Written by: STEPHEN SCHAEFER
Published in: Boston Herald on August 19, 2005
No one makes movies with the freedom and the flair 每 and what some would call the insanity 每 of Hong Kong*s Wong Kar Wai, whose latest love letter to lost romance and a lost era is ※2046.§
And no one knows the mysterious Wong better than Tony Leung Chiu Wai, his leading actor and working partner.
※Kar Wai doesn*t begin with a script or even a story,§ Leung said.
In ※2046,§ the actor plays a hack writer who, in *60s Hong Kong, looks back at his womanizing ways and the beauties he loved.
Filming lasted five years.
※The actual shooting days was half a year,§ Leung said.
At 43, his long relationship with Hong Kong actress Carina Lau may be one reason he*s mellow enough to accept Wong*s unorthodox methods.
※It doesn*t drive me crazy anymore,§ he said. ※I*ve worked with him for 12 years now, and it*s always the same way 每 and quite adventurous.§
Wong and Leung first teamed on ※Days of Being Wild§ (1991), Wong*s second film. Then Leung played a blind assassin in ※Ashes of Time§ (1994), a gay lover in the ironically titled ※Happy Together§ (1997) and, most memorably, the faithful lover Chow Mo-wan in Wong*s last film, ※In the Mood for Love§ (2000), which won him the Cannes Best Actor prize.
Leung*s biggest hit, ※Infernal Affairs§ (which he did not make with Wong), has Leonardo DiCaprio reprising his role in the just- filmed Martin Scorsese-directed, Boston-set remake, ※The Departed.§
※2046∪ is a sort-of sequel to ※Mood for Love,§ with Wong*s refracted storytelling and an eclectic score that mixes opera and Dean Martin.
※I*m so lucky this time 每 at least on the first day Wong Kar Wai told me about the character,§ Leung said. ※He told (me) he wants me to play the same character I played in `In the Mood for Love,* but this time play it as a new character, totally different. He wanted a very dark, mean, (poet of the gutter Charles) Bukowski-type man 每 a cynical playboy.§
Leung shook his head.
※That was difficult because I*d gotten used to the original Mr. Chow: the gesture, the body language, the tempo, even the voice. But with the same costume, the same hairstyle and the same set, it*s very difficult. So I asked for a mustache. At least I have something to believe I*m somebody else. So we argued the first day.§
After five years on one Wong movie, Leung begins the next one in January.
※We will do a kung fu movie about the teacher of Bruce Lee. I would be the teacher,§ he said.
Any worries?
※I have to learn kung fu. I*m not a martial artist.§