Leslie Cheung, Actor--From Hong Kong to the World-Part 3

Part 3

In “A Chinese Ghost Story” and “A Chinese Ghost Story II”, Leslie defined the role of the comic and tragic bumbling young scholar who falls in love with a ghost.  The odd mix of comedy, romance and ghost story work so well because Leslie is able to contain all these contradictions within himself.  Is there anything more tender and tragic than the love scenes between the beautiful young ghost and the handsome, but hapless young scholar?  There is a freshness, a trembling beauty and rapturous sensuality in the scenes that Leslie and Joey Wong share that elevates “A Chinese Ghost Story” to the .pinnacle of Hong Kong film making.

“Bride With White Hair” redefined the historical swordplay picture, bringing to it an art house sensibility.  The scenes between Leslie and Brigitte Lin, as the Bride, are among the most sensual in Leslie’s career.  The sexual chemistry, the emotional bond these two characters display in this film, combined with the sumptuous costumes and camera work, the extravagant story and the strong supporting cast set a new direction for swordplay films.

Some of Hong Kong’s best directors worked with Leslie over the course of his career.  Patrick Tam recognized a diamond in the rough when he cast Leslie in “Nomad”.  Stanley Kwan picked up on Leslie’s sexual ambiguity and used it to great effect in “Rouge”.  The first scene in which we see Fleur and Master 12, Fleur is dressed as a man and singing Cantonese opera.  She actively flirts with Master 12, who stands passively at her side, enchanted by her attentions.  The softness and vulnerability Leslie revealed in that scene reappears again in every scene he played with Anita Mui.  Fleur is a product of the school of hard knocks and has a tougher exterior than the pampered mama’s boy, Master 12.  Without his experience playing Master 12, would Leslie’s characterization of his greatest screen role, the dan Peking Opera singer Cheng Dieyi been as fully developed?

It was Mainland director Chen Kaige who looked inside Leslie’s soul and saw the heart of Cheng Dieyi beating there.  Cheng Dieyi was Leslie’s favorite role, the one he felt the most affinity for, though he was careful to point out in interviews that he most definitely was not Cheng Dieyi.  Dieyi was an orphan raised in a Peking Opera school in 1920s Beijing.  Trained since childhood to impersonate the female roles of the Peking Opera repertory, on stage Dieyi (and Leslie) were transformed into a delicate, beautiful woman.  Leslie immersed himself in the role, studying Mandarin, and learning the physically demanding Peking Opera style of female impersonation.  Chen recognized that Leslie was an actor able to portray a broader gender range than most, that he was up to the task of playing an attractive, sensitive man who was able to channel his intensely beautiful feminine side to play the female characters his profession called for.  Combined with great physical beautify and delicacy, Leslie brought a shimmering vulnerability to his characterization of Dieyi.  As the beautiful man-woman Dieyi, Leslie won over audiences worldwide.  This is his most widely known film in the West, and the one that garnered the most film awards.  Although the rest of the cast was strong, the film rested on Leslie’s shoulders.  It was his portrayal of Dieyi that made “Farewell, My Concubine” the marvel that it is.

Leslie portrayed other remarkable characters in a several more art house films.  For Chen Kaige he portrayed the gigolo scamming rich women in “Temptress Moon”.  For Wong Kar-Wai he starred in “Ashes of Time”, Wong’s re-imagining of the historic swordplay genre, and “Happy Together”, where Leslie played the tormented, amoral, promiscuous homosexual lover of Tony Leung Chiu-Wai.

To Be Continued