From Idol to Performer

From Idol to Performer (Jie Er)

Korean movie heat “Untold Story-Scandal” has just cool off, the only anticipation of watching the movie for me is Bae Yong Jun. I wanted to know how he is going to perform in his debut movie, the dramatic change from pure idol drama Winter Sonata’s innocent guy image to a nasty play boy in Untold Story – Scandal. Honestly, I am not really interested in whether if he would success in his image changed, but more towards on stressing the subject of Changing of Image. The reason being that when one reaches a certain stardom position, he would definitely hope to achieve the change of image to be able to ascent from idol to a real performer.

Basically I would divide celebrities into two categories, not of heart throb and a true performer but is categorized as Foreign and Local two groups. It has nothing to do with whether if I am a patriot, just that that is the main difference I noticed in this group of people. Let’s take Hollywood as an example for the category of foreign actor. Most celebrities in this category can be addressed as performer. Despite that many criticized that star of Hollywood is like McDonald’s burger line of product, these burgers however are mostly qualified. Make a count on these stars, their performance in the movies are excellent. Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe, Katherine Hepburn, Nicole Kidman and etc, each represents a series of individual, enabled you to forget their celebrities’ status but a character in the movie.

Russell Crowe for example, in Gladiator he is the fighter who battled for freedom while in Beautiful Mind a crazy mathematician. I could see no similarities in the two mentioned characters except for Russell’s face. The local category however is the opposite, every mention of the name of a star and it’s their face that crosses our mind. Just name a movie and take a look at the cast list, you’ll be able to guess what the movie is all about. Meaning they can’t give the audience the feel like what the foreign group could, a feel of eagerness in looking forward to a movie. That’s why the local group of celebrities can easily develop their own brand name, each signature is signed on their face.

The image of an artist is like a binding rope, it can easily bind an artist as an idol or a performer. Thus those with good looks gain popularity and acceptance with ease, audience would buy their good looks and accept their performing skills. Those without this privilege would find the path relatively difficult, performance skill thus play an important role here. With the skill mastered their attraction and charm however would last longer. From this point of view, flashing good looks thus became the major hindrance for a artist to step out from being an idol to become and recognized as a true performer. Let’s take Tom Cruise for an example, no one would deny his outlook thus it is doubt that the roles of characters he normally took would falls under such circumstances. Oscar award is fair, just take a good look at him and Dustin Hoffman performance and you’ll realize his acting skills is incomparable to Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut thus the divorce. All right, the divorce story that I just mentioned is meant to be a joke. Anyway, it is risky and it is definitely not an easy task for a heart throb idol to present himself in a way that audience would completely ignored his idolized image.

I have been beating around the bush and finally am reaching the main course here, Leslie Cheung’s line of movies. The topic circle around him is because Leslie is a performer who cannot be grouped under the category of celebrities that I have just derived. Leslie a star that represents series of individual and at the same time successfully ascended from an idol to a true performer.

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In list of gor gor’s movies, I would choose [Days of Being Wild] to be the dividing line that separates his work into the earlier and the later category. Though one would not omit his acting abilities in his earlier movies such as in [Rouge] and [A Chinese Ghost Story], however in general the main attraction of the character of the movies rely heavily on Leslie’s divine good looks. For instance, the charming “Shi Er Shao” and the foolishly cute “Ling Cai Sun” if without having to consider on the outlook of the character but just solely on the acting abilities, then many would probably is eligible to play the role. Thus Leslie’s gorgeous outlook can be claimed as one of the major factors on why the movie character remains so memorable and considered as an irreplaceable classic in the movie industry till today.

I barely covered all Leslie’s earlier movies however to be honest most of these movies have not much of an impact of cause with the exception of the classic such as [Nomad] and [A Better Tomorrow]. These movies in his earlier days can be considered as teen pop production. It doesn’t matter whether Leslie is willing or not to be labeled as idol, the fact is he is really good and successful in being an idol. Just take a good look at Leslie in [Teenage Dreamer], the ability to portrait a teenage student beautifully at the age of 26 just proved Leslie is an outstanding idol.

I personally pick [Day of Being Wild] as Leslie’s movies dividing mark not because the movie brought Leslie the Golden Statue award, but really is that this movie mark the beginning of his success in acting. Though before this Leslie found his acting feel in [A Better Tomorrow], [Days of Being Wild] was filmed and released after Leslie retired from singing and the coincidence is his acting career truly blossom right at that time. Classic performances delivered one after another, presenting the audience with unexpected delighting surprises. Perfect example of such classic production would includes [Farewell My Concubine] and [Ashes of Time]. However, when Leslie made a come back to the singing platform wearing those red heels and performing his stunning tune [RED] he then was once again the ever flashy king of pop on the stage. There is no such thing as hitting two birds with one stone, that is why [Happy Together] marked the ending of his classic movie performance. Those later movies of Leslie though no doubt maintain certain qualities however if to compare with the classic there is still a distance away

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Leslie’s divine grace and talent is fully discovered in the later years. To be specific, the character Chen Tie Yi of [Farewell my Concubine] entrusted with Leslie’s grace soon after he took the role.

Much detailed comment and review already given to [Farewell my Concubine] thus it needs no further iteration.

In [Ashes of Time] Leslie had succeeded in concealing his façade and created the most alternate “West Poision” . It is his glittering pair of eyes that deceived you, unable to distinguish clearly whether the character is “West poison”, Wang Jiawei or was it Leslie himself.

Thanks to Leslie, Ho Bo Weng of [Happy Together] that spoiled and pampered character is entrusted with sensibility and sympathy.

Other than these three classics, Leslie’s other later movies are either Chinese New Year film or of those that are difficult to be categories.

These Chinese New Year films made are rather spontaneous and similar thus there is really nothing much to comment about. Leslie once said he really don’t have much choice while filming. However, among these films few are worth watching, [The Condor Heroes], [All Well Ends Well] and [All Well Ends Well Too]. Especially [Condor Heroes], it can be considered as a classic in Chinese New Year film, till now people are still engrossed with it. Leslie’s performance in these comedies is average, but having to consider his familiarity and ease in handling these characters it really shows the varieties and the broad choice of roles he is capable of. These movies are some what successful are all because they are on par with the fast and furious Hong Kong trend of movies. Anyway just for information, [Dual flight Swallow] the song in [The Condor Heroes] is still worthy for frequent review!

(To be continue)
Translated by: Linx