Post by Webmaster on Jan 18, 2005 23:27:33 GMT -5
news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1415322004
Cloak and daggers
ALISTAIR HARKNESS
PUT ACTOR TAKESHI KANESHIRO’S name through an internet search engine and you’ll find any number of useless facts about him. For instance, according to the online shrine Tkaneshiro.net he’s 5ft 11in tall, weighs 70kg, is blood type O, enjoys basketball, volleyball, golf, video games and comic books, and likes the colours black, white and blue. Oh yeah, and his favourite flower is a purple rose. You’ll also find plenty of photos of him staring dreamily back at you while sporting a variety of outfits that only a drunken stylist could possibly have thought looked cool.
These things are remnants of his career as one of Taiwan’s (and China’s) biggest pop idols and it’s hard to reconcile this image with the 31-year-old sitting across from me in a London hotel. Not that he has lost his teenybopper looks - with spiky black hair, piercing eyes and cheekbones that could cut steel, he’s madly good looking. But he’s here to talk about his role as a sword-swinging, bow-and-arrow-firing free spirit in House of Flying Daggers, director Zhang Yimou’s companion piece to eye-popping art-house kick flick Hero.
"It’s coincidence," says Kaneshiro of his teenage start in the music business. "When I was in school I didn’t think about what I would do. I didn’t know what college I would go to. I didn’t want to be a singer or an actor. I started because someone asked me. They said, ‘You want to be a singer?’ and I thought yeah, I’ll try, I’ll just open the box and jump in."
How famous was he? "I don’t know," he says, shrugging. From his inability to suppress a grin it’s probably safe to say: "pretty d**n famous".
In the last ten years he has become even more famous in Asia as an actor. And a good actor at that. It took me a good few days after seeing Flying Daggers to realise he is the guy who played the love-struck cop in Wong Kar-wai’s sublime Chungking Express. A few days later the penny dropped that he was also the mute in Wong’s follow-up, Fallen Angels. His CV since then has been eclectic to say the least, but with Hero still fresh in the memory, the release of Flying Daggers later this month could break him internationally, placing him in the same league as his Daggers co-star Ziyi Zhang.
"As a performer I want my movies to be popular and if people like my acting then maybe I’ll have a better opportunity for the next role," Kaneshiro explains in broken English with occasional help from his interpreter. "House of Flying Daggers might be more international because of the reputation of Zhang Yimou and Ziyi Zhang, which is a good thing, but I don’t want to over-emphasise that aspect. I will still care about it even if it doesn’t become an international hit."
And well he should, since the film is a jaw-dropper. Set during the twilight years of the Tang Dynasty it’s a spectacular, operatic take on the traditional wuxia (pronounced "wushu") genre, the heroic tales of martial arts and derring-do that have been a staple in eastern cinema for decades. Kaneshiro plays Jin, a captain in the corrupt Emperor’s guard. He is corralled by his fellow officer Leo (Andy Lau) into going undercover to spring a blind revolutionary (Ziyi Zhang) from prison in the hope she will lead them to the Flying Daggers, a band of ass-kicking, knife-slicing insurgents.
"It’s a story about passion," offers Kaneshiro. "It’s a love story," albeit one with deadly, physics-defying weaponry and possibly the most staggering bamboo forest showdown ever committed to celluloid.
For Kaneshiro these elements were secondary. Zhang Yimou was the main reason he signed on. Zhang emerged from the wreckage of Mau’s Cultural Revolution to make politically challenging movies such as Raise the Red Lantern, rarely getting his films screened in China. He has since found much favour with the Chinese government, which approved of Hero’s message of self-sacrifice for the greater good and co-funded the film. Don’t mistake this for selling out, though. With Flying Daggers Zhang has managed to subvert things, slipping in a far more individualistic message, while still accepting government help to propel the film to the top of the box office (US blockbusters were banned from opening while it was on release this summer).
"I never thought he would have asked me to be in the movie," Kaneshiro says. "And because this was my first costume movie, my first mainland Chinese movie and it’s by such a great director, there was a lot of pressure. I had no idea even how to walk with the costume on. I asked his advice for every scene."
Kaneshiro plays down his martial arts abilities - he had just a month of sword-training before the fight sequences were filmed. "Not everybody wants to be Jackie Chan," he sniffs. "Jackie Chan is Jackie Chan. Jet Li is Jet Li. You just be who you are."
Raised in Taipei by a Taiwanese mother and a Japanese father, he grew up in a multi-lingual environment, learning Mandarin, Cantonese and a little English in addition to his parents’ native tongues. This proved hugely beneficial when he began acting in 1993. His pop career took off after he was spotted in a Taiwanese commercial, aged 15, but his language skills enabled him to pinball between Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and China to make films when he grew tired of singing, which he did. Quickly. "I tried to write a few songs and hoped that people would listen to what I did, but I find that it’s not so much about what you write. It’s more about ..." he pauses, then screws up his face and points to it "... the package."
His screen choices - quirky turns for Wong Kar-wai, edgy TV dramas, violent crime movies - have helped him avoid being packaged as a movie pretty boy. "I want to try everything, actually," he says, "and I always want to try something I’ve never done."
He hasn’t "done" Hollywood and doesn’t plan to. "You could think about doing it, but it takes too much to actually make it happen," he chuckles. "As long as the role is interesting it doesn’t matter what the film is, who wants me to be in it or which country it’s in. My plan is to wait, and if it’s a good role, I’ll do it."
Spoken like a true maverick.
Cloak and daggers
ALISTAIR HARKNESS
PUT ACTOR TAKESHI KANESHIRO’S name through an internet search engine and you’ll find any number of useless facts about him. For instance, according to the online shrine Tkaneshiro.net he’s 5ft 11in tall, weighs 70kg, is blood type O, enjoys basketball, volleyball, golf, video games and comic books, and likes the colours black, white and blue. Oh yeah, and his favourite flower is a purple rose. You’ll also find plenty of photos of him staring dreamily back at you while sporting a variety of outfits that only a drunken stylist could possibly have thought looked cool.
These things are remnants of his career as one of Taiwan’s (and China’s) biggest pop idols and it’s hard to reconcile this image with the 31-year-old sitting across from me in a London hotel. Not that he has lost his teenybopper looks - with spiky black hair, piercing eyes and cheekbones that could cut steel, he’s madly good looking. But he’s here to talk about his role as a sword-swinging, bow-and-arrow-firing free spirit in House of Flying Daggers, director Zhang Yimou’s companion piece to eye-popping art-house kick flick Hero.
"It’s coincidence," says Kaneshiro of his teenage start in the music business. "When I was in school I didn’t think about what I would do. I didn’t know what college I would go to. I didn’t want to be a singer or an actor. I started because someone asked me. They said, ‘You want to be a singer?’ and I thought yeah, I’ll try, I’ll just open the box and jump in."
How famous was he? "I don’t know," he says, shrugging. From his inability to suppress a grin it’s probably safe to say: "pretty d**n famous".
In the last ten years he has become even more famous in Asia as an actor. And a good actor at that. It took me a good few days after seeing Flying Daggers to realise he is the guy who played the love-struck cop in Wong Kar-wai’s sublime Chungking Express. A few days later the penny dropped that he was also the mute in Wong’s follow-up, Fallen Angels. His CV since then has been eclectic to say the least, but with Hero still fresh in the memory, the release of Flying Daggers later this month could break him internationally, placing him in the same league as his Daggers co-star Ziyi Zhang.
"As a performer I want my movies to be popular and if people like my acting then maybe I’ll have a better opportunity for the next role," Kaneshiro explains in broken English with occasional help from his interpreter. "House of Flying Daggers might be more international because of the reputation of Zhang Yimou and Ziyi Zhang, which is a good thing, but I don’t want to over-emphasise that aspect. I will still care about it even if it doesn’t become an international hit."
And well he should, since the film is a jaw-dropper. Set during the twilight years of the Tang Dynasty it’s a spectacular, operatic take on the traditional wuxia (pronounced "wushu") genre, the heroic tales of martial arts and derring-do that have been a staple in eastern cinema for decades. Kaneshiro plays Jin, a captain in the corrupt Emperor’s guard. He is corralled by his fellow officer Leo (Andy Lau) into going undercover to spring a blind revolutionary (Ziyi Zhang) from prison in the hope she will lead them to the Flying Daggers, a band of ass-kicking, knife-slicing insurgents.
"It’s a story about passion," offers Kaneshiro. "It’s a love story," albeit one with deadly, physics-defying weaponry and possibly the most staggering bamboo forest showdown ever committed to celluloid.
For Kaneshiro these elements were secondary. Zhang Yimou was the main reason he signed on. Zhang emerged from the wreckage of Mau’s Cultural Revolution to make politically challenging movies such as Raise the Red Lantern, rarely getting his films screened in China. He has since found much favour with the Chinese government, which approved of Hero’s message of self-sacrifice for the greater good and co-funded the film. Don’t mistake this for selling out, though. With Flying Daggers Zhang has managed to subvert things, slipping in a far more individualistic message, while still accepting government help to propel the film to the top of the box office (US blockbusters were banned from opening while it was on release this summer).
"I never thought he would have asked me to be in the movie," Kaneshiro says. "And because this was my first costume movie, my first mainland Chinese movie and it’s by such a great director, there was a lot of pressure. I had no idea even how to walk with the costume on. I asked his advice for every scene."
Kaneshiro plays down his martial arts abilities - he had just a month of sword-training before the fight sequences were filmed. "Not everybody wants to be Jackie Chan," he sniffs. "Jackie Chan is Jackie Chan. Jet Li is Jet Li. You just be who you are."
Raised in Taipei by a Taiwanese mother and a Japanese father, he grew up in a multi-lingual environment, learning Mandarin, Cantonese and a little English in addition to his parents’ native tongues. This proved hugely beneficial when he began acting in 1993. His pop career took off after he was spotted in a Taiwanese commercial, aged 15, but his language skills enabled him to pinball between Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and China to make films when he grew tired of singing, which he did. Quickly. "I tried to write a few songs and hoped that people would listen to what I did, but I find that it’s not so much about what you write. It’s more about ..." he pauses, then screws up his face and points to it "... the package."
His screen choices - quirky turns for Wong Kar-wai, edgy TV dramas, violent crime movies - have helped him avoid being packaged as a movie pretty boy. "I want to try everything, actually," he says, "and I always want to try something I’ve never done."
He hasn’t "done" Hollywood and doesn’t plan to. "You could think about doing it, but it takes too much to actually make it happen," he chuckles. "As long as the role is interesting it doesn’t matter what the film is, who wants me to be in it or which country it’s in. My plan is to wait, and if it’s a good role, I’ll do it."
Spoken like a true maverick.
