Tony Leung has not been in the news a lot lately, in fact the one thing that keeps popping up is his role in "Red Cliff". Always the gentleman, he helped director John Woo out of a prickly situation when star Chow Yun Fat suddenly left. And now some people say he doesn't really shine in this role. Hm...pity, if that's true.
When I saw Wong Kar Wai's "2046" at the 2005 edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, one of the impressions I got was that Tony Leung must be one of the smoothest actors in the world. And a handsome devil too...
His rogue-with-a-lost-soul just oozed charm, and his performance worked on so many levels (not to mention layers) that I was instantly won over.
Discussing this with friends afterward I said that I couldn't recall having seen him before, and of course I was immediately pummeled by them with titles of movies which I had indeed seen. Classics even, like...
...well, lets not mention too many titles, shall we?
Anyway, the reason why I hadn't recognized him was that the role he played in "2046" was so very different to what I had seen him do before. Yet in every role, he seems to actually BE what he's playing, either fading in the background or supporting the other actors.
(I'd make a joke about how he was almost unrecognizable in Johnny To's "Election" but that might just confuse the hell out of too many people. For those not in the know, there are several Tony Leungs in the Chinese entertainment industry and the one in "Election" is someone else entirely, whose name is Tony Leung Ka-Fai. The one that features in this quiz is Tony Leung Chiu-Wai.)
So here is some much needed love towards Tony Leung: a quiz!
Which means that once again, I'm going to use a turn in the ScreenAnarchy-O-Meter to do a gallery of 5 close-ups of one of my favorite thespians.
Guess which 5 movies they're from. The "Red Cliff" pic on the top-left doesn't count.
No competition, no prizes, just for fun, try to see how far you get without using IMDB.
And I'll post the answers Friday (earlier if someone has all 5 of them right).
Good luck!
Check the gallery and test your Tony Leung knowledge, they're not all of them difficult!