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Richard James Havis

Considering that Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing once told the Post that his acting career was simply a “bonus” that followed on from his Cantopop success, he proved incredibly good at it.
Although he was not a trained actor, Cheung was very natural in front of the camera, and acted with the depth and intensity of an expert Method actor.
“Cheung put his heart into every performance, making use of every frown and smile to shape his character,” the Hong Kong Film Archive notes.
Two of his greatest performances were for Fifth Generation Chinese director Chen Kaige, in the 1993 epic Farewell My Concubine and 1996 follow-up Temptress Moon.

We take a deep dive into Cheung’s performances for Chen.
Farewell My Concubine
Farewell My Concubine, which shared the Palme d’Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, is a classic of world cinema, and much of that is down to Cheung’s incredible performance.
As Cheng Dieyi, a male player of female Peking opera roles, Cheung’s emotional range on screen runs the gamut, from love to hatred, coquettishness, courage, naivety, passion and jealousy.


“Leslie Cheung is a very, very good actor,” director Chen Kaige told the Post in 1993. “We talked a lot and I think he did his best.”
“[His character in the film] is very sensitive – too sensitive maybe – naive, pure. Physically you can say he is a man but psychologically probably he is a woman.”
Farewell my Concubine is based on a novel by Lilian Lee Pik-wah, and was brought to Chen by producer Hsu Feng. The story, as rewritten by Chen, integrates a jealousy-ridden love triangle with the great upheavals of China during the 20th century.

The film was the first in modern China to tell a gay love story, but the homosexual aspect was played down at the time for fear of irking China’s censors, despite carrying the narrative.
The speciality of Cheung’s character Dieyi is the opera Farewell My Concubine, and he has long been in a romantic relationship with the bisexual Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi).
Trouble arises when Juxian (Gong Li), a prostitute at a brothel Xiaolou frequents, persuades him to marry her. Dieyi’s despair and vitriolic jealousy at the loss of his lover ruins all their lives.
Chen sets Dieyi’s bitter anguish against the major historical events of the 20th century in China – the Republican era, the Japanese invasion, the Kuomintang government, the Communist liberation and the Cultural Revolution – and shows how they impact the trio’s lives.
Cheung makes the role his own, and it is impossible to imagine anyone else expressing such a dangerous cocktail of delicacy, sensitivity and spite.

Oddly, the director and producer originally discussed the role with Jackie Chan, who was interested but ultimately felt a gay story would not be good for his image. (Chan reportedly liked the finished film.)
The role then went to The Last Emperor’s John Lone, who had lobbied hard for it, but pulled out after arguments with producer Hsu about his contract.
Cheung, who had become interested in making serious films, then took the role, noting that he would not have been able to do it earlier in his career because its gay aspect would have affected his “public image” as a Cantopop star.
“Nowadays I am a professional actor, and a serious actor, so I have the courage to take the role,” he said in a “making of” documentary at the time.

Cheung did not know Peking opera when he took the part, and studied it for three months to prepare. He is effective in the performances, although he has said that he did not accurately capture the nuances of the art form.
Farewell My Concubine did well internationally, but it did not make Cheung an international name. The spotlight instead fell on co-star Gong Li.
In China the film was banned. The rumour at the time was that the authorities thought the homosexual element of the film would offend then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.
But the bigger reason seemed to be political. The authorities objected to the fact that Dieyi’s suicide took place in 1977, a time of relative calm under the Communist Party, and not during the Japanese occupation or the era of Nationalist rule.
The film was finally released in China after heavy cuts.

Temptress Moon
Chen Kaige’s next film, which was again produced by Hsu and again paired Leslie Cheung and Gong Li, was a flop internationally. But it remains a fascinating and haunting work, and Cheung’s performance is superlative.
Cheung plays Zhonglian, a debonair swindler. Zhonglian is superficially similar to the damaged Dieyi in Farewell My Concubine, but Cheung expresses the character much differently, this time as a scheming Lothario rather than a spiteful lover.


Cheung’s character is simply looking out for himself. He is a broken soul who nonetheless possesses the capacity to love deeply. “Cheung is excellent as Zhonglian, moving between a confident gigolo and an emotion-wracked lover with ease,” critic Derek Elley wrote in the film trade journal Variety.
The story, which is a bit like the classic Chinese play Thunderstorm, is set mainly in a sprawling house in Suzhou during the Republican era (1912-1945). Unlike Farewell My Concubine, history does not feature much in Temptress Moon, which focuses wholly on the aberrant psychologies of its characters.
Gong Li plays Ruyi, a young woman and opium addict who has become the nominal head of the Pang family household because of the patriarch’s overwhelming drug habit.
Zhonglian, who was sexually abused by the patriarch and his own sister as a child, lives in Shanghai, where he works as a gigolo and blackmails married women.

Returning to the Pang household, he falls in love with Ruyi. But a spiteful rival reveals his blackmailing activities to her, leading to disaster.
“Temptress Moon is a movie of moods and feelings, the celluloid equivalent of a light opium dream,” Elley wrote.
The film received prior approval from the censors in China, but was immediately banned on completion because of its negative depiction of the country.
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.
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How Leslie Cheung excelled in Chen Kaige films Farewell My Concubine and Temptress Moon

Zhang Fengyi (left) and Leslie Cheung in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Tomson Films

Leslie Cheung as Peking opera singer Cheng Dieyi in Farewell My Concubine, one of his greatest performances as an actor. Photo: SCMP

Cheung (right) and Chen Kaige on the set of Farewell My Concubine, in July 1992. Photo: SCMP

Cheung (left) and Fengyi Zhang in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Beijing Film Studio

(From left) Cheung, producer Hsu Feng and Chen Kaige at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport with the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for Farewell My Concubine. Photo: SCMP

Zhang and Cheung in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Tomson Films

Cheung in a still from Farewell My Concubine. Photo: Tomson Films

Cheung and Gong Li in a still from Temptress Moon. Photo: Tomson Films

Why Brandon Lee’s first and only Hong Kong film Legacy of Rage was his best after The Crow

Brandon Lee in a still from Legacy of Rage. Photo: D &amp; B Films Co.

Brandon Lee in a still from Legacy of Rage (1986). Although the crime martial arts film earned Lee a Hong Kong Film Awards nomination, it is underrated. A film expert explains why, and the battles Lee was fighting on and off screen. Photo: Fortune Star Media Limited


Brandon Lee (left) and director Ronny Yu on the set of Legacy of Rage. Photo: D & B Films Co. Ltd.

Michael Wong in a still from Legacy of Rage. Photo: D & B Films Co. Ltd.

Lee and Mang Hoi in a still from Legacy of Rage. Photo: D & B Films Co. Ltd.

Chu Hak and Regina Kent in a still from Legacy of Rage. Photo: D & B Films Co. Ltd.

Lee (right) and Bolo Yeung in a still from Legacy of Rage. Photo: D & B Films Co.

Lee in a still from Legacy of Rage. Much of the actor’s martial arts in the movie ended up revolving around guns. Photo: D & B Films Co. Ltd.

Is the ‘flying guillotine’ a real weapon? How Hong Kong martial arts films created a myth

A still from The Flying Guillotine (1975), which spawned a number of films that featured the fictional assassin’s weapon of the same name.

Chen Kuan-tai as Ma Teng (centre) in a still from The Flying Guillotine (1975).

Chin Kang as Fung Sheng Wu Chi in a still from Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976).

1980s Hong Kong pop idol Danny Chan’s bittersweet success story: his talent, fame, the tabloid rumours, his retirement and early death

Singer Danny Chan Pak-keung puts one of his albums in a time capsule in 1991. Photo: SCMP

Danny Chan was one of Hong Hong’s “Three Kings and A Queen of Cantopop” in the 1980s, with fellow idols Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui and Alan Tam. Photo: SCMP

Yvonne Siu, project manager of TVB, presents a souvenir to Danny Chan in 1984. Photo: SCMP

Chan singing at his own birthday party in 1988. Photo: SCMP

Chan (left) and Jacky Cheung Hok-yau at the Top Ten Pop Stars Election in 1987. Photo: SCMP

There were numerous rumours about a relationship between Pansy Ho and Chan. Photo: Weibo

Chan performing at a concert to promote Aids awareness in 1990. Photo: SCMP

Chan was taken to Queen Mary Hospital after collapsing at home on May 19, 1992. Photo: SCMP

Flanked by singer Anita Mui Yim-fong and actor Chow Yun-fat, Danny Chan’s older brother Chan Pak-ling carries his younger brother’s picture at the singer’s funeral in 1993. Photo: SCMP

How the Pang Brothers’ The Eye movies led Hong Kong cinema’s horror genre in the 2000s

Angelica Lee Sinje in a still from The Eye (2002), directed by twin brothers Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang Fat.

Danny Pang (left) and Oxide Pang at an interview with the Post in 2003. Photo: SCMP

A still from The Eye.

Lawrence Chou (left) and Angelica Lee in a still from The Eye. Photo: Applause Pictures and Raintree Pictures

Shu Qi in a still from The Eye 2 (2004).

Chen Bo-lin (left) and Isabella Leong in a still from The Eye 10 (2005).

How Hong Kong’s gambling film genre was spurred by Andy Lau, Chow Yun-fat and Stephen Chow

Andy Lau in a still from Casino Raiders (1989). Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Chow Yun-fat in a still from God of Gamblers, Wong Jing’s gambling classic that broke Hong Kong box-office records in 1989, and, along with Casino Raiders the same year and All for the Winner in 1990, set the gambling movie genre in motion.

(From left) Andy Lau, Chow Yun-fat and Ronald Wong in a still from God of Gamblers (1989).

(From left) Sharla Cheung, Stephen Chow and Ng Man-tat in a still from All for the Winner (1990). Photo: Win’s Movie Production.

Andy Lau (left) and Stephen Chow in a still from God of Gamblers II (1990), which introduced All for the Winner star Chow to the series.

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Cheung’s turns opposite Gong Li as a gay opera singer and a gigolo in 20th century China were two of his best, but both fell foul of censors


Cheung’s turns opposite Gong Li as a gay opera singer and a gigolo in 20th century China were two of his best, but both fell foul of censors.
