Leslie Cheung: 1956-2003
By Grady Hendrix (April 01, 2003.) Subway Cinema
Leslie Cheung is dead. He killed himself at the age of 46 and, by all accounts, he did it because he couldn't bear getting any older and he couldn't bear to part with his lover of 17 years. Who can't relate to that? Love goes away and it hurts. Time takes its toll on our bodies, and who doesn't wish it was otherwise? But Leslie Cheung is dead. If you're not Chinese or a fan of Hong Kong movies then it's impossible to understand what this means. I tried to explain it to someone by saying, "This is like Tom Cruise killing himself," but that didn't work. Leslie wasn't Tom Cruise, he was Leslie. He probably had something catty to say about Tom Cruise, anyways: he'd resent the comparison.
I first saw him in DAYS OF BEING WILD playing a teddy boy, breaking hearts and acting like a cad until his tragic end on a train in the Philippines as the lush green jungle rushed by. It was a gorgeous performance. It was theatrical, full of dramatic entrances and a final, flourishing exit. It was unforgettable.
A few days later I saw him in ASHES OF TIME playing a swordsman crushed beneath a lifetime of regrets, his face a wry and rueful mask, occasionally cracking to pour forth a flood of self-loathing. It was another great performance and I learned fast that Leslie Cheung was always good. Even if the movie stunk, Leslie had too much pride to let himself look bad.
Leslie did comedy, and he was good at it. He did drama, and he was good at it. He gave concerts, and he was good at those, too. And he was always thinking of what he could do next. He bared his near-perfect bottom in VIVA EROTICA. He went international in FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE. He came out publicly. He made HAPPY TOGETHER, and while it's Tony Leung who stole the show it was Leslie who did the heavy lifting as a self-destructive narcissist, giving a layered, committed and pathetic performance.
We've all seen the interviews, too. Leslie dressed stylishly, waving a cigarette around and zapping other stars with his scorpion's sting. Calling Chow Yun-fat "chubby" and "over-the-hill" calling Anita Yuen "difficult", getting away with it because this is the image he built: a gay dandy who could say what he wanted because he was talented enough to deliver the goods time after time after time. A BETTER TOMORROW, NOMAD, A CHINESE GHOST STORY, HE'S A WOMAN SHE'S A MAN, ROUGE, THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR...what would Hong Kong film history be without this eternally young, eternally sharp, eternally beautiful young man flitting from movie to movie, wielding his good looks and prodigious talent like weapons?
Leslie was supposed to be bright, and beautiful, and brittle, and bitchy forever.
There's no shortage of rumors about why he killed himself. His work in recent years had gotten darker. INNER SENSES and DOUBLE TAP were movies by an actor who was delving deeper and deeper into redeeming unsympathetic characters. In both movies he's what's worth watching as he ferrets out the kernel of humanity in the arrogant individuals he's playing. Maybe he realized he was getting older and it was time to become more of a character actor, taking on difficult roles rather than leading man parts. People say he was upset over his love life, that he was depressed, that he was slipping. But we'll never know.
What we do know is that when Leslie Cheung killed himself he was just a guy. When he looked in the mirror, he wasn't a bitchy diva, a successful actor, or a fabulous pop star - he was just a guy who was looking in the mirror and seeing a receding hairline, an expanding waistline, a lack of options. He didn't see the hopes and dreams we had all projected onto him, he was seeing lines around his eyes that he had never seen before. We all made him so much bigger than a normal person, but that's what he was at the end of the day: just a normal person. He was a brother, a son, a boyfriend. And he was lonely, so lonely that he couldn't bear the thought of being alive for even one more minute.
I look at Leslie Cheung in THE CHINESE FEAST and I can't make the guy onscreen the guy in the hotel room who killed himself. The guy onscreen is fast and funny and fearless and will be young forever. The guy in the hotel room hurt so badly that he really believed that he couldn't go on. Trying to reconcile these two men makes my heart ache and my eyes water. Someone who did so much for me - even though he never knew my name - he deserves more than this
Leslie Cheung, wherever you may be, you've left a mess behind you. You've left a devastated family and broken fans. But I hope you're happy now. May you find the peace in death that you were never able to find in life. You deserve it.
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