Source: http://www.leslie-cheung.info/20050403.html
「寄語流星 流星語 ── 追憶張國榮的藝術生命」研討會
張國榮光影生命的三個階段──林紀陶 (中文） 2. 張國榮光影生命的三個階段.
Translated by Daydreamer on March 14, 2006
Speech made by Lam Kee To (“Lam”) (renowned scriptwriter)
Leslie is Still the Best
Thank you Dr. Lo for the introduction which clearly pointed out Gorgor Leslie’s importance, significance and speciality in the Hong Kong movies. First of all, let me talk about some of the feeling I have had recently. I am a critic, and actually my real job is a movie scriptwriter. All the time I have been involved in the creation of movies. I will also work with some of the movie workers who grew up with Leslie in creating scripts for the movies. In some of the scripts, including movies of both modern and ancient times, when we come to the point of choosing the actors for the roles, all of us at that moment will feel sad and downhearted, because for some of the scripts, the best actor for the role should be Gorgor. This really gives us a feeling of melancholy. Any products created by Hong Kong people, no matter they are ancient time stories or modern time stores, or for those movies that will go out of Hong Kong, they all belong to Hong Kong people’s movies, and they all will convey the themes and topics about us; we will discover that the representative of Hong Kong, one with the best image, is no one but Gorgor. It turns out that in the process of creating Hong Kong movies, we have never left Gorgor behind.
Little Brother’s Image in the Movies of the 80’s
Looking at Gorgor’s acting performance career, although he started making movies in 1978, but the one he really took part in is “Encore” filmed in the 80s. From a commentary perspective, his movie career can be divided into three stages. There are three stages of changes and we may use “Encore” of the 80’s as a line of division. In the early stage, Gorgor entered into the movie world bringing with him the image he established in the television and at the early stage of his career. All the directors deliberately tried to mold him as a rebellious youth. He himself was an idol singer, so this his image was also being used in his movies at that time. The movies at that stage include “Nomad”, “Encore” etc. His image is a direction and a path that an idol actor would follow.
To analyze the images of “big brother” and “little brother” in the movies, Leslie at that time was molded as a little brother. Everyone knows that the image of big brother at that time belonged to Chow Yun Fat. Leslie’s image in the movies was also an image of a little brother, a youth at home, carrying a sense of rebellion. Everyone should have deep impression of Leslie in his movies of the 80’s.
An Image with an Angle of Width in the 90’s
Gorgor grew up with a group of movie workers in the 90’s. Those directors who loved to make movies about “big brothers”, such as Tsui Hark, John Woo, etc. had been working very well independently; then came the 90’s, directors of movies about “little brother” started to emerge, including Wong Kar Wai, Peter Chan Ho Sin, Lee Chi Ngai, Gordon Chan Ka Sheung, etc. They could be called the post Hong Kong new wave movie workers of the second generation. They discovered that Leslie’s image could be molded in a more diversified way. Chow Yun Fat represented an image that Hong Kong wanted to change in the 80’s. The classic movie “A Better Tomorrow” has reflected that image of Chow Yun Fat. In the “A Better Tomorrow”, there happened to have a “big brother” and a “little brother”, thus Leslie played the “little brother”.
In the 90’s, Leslie made significant changes. Many times, we would use Wong Kar Wai’s “Days of Being Wild” filmed in the 90’s as the line of division. At that time, Wong Kar Wai’s story talked about a group of young people who grew up in the 60’s. To choose 60’s as the background mainly because 60’s was regarded by people as the period with the early shaping of the Hong Kong spirits, and it became mature in the 70’s. Bruce Lee was one of the classic people of the 60’s and he is the image of action. When Wong Kar Wai made the movie with the background of 60’s, he chose Leslie as the “playboy” of the 60’s, an image of a rebellious youth. At that time, the second generation directors loved to use Leslie as the representative of their movies’ image. They had discovered that Leslie was different from the image of a “little brother” in the 80’s. He could be on his own, as well possessing the acting skill with an angle of width. He could be cast to play many different roles and could afford to be molded for different images. Among them includes a role that even now everyone still agree could only be played well by Leslie alone, that is “Jia Bao Yu” [the main character in the famous classical novel of “The Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone” written by Cao Xue Qin]. I feel that actually it is not true that Leslie could play well the role of “Jia Bao Yu”; on the contrary, it was Jia Bao Yu who was very similar to Leslie Cheung. If you look at it closer, you will find that the image of Leslie is more three-dimensional than Jia Bao Yu. Leslie of the 90’s not only represented the the image of Hong Kong district, he even changed corresponding with and according to the value of Hong Kong. When more people started to know about Hong Kong, they also got to know the group of actors. Leslie’s angle of width also enlarged as the value and importance of Hong Kong grew bigger and greater. He was not merely a persona of the Hong Kong district.
Hong Kong of the 90’s, including its industrial and movie business, could not survive solely without depending on international relationship. The Hong Kong movies at that time had opened up a big market, and that situation had made Leslie to be the representative of that image, an image of the value of Hong Kong. His image also grew bigger and wider. “The Days of Being Wild” hints that a rebellious youth from Hong Kong did not want to merely stay in Hong Kong, he wanted to find his root, he had to go abroad to find out “Who I am”. At that time, Leslie himself did not only play in the movies produced in Hong Kong, he also made movies produced in Mainland China, including the “Farewell to My Concubine” and “Temptress Moon” directed by Chen Kaige, and “A Time to Remember” directed by Ye Ying. He managed to let the movie workers in Mainland China to realize that actors from Hong Kong could be molded. They could also find from Leslie the acting skill and qualify that could not be found in the actors in Mainland China. At that time, Leslie’s image had already jumped out of Hong Kong’s local image. His wide-angle performance skill and ability to be molded were not merely a persona representing Hong Kong.
Pursuing In-Depth Acting at the Later Stage
The third stage is the period after 1997. Gorgor did not merely ask for roles that could exhibit his wide-angle performance skill and ability to be molded, and he did not merely want to be an actor or a performer, he wanted to go a step further in movie making and producing. He wanted to transfer from the role of an actor to become a filmworker behind the scene, and even to be a director or scriptwriter. At that time, a lot of directors realized that Leslie was capable not only to act well and handle well in wide-angle acting performance, he could even act with depth. This could be found in the three movies directed or produced by Derek Yee, namely “Viva Erotica”, “Double Tap” and “Inner Senses”. Everyone can see that all these roles had double characters. These characters were much complicated than those wide-angle characters. These were roles with extreme characters. That concept could be found in “Viva Erotica” although it was not very significant. In it, the character, being a movie worker, struggled between the market of artistic creation and his concept towards movies. This extremity could very well reflect Hong Kong filmmakers’ in-depth view towards movie making. Everyone can see that Gorgor was very suitable in playing the role of the director in the movie. Derek Yee had used Leslie as his representative in the big screen. Later, Derek Yee was regretful that he did not invite Leslie to play the role of “Yin Thirteen” in the movie “The Sword of Master Three”. This movie meant a lot to Derek Yee because that was the first movie he played when he entered the movie world.
Here Derek Yee discovered Leslie’s ability to play characters of extremity. It also shows that Leslie’s acting skill had moved from the 90’s angle of width to the angel of depth. With the professional shooting as the background, the movie “Double Tap” doubly used the main role to bring out his predatory and tame natures. Many people believed that at that moment, Leslie should be given the best actor award. Although it was most regrettable that he did not get it, it is more important to have everyone’s recognition of his performance and success than to get an award. Then followed the movie “Inner Senses” in which he played the role that was even more difficult to handle. In the movie, he was a psychiatrist as well a patient. When he was in his real life, he was tortured by a memory that could not be forgotten which eventually became his nightmare. It was a role really hard to play. A very complicated role and at the same time he had to face a very complex story line. But Leslie could play the character so magnificently.
In these three stages, Gorgor kept changing. At last, I want to say that Gorgor’s angle of width is very big, but the most regrettable thing is that no one had ever molded Leslie an image of the future. Gorgor in ancient time, modern time, as an important person representing Hong Kong district, or in Mainland China at a place which was so unfamiliar to him, yet he could still play so well. In the space of time, Leslie should not only have the image of the past and the present, he could also have an image of the future. When Hong Kong has the ability to make some sci-fi movies, in choosing the main role, Leslie will certainly be a very important person.
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