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Tony movie recommendations

 
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yitian



Joined: 06 Jul 2011
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:51 pm    Post subject: Tony movie recommendations Reply with quote

I am changing this thread to Tony movie recommendations Very Happy

Last edited by yitian on Thu Dec 16, 2021 10:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
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yitian



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's romance and adventure in the 7 best of future Marvel star Tony Leung
Hong Kong native has made more great movies than just about any actor.
By Chris Hewitt Star Tribune
June 23, 2021 — 10:46am



He's among the biggest, most honored stars in the Eastern Hemisphere but Tony Leung is not well known here. That's about to change.

Despite impeccable English that the Hong Kong native demonstrated on a promotional trip to the Twin Cities in 2005, Leung — sometimes billed as Tony Leung Chiu-wai — has not made the shift to Hollywood, other than Ang Lee's China-set "Lust, Caution," which is the place to go if you want to see all of him (the film earns its NC-17 rating for its steamy sex scenes).

Maybe the delay is because he works so often in Hong Kong and China or maybe it's because he has said he has no interest in stereotypical Asian roles. Either way, Leung makes his Western debut in a very big way this September, as a lead in Marvel's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings."

Another possible reason we haven't seen much of Leung on these shores is that he was born half a century too late. Leung, 58, projects glamour and confidence that would have fit alongside Clark Gable and Gary Cooper in the golden era of Hollywood. That may be why he is cast in period films more often than contemporary ones.

Leung's range includes raucous comedies that have not been made available in this country, gangster dramas such as John Woo's "Hard Boiled" (probably Leung's most widely seen movie but it's oddly unavailable to stream). However, his specialty is romance, usually tragic romance. Whether bemoaning his single state to a bar of soap in "Chungking Express," telling the woman who just stabbed him that he doesn't want to live without her in "Hero" or wistfully exploiting a crush in "Cyclo," Leung specializes in boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-spends-the-whole-movie-looking-longingly-at-girl's-photo-until-the-finale-offers-hope-that-she-might-return.

There's intelligence and mystery in Leung's acting, which is to say he doesn't go big very often. Directors love working with him: Wong Kar-wai has hired Leung seven times (the actor claims Wong reveals so little that he doesn't know what the movies are about until he sees them). Leung also has worked multiple times with top directors Hou Hsiao-hsien, Andrew Lau and Woo.

Those collaborations have earned him seven Hong Kong Film best actor trophies, as well as the same prize from the Cannes Film Festival for "In the Mood for Love." To watch Leung's work, you'll need to read subtitles, but these stellar movies, several of which are on the Criterion Channel, are worth the effort.

'The Grandmaster' (2013)
There are a couple of versions of this biopic of Ip Man, the master who taught Bruce Lee everything he knew, and the one that opened in the U.S. was chopped up by everyone's least favorite movie bowdlerizer, Harvey Weinstein. Even so, it's a masterpiece. Wong's pizazzy editing choices balance visual spectacle with intimate scenes of Leung executing stunning martial arts choreography.

'In the Mood for Love' (2001)
Often compared to "Brief Encounter," much of the restrained, '60s-set romance takes place in a hotel where strangers (Leung and frequent co-star Maggie Cheung) discover their spouses are having an affair. Drawn together in swoony scenes shot by Wong's ace cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, the stars embody the title so vividly that you may need a cigarette afterward. That's probably why "In the Mood" currently sits at No. 24 on Sight and Sound's list of the greatest movies ever made.

'Infernal Affairs' (2004)
When I did a list of movie remakes that improve upon their source material, several readers wrote to indicate I must have forgotten to include "The Departed," Martin Scorsese's redo of this twisty thriller. Um, I did not. I think "Infernal Affairs" is funnier, speedier and more stylish than the Scorsese film. Leung is witty and dazzlingly assured as a Hong Kong cop who's maybe/probably/definitely a double agent. Unless he's a triple agent.

'Hero' (2004)
Bland Jet Li is the protagonist of this martial arts extravaganza, an Oscar nominee for best foreign film. He gets to do most of the swordfighting but, in a supporting role, it's Leung's magnetism that pulls us in. As a calligrapher and warrior, Leung's stillness contrasts with director Zhang Yimou's vibrant color palette and gonzo camerawork. Leung, who has said his interest in acting dates to a troubled childhood, pours that trauma into his character's multiple death scenes, from silent to showy.

'Chungking Express' (1996)
This woozy romance features two linked love stories. Leung is the protagonist and narrator of the second, playing an unnamed cop who is mooning over a lost love. Wong maximizes Leung's sex appeal, introducing his character with a glamorous mega-close-up and making him spend much of the movie costumed in a pair of tighty-whities. "Chungking" is mostly about missed romantic opportunities, but when Leung finally smiles at the end, it's as if he's assuring us everything will work out fine.

'Happy Together' (1997)
Wong cast Leung as a star-crossed lover again, but this time the object of his amour is a dude. Most of the film takes place in Buenos Aires and, although there's not much plot, Leung and co-star Leslie Cheung bring the heat — with an assist from Leung's "Chungking" undies.

'Flowers of Shanghai' (1998)
The title characters are sex workers in an elegant brothel with a gimmick: They're all named after flowers. "Flowers" reunited Leung with Taiwanese director Hou, who guided him in his early "City of Sadness." It's a mood piece that lingers over the stories of a several flowers and a customer (Leung), whose passionate reaction to betrayal gets the story in gear.

Chris Hewitt • 612-673-4367
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Safran



Joined: 22 Mar 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Always enjoy reading such positive lines about dear Tony sunny

Warmest THANKS, dear Yitian flower
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yitian



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PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 6:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I saw an article ranking Tony’s 10 best performances recently. I was very pleased to find 2046 was ranked #1. On the other hand, there was no Lust Caution Sad . Now I changed my mind wanting to post it but I can’t find it anymore Sad Sad .
Maybe there will be a new ranking including Wenwu coming out soon Laughing .
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Safran



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2021 1:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Crying or Very sad Think In my opinion "Mr. Yi" was one of brave Tony's most challanging characters up to now. Applause
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yitian



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I still rank the performance in 2046 my #1 choice. Lust Caution is up there too - higher than #2. Can I have a #1.1 Laughing Laughing ?
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yitian



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2021 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

With Tony's Wenwu sweeping movie theaters worldwide a couple of months ago, many people were recommending other films which Tony left a huge impact on movie goers. Here is an article written by the movie critic Justin Chang, who's review for the movie was my first to read...

The essential Tony Leung: Where to find the ‘Shang-Chi’ standout’s best movies
BY JUSTIN CHANG FILM CRITIC SEPT. 3, 2021 10:36 AM PT
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-09-03/tony-leung-best-movies-shang-chi-marvel

In the swooningly beautiful 1990 film “Days of Being Wild,” Tony Leung gets one of the greatest entrances — and exits — ever accorded an actor in a single movie. Remarkably, the entrance and the exit are the same scene.

In the movie’s final moments, the writer-director Wong Kar-wai turns the camera on a character we haven’t met yet: a handsome young cardsharp in a low-ceilinged flat, preparing for a night on the town. Who this man is and how he relates to the other characters in this drifty ’60s Hong Kong roundelay is a mystery. Still, you can tell a lot about him just from the way he buffs his nails, runs a comb through his hair and casually slips a deck into his pocket. He’s all slippery elegance and wily charm, someone whose mere presence renders words superfluous. He’s Tony Leung, in other words.

That quietly heart-stopping introduction/farewell marked the start of something extraordinary. After “Days of Being Wild,” Wong and Leung went on to make six more features together, a hopefully unfinished collaboration that cemented them both as world-cinema titans. (Many of them are available in Criterion Collection’s lavish Wong Kar-wai box set, which was released earlier this year.)

But if Leung has been Wong’s most steadfast on-screen muse, over the past 40 years he’s racked up credits with no shortage of other noteworthy filmmakers, including Hou Hsiao-hsien, John Woo, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou and Tran Anh Hung. He’s played husbands and lovers, gangsters and cops, dynastic warlords and kung fu masters, heroes and villains. He’s become a sex symbol, a style icon and one of the world’s biggest movie stars — all without ever appearing in a Hollywood movie.

Until now. Leung (often identified by his full name, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, to avoid confusion with fellow Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka-fai), is getting a lot of attention for his work in the new Marvel superhero epic “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” As Shang-Chi’s estranged father and one of Marvel’s more notorious supervillains, the Mandarin, Leung gives a playful, brooding and ultimately devastating performance that’s even more resonant — emotionally, aesthetically, iconographically — if you’ve seen some of his others.

Here is my extremely non-definitive list of 12 all-time great Leung films and performances, presented in no particular order and as a series of double bills (with links to streaming platforms where you can watch them, although some are available only on DVD). It omits some of my personal favorites and perhaps some of yours. But for those encountering Leung for the first time in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and eager to see more, all of these should be considered essential viewing.

‘Ashes of Time’ (1994) and ‘Hero’ (2002)
As it happens, both Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Tony Leung Ka-fai appeared in Wong’s “Ashes of Time,” a shimmering, enigmatic swordplay drama that was under-appreciated in its initial mid-’90s tour of festivals and art-house theaters. (The significantly reworked “Ashes of Time Redux” was released in 2008.) While neither “Ashes” nor Zhang Yimou’s ravishing martial-arts epic “Hero” features Leung (Chiu-wai) at his deepest, they are tributes to his matinee-idol magnetism and his ability to slip effortlessly into period roles, especially if there’s radiantly windswept hair involved. Just watch him do floor calligraphy in “Hero” and tell me you don’t want to see the rest.

‘A City of Sadness’ (1989) and ‘Flowers of Shanghai’ (1998)
The revered Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien likes to film in unbroken, distanced long takes with minimal closeups — not a style exactly conducive to star turns. All the more remarkable, then, that in these two masterpieces, Hou taps into Leung’s gift for expressing emotional volumes with nary a word. In “A City of Sadness,” Leung plays a photographer whose family is swept up in the White Terror violence that convulsed Taiwan from 1949 to 1987. In “Flowers of Shanghai,” he’s a regular visitor at one of that city’s 19th century brothels, or “flower houses.” Leung vanishes seamlessly into these lost worlds, but even a camera this restrained can’t help but love him.

‘Chungking Express’ (1994) and ‘Infernal Affairs’ (2002)
A cop comedy and a cop drama par excellence. In Wong’s joyous diptych “Chungking Express,” Leung plays a lovelorn police officer who’s plainly terrible at detecting things, like the fact that the woman of his dreams (Faye Wong) is secretly raiding and redesigning his apartment when he’s out, in the mother of all romantic pranks. (The movie, a personal all-time favorite, also offers delightful proof that Leung has more chemistry with stuffed animals than some actors can manage with each other.) He’s smarter and sadder as a cop who goes deep undercover in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s tense and soulful gangster thriller “Infernal Affairs,” which Martin Scorsese famously remade, to entertaining but lesser effect, as “The Departed.”

‘Happy Together’ (1997) and ‘Lust, Caution’ (2007)
Love and lust become corrosive forces in both Wong’s “Happy Together,” which stars Leung and Leslie Cheung as a gay couple unhappily adrift in Buenos Aires, and Ang Lee’s World War II-era spy drama “Lust, Caution,” in which Leung plays a corrupt bureaucrat locked in a slowly riveting tango of desire with a femme fatale (Tang Wei). These two doomed romances could scarcely be more antithetical: “Happy Together” pulses with heat even at its saddest, while “Lust, Caution,” for all its controversy-stirring acres of bared flesh, has a chilly anti-eroticism. Quite a contrast, too, between Leung’s aching vulnerability in the former and his cruelly calculating reserve in the latter.

‘Red Cliff’ (2008-09) and ‘The Grandmaster’ (2013)
Leung appeared in several early John Woo classics, including “Bullet in the Head” and “Hard-Boiled,” but “Red Cliff,” Woo’s magnificent two-part adaptation of the 14th century Chinese novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” might be their towering achievement: Even when heavily armored and surrounded by a cast of thousands, Leung holds the screen above all others, conveying tactical genius, emotional ardor and a sly rapport with his main co-star (Takeshi Kaneshiro). He gives a similar wow of a performance as a very different kind of fighter, the legendary Ip Man, in “The Grandmaster,” Wong’s dizzyingly kinetic plunge into the shadow-world of China’s greatest martial artists.

‘In the Mood for Love’ (2000) and ‘2046’ (2005)
One of the pleasures of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is that it’s fully aware of what a star it has in Leung and even seems to pay tribute to him, and to his work in these two remarkable Wong films in particular. In “In the Mood for Love,” he plays a 1960s writer who falls for his across-the-hall neighbor (the great Maggie Cheung); in “2046,” he plays that same man (or does he?), a chivalrous soul turned unrepentant cad, forever ruined by the memory of his great, lost love. I don’t know if these are Leung’s two greatest performances, but they are the ones I can’t imagine his career without, the ones in which this famed heartthrob, whether luxuriating in whorls of cigarette smoke or whispering a sacred secret, becomes as much the desirer as the desired, an avatar of obsessive longing to rival James Stewart in “Vertigo.”
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Safran



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PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One more time I miss Tony's outstanding performance in "Cyclo" special mentioned, unfortunately. Crying or Very sad (In my view one of Tonys best characters in younger years )
Howsoever! I love to watch him in any role.
Btw:You can count actors of Tonys high level, versatility and great expressiveness internationally on one or two hands only, I guess ! AND: A wonderful down-to-earth person...a star without affected attitudes he is, additionally !!! sunny Applause salute love

(Sorry, I cannot help but to praising him Embarassed )
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yitian



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PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 10:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Safran wrote:
Sorry, I cannot help but to praising him Embarassed

With his acting skills, dedication and a super nice personality, Tony is uniquely THE BEST actor in my view too love . He deserves non stop praising Laughing .

All these recommended movies are good to watch. But Cyclo and several other more obscure (to audiences in the west) but really good ones are almost never mentioned Sad . Perhaps we can have a little match and see who will be the first to find a recommendation list containing Cyclo Wink
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