Post by Webmaster on Jan 18, 2005 22:49:20 GMT -5
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A3416609
At first glance, Takeshi Kaneshiro’s razorblade cheekbones and puppy-dog eyes scream model or boy band member (indeed, he is a former Hong Kong pop idol). In fact, the 31-year-old actor has developed a reputation for taking on eccentric, challenging roles (Wong Kar-Wai fans may remember him as a lovelorn cop in Chungking Express), hailed by Time magazine as “the Asian film industry’s Johnny Depp”.
Kaneshiro also speaks Taiwanese (his mother’s first language), Japanese (his father’s), Cantonese, Mandarin and pretty decent English, despite modest protestations - a multilingual facility that allows him to cover all of Asian cinema’s bases. In some ways, the romantic lead in the latest stunning bout of martial artistry from Zhang “Hero” Yimou, House Of Flying Daggers, is his most conventional yet.
“I was not really a fan of wuxia,” Kaneshiro admits of the genre roughly translated as “martial-chivalric fiction”, à la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. “But these style movies are very common subjects for films in Asia and I watched them when I was little. So it’s very natural for us.” And when a director as legendary as Zhang asks you, you don’t hesitate either. “He’s the only reason I wanted to play this role,” he smiles.
Any reluctance Kaneshiro might have initially had was soon replaced by commitment to the arduous task ahead. “For me, I only had about a month of training on how to use the sword,” he explains. “The director liked to rearrange how to play the role in the [location], so we couldn’t know what we were going to do and could only practise the very basic actions. It was very hard.”<br>
Zhang’s improvisatory methods and Kaneshiro’s dedication have certainly paid off. The soaring action and balletic fight scenes raise the bar on Hero’s phenomenal set pieces, with the bonus of a passionate love triangle pierced in the heart by all the flying darts, arrows and daggers. It’s played convincingly by Kaneshiro and his co-stars, Hong Kong screen legend Andy “Infernal Affairs” Lau and Crouching Tiger/Hero muse, Ziyi Zhang.
“Before I met her the only image I had was ‘this girl she does action’,” he says of Ziyi. “But after you work with her you find that her acting is also very good. I felt like ‘Woah!’ because she can cry any time she wants.” And Kaneshiro, more than most, should appreciate that appearances can be misleading.
At first glance, Takeshi Kaneshiro’s razorblade cheekbones and puppy-dog eyes scream model or boy band member (indeed, he is a former Hong Kong pop idol). In fact, the 31-year-old actor has developed a reputation for taking on eccentric, challenging roles (Wong Kar-Wai fans may remember him as a lovelorn cop in Chungking Express), hailed by Time magazine as “the Asian film industry’s Johnny Depp”.
Kaneshiro also speaks Taiwanese (his mother’s first language), Japanese (his father’s), Cantonese, Mandarin and pretty decent English, despite modest protestations - a multilingual facility that allows him to cover all of Asian cinema’s bases. In some ways, the romantic lead in the latest stunning bout of martial artistry from Zhang “Hero” Yimou, House Of Flying Daggers, is his most conventional yet.
“I was not really a fan of wuxia,” Kaneshiro admits of the genre roughly translated as “martial-chivalric fiction”, à la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. “But these style movies are very common subjects for films in Asia and I watched them when I was little. So it’s very natural for us.” And when a director as legendary as Zhang asks you, you don’t hesitate either. “He’s the only reason I wanted to play this role,” he smiles.
Any reluctance Kaneshiro might have initially had was soon replaced by commitment to the arduous task ahead. “For me, I only had about a month of training on how to use the sword,” he explains. “The director liked to rearrange how to play the role in the [location], so we couldn’t know what we were going to do and could only practise the very basic actions. It was very hard.”<br>
Zhang’s improvisatory methods and Kaneshiro’s dedication have certainly paid off. The soaring action and balletic fight scenes raise the bar on Hero’s phenomenal set pieces, with the bonus of a passionate love triangle pierced in the heart by all the flying darts, arrows and daggers. It’s played convincingly by Kaneshiro and his co-stars, Hong Kong screen legend Andy “Infernal Affairs” Lau and Crouching Tiger/Hero muse, Ziyi Zhang.
“Before I met her the only image I had was ‘this girl she does action’,” he says of Ziyi. “But after you work with her you find that her acting is also very good. I felt like ‘Woah!’ because she can cry any time she wants.” And Kaneshiro, more than most, should appreciate that appearances can be misleading.
