How Tony Leung became one of cinema’s greatest-ever actors by avoiding America
For generations, it’s been an accepted part of cinema that any actor celebrated as one of their nation’s finest talents will try their hand at cracking America, partly because that’s where the most money tends to be made. However, with one solitary exception, Tony Leung has proven himself countless times over as an all-time great without ever being lured by the promised riches of Hollywood.
Of course, even the most principled and patriotic of actors find that sweet, sweet Marvel money nigh-on impossible to turn down, with Leung making his debut in a Stateside feature on the cusp of turning 60 years old when he played the villainous Wenwu in comic book blockbuster Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Unsurprisingly, he was the best thing in the movie by a comfortable distance, not that it’s a shock for a franchise famed for its forgettable and one-note antagonists to be taken to school by a master of their craft. Combining Marvel’s two great loves of villainy – CGI superpowers and daddy issues – there’s no sign of Leung chasing an easy paycheque when he was there to blow everybody else clean off the screen.
As far back as 2000, the actor admitted he was receiving regular offers from outside his own borders. “I’ve had some from the US and some from Europe,” he told Time. “But the characters are very restrictive, and I don’t see why they have to be. That’s why I prefer to work in Asia. You get more space to act, more roles.”
With that in mind, it’s bizarre that Marvel would be the one to entice him into a Hollywood production for the first time, but Leung has accomplished more than enough that he doesn’t need to explain or justify his unexpected sojourn into the world of CGI-filled spectacle and spandex-clad fantasy.
Whereas many of his contemporaries from Hong Kong and beyond have experienced very mixed fortunes in America—Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Fan Bingbing, and Zhang Ziyi are just some of them—Leung stayed true to his convictions that remaining in Asia was the best way to continue stretching himself as a performer, showcasing his almost unlimited range, and adapting himself to a number of different genres with equal aplomb.
His seven-film collaboration with Wong Kar-wai is indicative on its own, with their pictures together covering the arthouse romance of Chungking Express to the epic wuxia of The Grandmaster via the seminal In the Mood for Love. Can he be sexy? Damned right, he can, as Ang Lee’s provocative espionage tale Lust, Caution proved beyond doubt.
Does he have what it takes to give a measured performance in a global box office success? Zhang Yimou’s Hero says yes. Does he have it in him to co-lead one of the greatest action flicks ever made? Sharing the screen with the aforementioned Yun-fat in John Woo’s gun-toting masterpiece Hard Boiled more than answers that question.
Can he do sweeping melodrama rooted in historical fact? Reuniting with Woo on the grandstanding Red Cliff was so popular that James Cameron’s Titanic was out-grossed in China. That’s without even mentioning the phenomenal crime thriller Infernal Affairs, gripping family drama A City of Sadness, the abstract intimacy of Cylo, or the moving period piece Flowers of Shanghai, either.
Now that he’s done it and ticked Hollywood off his bucket list, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Leung never graced an American film again. It was a chance to try something new, but as he’s been reminding everyone for over 40 years, Tinseltown isn’t required to go down in history as one of the greats.
