Career Tribute: Tony Leung Will Break Your Heart

Tony Leung Will Break Your Heart

by Jen Johans

Soulful, stirring, and often somber, even when he isn’t playing a lover, Tony Leung will break your heart. Famously dubbed by “The Times” in London as “Asia's answer to Clark Gable,” the Hong Kong native (whose full name is Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is one of the most acclaimed and adored actors of his generation.

Routinely reading his scripts at least forty times before – as he confessed to “The Guardian” – possibly calling the writer in the middle of the night with his thoughts, for Leung (who celebrates his birthday on June 27), acting is not so much a profession as it is his addiction . . . as well as his therapeutic recovery.

Giving him an outlet for the feelings he'd been holding onto since he was a shy, repressed child whose gambler father had walked out on the family when Leung was just six-years-old, the ability to exorcise his emotions under the guise of playing someone else hooked him as soon as he signed up for an acting course at the age of nineteen.

Quickly finding stardom on the small screen in the early 1980s as the protagonist of the popular series “Police Cadet” – opposite his soon-to-be frequent leading lady Maggie Cheung – Tony Leung was one of five up-and-coming young male stars who were labeled “TVB's Five Tigers,” which you could liken to Hong Kong television's answer to the Brat Pack.

Making the move to film, Leung found his way into early critically and commercially successful ventures like Taiwanese helmer Hou Hsiao-hsien's Venice Film Festival award-winner “A City of Sadness” in 1989 and John Woo's “Hard Boiled” in 1992.

Reuniting with Woo two years after he worked with the director on his personal opus “Bullet in the Head," in the now contemporary crime classic “Hard Boiled," Leung was cast opposite one of Hong Kong's biggest box office draws, Mr. Chow Yun-fat.

A veteran performer who'd starred in the epic crime series “A Better Tomorrow,” and “The Killer,” both of which had turned him and Woo into huge box office sensations, it was Chow who was given the undisputed lead role in Woo's final Hong Kong “bullet ballet” before the director made the move to Hollywood.

The end result marked a decidedly different outing for the filmmaker. Criticized for glamorizing killers in his earliest films with Chow, in “Hard Boiled” – which underwent copious changes in its 123-day shoot after the death of screenwriter Barry Wong – Woo opted to use the same formula he'd had success with before, only this time with a police officer in the role of the protagonist.

Not playing a hitman or gangster this time but a hard-headed, impetuous cop nicknamed “Tequila” who's eager to bring down the Triads responsible for his partner's death, just as he did in “A Better Tomorrow” and “The Killer,” it's the wildly charismatic Chow Yun-fat who has the showiest role in Woo's film.

Yet, written as a cross between Don Johnson in “Miami Vice” and Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” as marvelous as he is in “Hard Boiled,” because it's missing the same quiet poetry of his romantic antihero in “The Killer,” the film's soul is found less in Chow's lead than it is in the subtly mesmerizing turn by supporting player Tony Leung. And with this in mind, on repeat viewings, you'll notice that it's Leung who manages to sneak in and – while you're being dazzled by Chow's ability to fend off a hospital full of armed assassins while cradling newborn babies – sails away with your heart. In fact, the first person to acknowledge this was Chow himself who felt like the film's final cut removed some important moments for his admittedly one-dimensional character to show the depth of his feelings, which is why Leung's supporting turn rings so true.

At least partially inspired by Alain Delon's character in Jean-Pierre Melville's crime classic “Le Samuraï,” “Hard Boiled” finds Leung in the type of coolly contemplative role that has since become synonymous with the star while playing a police officer who's been on a deep undercover assignment with the Triads for far too long.

Torn by his allegiance to two father figures on both sides of the law who ask him to kill and protect in equal measure, the only peace Leung finds is from living a solitary life on his boat. Docked in the bay, much like his yacht, Leung is forever waiting to set out for a new life on a new land far away from everything he knows and wants to forget. Making paper cranes as a form of penance and acknowledgment of the lives he's taken, Leung's tragic yet compelling internal struggle adds emotional depth to what is otherwise a completely awe-inspiring work of action filmmaking.

Giving him the more romantic inclinations that wouldn't have been out of place for Chow's killer in “The Killer,” even though it's Chow who's in an on-again, off-again relationship with his superior (Teresa Mo) in “Hard Boiled,” it's Leung who sends her white roses and coded Elvis lyrics when he needs to convey a message to the police department.

And in this respect, Leung's performance in “Hard Boiled” marks a terrific precursor to his staggering turn in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's 2002 “Infernal Affairs” trilogy, which was remade by Leung's favorite American filmmaker – Martin Scorsese – as “The Departed” in the states with Leonardo DiCaprio in the Leung role.

A top-notch work of Hong Kong cop noir and a great introduction to Leung for new film fans hoping to see something a little more western minded before they venture onto the actor's more daring art films, even though it was made twenty-eight years ago, “Hard Boiled” still feels fresher than most CGI heavy, assembly-line manufactured action movies being released today.

But as great as he is at adding hidden layers to his co-lead or supporting characters in his mainstream Hong Kong fare, it's the lovers that come to mind most when you think of Tony Leung and doubly so when you look back on his heyday in the '90s and early '00s.

So fiercely devoted to his craft that he'll learn anything for the right collaborator, film, and/or role, when it came time to meet up once again with his most frequent director Wong Kar-wai in Argentina for the gorgeous gay love story "Happy Together" in 1997, Leung took up not only the tango but also Spanish. Still, this was not the only time he would adopt a whole new language for a role. Most notably, Leung learned Mandarin for Zhang Yimou's 2002 stunner "Hero," which, despite being dubbed in the final release, paid off for Leung five years later when he spoke Mandarin in Ang Lee's startling film "Lust, Caution."

Yet, regardless of the dialect that Leung takes on in the multilingual "Happy Together," fans of Wong Kar-wai know that his films are truly universal. Dedicated to the human connection we need and crave in others (director Sofia Coppola is a huge fan), Wong's movies speak a language we immediately understand – a language Leung is more than fluent in throughout his filmography – the language of love.

"Let's start over." Habitually said by his “Happy Together” character's flighty lover (played by Leslie Cheung) whenever he hopes to reunite with Leung's romantically drained lead and begin anew, “let's start over” is the refrain that holds the pair in each other's orbit after they venture from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires and break up yet again.

Knowing that he can no longer let himself backslide into a relationship where the two men's affection for one another is outweighed by suspicion and mistrust, by the end of the film that garnered Wong Kar-wai the prize for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, Leung's protagonist knows that in order to start over, he's going to have to ignore the “let's” and go it alone.

Watched in quick succession with Woo's “Hard Boiled,” the parallels are obvious between his '92 solitary protagonist and the conflicted one he plays here who's heartbroken by his lot in life and his relationships with others, from his ex-lover to his father to a co-worker with possible romantic potential. And indeed, the double-edged sword of promise and penance wrapped up in the phrase “let's start over” seems to apply not only to his “Happy Together” character in one of Leung's strongest performances to date but to all of the men he's played for Woo, Wong, Zhang, Lee, and beyond.

Yet although his collaborations have been legendary, in the more than half a dozen films they've made together over the past three decades, in the end, it's Wong Kar-wai who seems to best understand how to use Leung's penchant for emotional complexity to disarm viewers and draw them in. Famous for his chaotic productions which find Wong shooting without a script – and often with only a kernel of an idea as to who each character should be which might change multiple times during the improvisational shoot as the actors feel things out with his guidance – the trust and respect the two have for one another is unmatched.

While “Happy Together” marked one of Leung's most soulful performances for the filmmaker, the actor is perhaps most famous for Wong's “Chungking Express” – where he played a lovesick cop so distracted by an ex that he nearly misses the chance at a new love – and the director's 2000 masterpiece “In the Mood for Love.” Starring in the latter as a repressed married man living in 1960s Hong Kong who develops an attraction to the wife of the man his wife is having an affair with (played by Maggie Cheung), "Mood" finally garnered Tony Leung the award for Best Actor from the Cannes Film Festival that everyone assumed would've been his three years before for “Happy Together.”

Skilled at bringing to life his own unique brand of morally and internally beleaguered men who fall in love without trying and want to start over but can't until they figure out what (and who) it is that they truly want, Leung shined exceptionally bright in Zhang Yimou's 2002 film “Hero" as the epitome of this type of role.

Inspired by Jing Ke's assassination attempt on the King of Qin which took place in 227 B.C., in “Hero,” Jet Li's nameless swordsman regales the king with tales of his successful battles against three of the man's most wanted enemies, including a man named Broken Sword (Leung) who fights alongside his lady love Falling Snow (played once again by Maggie Cheung).

A secondary supporting character whose true motives are uncertain for nearly two-thirds of the stylish wuxia feature, as Li shares his version of the events that brought him to the palace, we see the plot involving Leung's character unfold a handful of different ways as Li's narrative evolves from start to finish.

Is Broken Sword a jealous, possessive lover who acts impetuously and seduces Zhang Ziyi out of brokenhearted spite at Cheung's one-night affair with Donnie Yen? Is he a resigned, peaceful man who's outgrown life as a warrior? Or is he something else entirely – something that exists halfway between the two poles?

Leung's performance in “Hero” is passionate, ponderous, and (once again) predominantly quiet. A subtle turn overall, Broken Sword allows the actor to play both sides of the same solitary, zen-like coin of the man he's embodied for most of his career – a man who's looking to start again but doesn't completely know how to do so.

A gripping, somber, and lushly beautiful epic that found Leung and Cheung hired by Zhang precisely because he loved their chemistry in Wong's “In the Mood for Love,” the fascinating “Hero” questions how history is made and asks whether a sacrifice crafted from love carries just as much weight as one made of sword and blood.

Much like “Hard Boiled,” and “Happy Together,” “Hero” is proof once again that – having perfected silence as a child only to live to manifest his repressed emotions as an adult – Tony Leung plays thoughtful, quietly tormented men better than nearly anyone since Robert De Niro. (Thus, it should come as no surprise that De Niro and Leung are mutual fans of each other's work.) Always ready to learn a new skill and speak a new language besides – of course – love, in his richest and most daring performances, Tony Leung puts everything on the line to break your heart while also risking his own. He's the addiction as well as the cure.

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Blu-ray Review: Hero (2002) -- Ultimate Force of Four Box Set Collection

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As the most prolific and highly respected Chinese Fifth Generation director, Zhang Yimou elevates the craft of filmmaking to the purist form of painterly, poetic art. With a passion for seeking out the most exquisite and emotionally potent shade of a certain color and ensuring the precise sound, cut, and rhythm in any given project he takes on, Zhang Yimou is one of cinema's most innovative and impressive directors.

While Chinese film is largely known for exploring violence and relishing in the martial arts with the tremendously breathless Hong Kong action packed titles Kung Fu fans have been devouring for decades, it took the incredibly patient Yimou roughly two decades to venture into the genre he'd always wanted to explore.

Especially interested in moving beyond the traditional swordplay of martial arts genre pictures and drawn to the "warring states period" of China during the third century B.C., he developed an original story that sought out philosophical and ethical answers regarding just what comprises a hero and worked tirelessly with two screenwriters for twenty-four months before he decided it was acceptable to begin filming.

While most filmmakers seem ready to rush into production with a treatment alone and rewriting the work as they go along when they have a big budget and A-list talent to play with since you're essentially guaranteed box office gold, Yimou has never been the kind of director who will sacrifice style for speed and quality for quantity. And sure enough, even when one of his films isn't quite the finished product viewers may have desired such as in the recent mixed bag of the sumptuous mess Curse of the Golden Flower, we can at the very least sense his singular vision, ambition, and strive for perfection on every level from beginning to end.

Perhaps most famous in America for his collaborations with former muse and romantic partner, Gong Li including Raise the Red Lantern, the daring Yimou has ventured like a true artist back and forth through several periods from sultry film noirs like Ju Dou and Shanghai Triad to politically charged epics like To Live to naturalistic neorealism focused works Not One Less, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles and The Road Home.

Yet the one recurring theme that shows up again and again in his humanistic films is in the power of human choice and the everyday heroics of people in relation to others whether it's on a small scale or one much larger in scope. Ethical considerations and political implications run throughout his oeuvre and indeed, the period film Hero seems especially timely as a martial arts movie that doubles as an allegorical work, which reflects some recent Chinese infighting over separate states today.

Still, it's an important distinction to point out that the movies themselves are about people first and never place messages over the characters and plot since he shares that it's his belief that, "the objective of any form of art is not political. I am not interested in politics." While in the same page of quotations collected on IMDb he explains further to acknowledge his two most successful films of the 2000s-- Hero and House of Flying Daggers-- as "commercial" pictures and sure enough critics fell all over themselves comparing the movies to Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon especially because they share the actress Zhang Ziyi, they're amazing efforts in their own right and from a visual standpoint alone, much more beautiful than Crouching Tiger.

Thankfully, to the joy of viewers, the patient perfectionist Yimou has been reluctant to cheapen his vision with CGI. Preferring to follow the image he sees in his mind, Yimou would only film a high wire fight with Jet Li and Tony Leung flying over a lake with mirror perfect still water. To achieve this effect, he spread out the shooting schedule for three weeks, using the lake for the two hours each day when the water was completely still.

In the same token, he waited for leaves to turn just the right vibrant color of gold and knowing that they would only retain their beauty and shade for three days, he filmed Ziyi and Maggie Cheung's beautiful fight within that breakneck schedule. While doing so, he urged the women not to blink as the leaves were gathered and used again and again along with eye drops due to the wind that blew dirt around in every single take.

These approaches probably seem insane to Western filmmakers as his strive for only the highest quality possible would no doubt have sent most American producers running back to their accountants and actors to their trailers in frustration over giving up control to serve the director's vision. Yet as evidenced throughout the extensive behind the scenes extras on this cinema quality Blu-ray edition of Hero, we discover that his cast and crew feel exactly the same way as Yimou fans do in knowing that he's doing his very best to ensure the movie's sensuous loveliness will imprint directly into your dreamscape.

And that is exactly what's happened to me as I hadn't seen Hero since its 2004 release yet the fight among the golden leaves and the dazzling one over the idyllic blue lake immediately sprang to mind as the film began. Furthermore, my memory of Hero consisted primarily of its overwhelming beauty since its Rashomon style tale keeps doubling back, evolving, and daring you to keep up with its labyrinthine twists.

And honestly the first time I saw Hero, I didn't keep up-- either lost in the beauty so much that I missed a few crucial subtitles or getting a couple of characters mistaken-- finally I just gave into my confusion and watched the movie for its cinematic poetry. Moreover, I was relieved to read that a few critics I greatly admire had a little trouble following not just the thread but the final twenty minutes which I'm still not sure logically works in sync with the rest.

While made in 2002, it took a full two years and the power of Quentin Tarantino to help bring the film to American audiences where it became the first foreign language movie in history to debut at #1 at the United States box office. Thus, when House of Flying Daggers was released the same year from Sony Pictures Classics rather than Miramax and produced in '04 instead of two years prior, I was among the few who preferred Daggers despite its slightly over-the-top Shakespearean inspired demise in the final showdown. However, again proof of the importance of watching movies a second time around as well as a fervent desire that I could have this opportunity more often since I take in so much media that it blurs together from time to time, I've completely changed my stance on Hero with this review.

Not only do I prefer it to the gorgeously impressive Daggers but I'm actually wondering if it is superior to Crouching Tiger due to its daring decision to explore the consequences of violence, power, self vs. country, revenge, the concept of "an eye for an eye," loss of culture, heritage, and the double-edged figurative sword of using war to create peace. However the logic of the final mental chess move made by the men leading us into various extended flashback versions of possible truths still leads viewers into philosophical circles. When presented with the events, those more intrigued by logic will drive themselves batty wondering if a) wouldn't have happened, would b) have happened as the characters find themselves in the third (or c) act or in reality why a and b would've been necessary at all. However, I'm very happy to abandon attempts to over-analyze to experience the surprisingly moving and intoxicating epic which stands among Yimou's very best.

Nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe as the best foreign film of the year, Jet Li took quite a pay cut in the film which at the time was China's most expensive production ever created. In Hero, he stars as our nameless hero who is honored with a private audience of the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) once he's eliminated the three most ruthless assassins who've come the closest to taking the king's life to prevent his drive to conquer their states and force unification.

Bringing the famous swords of the three killers-- Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung)-- as proof of his victory, Li's character, just referred to as Nameless is asked by the King to recount the success of his battles and is granted permission to take several paces closer to the man for each death.

Taking supreme advantage of film as a "show me" medium, Yimou uses a distinct, unique, and eye-popping color scheme for every single battle which begins with what is considered the "chess fight" or as Li shares a great "tennis" setup as he rematches with Once Upon A Time in China II costar Donnie Yen whom he chose for the part. The stellar sequence which has become a fanboy favorite took two weeks to film involving wire work, black and white photography, and a crisp professional approach.

Continuously topping himself throughout in this amazing collaboration with frequent Wong Kar Wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the chess fight is in stark contrast to the passionate and fiery love triangle that occurs between In the Mood for Love stars Leung and Cheung (in Wai's film lensed by Doyle). In this segment, Nameless exploits their relationship by using the beautiful Zhang Ziyi and Cheung's past as pawns to get the killers off their game.

Employing the familiar and effective rhythms of Crouching Tiger composer Tan Dun who utilized Itzhak Perlman on violin and Kodo drummers, the film grows much more elaborate as it moves from one eye-popping segment to the next which is further complicated when the King sees through the first version of the account by Nameless. After this occurs, we're presented with the second Rashomon-like revision where the costumes, colors, and makeup changes to balance the ever-changing explanation of just what happened and is waiting to happen.

A flawless Blu-ray presentation with extensive extra features including an in-depth Jet Li and Quentin Tarantino interview wherein Li admits that he actually cried after reading the screenplay because of the emotional power packed within the action framework, fans can also relish in storyboards, featurettes, and more.

Overall, the strongest asset to an already solid collection, Hero is a masterful work filled with beauty, sorrow, and a firm commitment to integrity infused entertainment as Yimou reminds that just because something is classified as martial arts, it doesn't have to sacrifice quality or substance. Likewise, Yimou's Hero is sure to please fans of the genre from all interest levels as you can watch it for the superlative fight choreography, majestic photography, or just one more documented example that reminds us why the word "director" is far too weak to be attached to Mr. Zhang Yimou.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.