How Leslie Cheung movie Farewell My Concubine changed a Hong Kong inclusivity champion’s life
- Historical drama ‘Farewell My Concubine’ influenced Encompass HK founder Benita Chick’s view on gender fluidity, diversity, inclusion and the LGBTQ world
- One of Cheung’s famous lines – ‘I am by nature a girl, not a boy’ – was very powerful to Chick, who at the time had not been exposed to issues of homosexuality
Epic historical drama Farewell My Concubine (1993), directed by Chen Kaige and starring Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, Gong Li and Zhang Fengyi, depicts gender fluidity both on and off the stage to tell a visually and emotionally rich story of intense personal devotion in the world of Peking opera, against the tumultuous backdrop of 20th century China.
Benita Chick Ben-yue, founder of Encompass HK, a social enterprise that offers companies sustainability, diversity and inclusion training and consultancy, and a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life.
I first saw it when I was 11 or 12 years old. It influenced my view on gender fluidity and my work in the diversity and inclusion and LGBTQ+ world.
My mum took me to see it in the cinema. She introduced me to different genres of movies. She likes intense stories about history. I didn’t know the story before I saw it, but I knew the background was all about recent Chinese history.
I was very touched by the film – by the interaction and love of the two main characters. I was at an age when I was experimenting with gender expression. I was quite girlie in middle school. When I went to secondary school, I was more of a tomboy. That movie helped me to think about it.
