Leslie Cheung, Actor--From Hong Kong to the World-Part 2

Part 2

Leslie also developed into a fine comic actor and starred in some of Hong Kong’s most beloved comedies in the 1990s:  the swishy, effeminate young man in “All’s Well That Ends Well”, the wacky young master in “The Eagle Shooting Heroes” (one of Hong Kong’s most outrageous comedies), the bohemian outsider who solves everyone’s romantic problems in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the punk who wants out of the triads and gets sucked into the greatest cooking contest ever staged in Hong Kong in “The Chinese Feast”, the sympathetic dreamboat Catholic priest in “Tri-Star”, and the handsome young lover in “Ninth Happiness”, complete with a hysterical rendition of his big Cantopop hit, Red.  He brought a light touch to these comic roles and seemed happy to make his audiences laugh at the complexities and troubles of life.  These comedies are, typically, ensemble pieces so the focus is less on Leslie and the character that he portrays.  These are not deep portrayals, though his Roberto in “It’s a Wonderful Life” has his moment of truth when he has to face the fact that, by his meddling, he has in fact made everyone’s life worse than it was before his arrival.  (Although everything, of course, is resolved in the final reel.)  How many actors are equally adept at serious portrayals and silly characters like David Cooper Feel (yes, you read that right), the womanizing magician who is always copping a feel inside the drawers of his female volunteers at his magic shows!

Leslie shone in three seriocomic films in the mid-nineties.  He starred in Peter Chan’s two gender-bending comedies, “He’s a Woman, She’s a Man” and “Who’s the Woman, Who’s the Man”.  The irony is not lost on us today of Leslie playing a heterosexual character who believes he has fallen in love with a rather effeminate young man, and so questions his sexual orientation.  Today we know that Leslie was, in fact, involved in a homosexual relationship for 10 years already when he made this film.  So we, obviously, have a different reading of Leslie and his character than audiences did when it was released in 1994.  But what is clear is that Sam Koo, his character in both Peter Chan films, was not Leslie Chang.  Leslie brought a great sensitivity to his portrayal of the confused, homophobic record producer, but it was a fabricated persona that, in fact, had little in common with Leslie’s own personal situation.  Leslie once said in an interview that Sam Koo was Peter Chan’s alter-ego, not his.  Yet Leslie is entirely convincing in his role, even knowing what we know now about him.   The other great seriocomic role that Leslie shone in was Derek Yee’s “Viva Erotica”.  He plays a very hetero film director (this is made crystal clear by the sheet burning love scene Leslie shares with Karen Mok while the opening credits roll) who has been convinced, against his better judgment he thinks, into making a porno film.  He plays the bewildered, dispirited director, beset by myriad difficulties, to perfection.  This is a smart movie that has important things to say about eroticism, living your dreams (or at least some version of them), and the real meaning of friend and comradeship.  Piquant asides about the Hong Kong film industry, as it was at that time, pepper virtually every scene.  Smart, funny, and in the end poignant, this describes Leslie’s character and “Viva Erotica”.

Leslie had the great good fortune to star in a number of genre-defining films.  Who could forget his role as the morally upright younger brother cop in “A Better Tomorrow” and “A Better Tomorrow II”?  These are the two films in which John Woo created the heroic bloodshed picture that came to be so important in Hong Kong from the mid-80s until today.  Violence, bloodshed, the battle between good and evil that is perpetually reenacted, the bonds of brotherhood—fraternal and triad—that define loyalties and impose their often impossible price, all of this was laid out in these two films.

To be Continued