.
“The fan immediately notified Mui’s family, and Mui’s family quickly filed a police report,” the family said in a Chinese-language statement shared on the late singer’s fan pages.
“But the police’s investigation has gone on for almost three months, and there has been no progress,” they added.
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The loss has compounded an already painful period for Mui’s family. Her mother died in August at the age of 102.
The family said they were “enduring a double blow and [was] utterly heartbroken.”
They are urging anyone who visited Po Lin Monastery on or before July 18 to come forward if they saw anyone acting suspiciously or carrying what appeared to be an urn.
They have also asked drivers who travelled near the monastery in July, particularly before July 18, to submit dashcam footage that could help the investigation.
Mui remains one of Hong Kong’s most cherished entertainers, more than two decades after her death from cervical cancer in 2003 at the age of 40.
She began performing at a young age to support her family, launching her career before completing secondary school.
Her 1985 album Bad Girl set sales records for its time, while her rebellious image made her a symbol of independence and individuality for a generation of young Hongkongers.
Two years later, she broke another record by staging the largest number of concerts in a single year.
Her life was later chronicled in Anita, a 2021 biographical film that became one of Hong Kong’s top-grossing local releases that year.
For fans, the disappearance of her ashes is more than a police matter. It is another painful chapter in the city’s long relationship with an artist who helped define an era of Cantopop.
