Tony Leung's Smoldering Cool

Tony Leung appears in his first European film, Silent Friend, after earlier major work in Hong Kong cinema and a first Hollywood role in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He is known for playing silent, reserved characters whose emotional range can be wounded, mysterious, melancholy, or slick and savage. In Silent Friend, he portrays a Chinese neurologist who becomes obsessed with a ginkgo tree in a botanical garden in Germany during the COVID-19 shutdown. The film proceeds slowly and quietly, and Leung’s performance gives it intensity and beauty. He describes studying tree and plant intelligence and feeling a new sense of connection, calm, and awareness while filming alone in natural surroundings.

"It felt amazing. Especially after the preparation of this movie and after studying tree and plant intelligence, I have a different perspective toward them. Before, to me, plants were just plants. Trees were just trees. Now, I feel they are more like sentient beings. To some degree, they have consciousness. My relationship to them is totally different. When I was doing the scenes by myself in natural surroundings, I felt so calm and peaceful and not lonely. I felt more aligned with nature and in a deeper state of awareness."

"This is also true of his magnificent turn in Silent Friend, where he plays a Chinese neurologist who becomes obsessed with a ginkgo tree in a botanical garden in Germany during the COVID-19 shutdown. It's a long, deliberately paced, and quiet film, but Leung's riveting presence helps turn it into something beautiful."

"The Hong Kong-born star of such Wong Kar-wai masterpieces as In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express, as well as John Woo action classics like Hard Boiled and Bullet in the Head, is one of the most iconic faces in world cinema. And what a face: Leung specializes in silent characters, but his reserve has expansive thematic reach."

"He can be wounded and sensitive (as in In the Mood for Love), mysterious and melancholy (as in Wong's 2046), or slick and savage (as in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution). And through it all, he has come to define a unique kind of cool - elegant, watchful, maybe even a little haunted."

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