Leslie Cheung's four highest-rated films: filming has experienced ups and downs, and even seriously ill to consider the aftermath

April 1 is the 20th anniversary of Leslie Cheung's death, Tang Hede unsurprisingly sent a number of photos to remember, fans and fans around the world are also nostalgic, video platforms have also prepared concerts for the audience, allowing fans to relive the sound and smile of his brother that year, among which the master version of "Farewell to the Music Concert" was launched, and theme film screenings were also held across the country with the theme of the 20th anniversary of Leslie Cheung's death.

Then it is necessary to take stock of Leslie Cheung's four highest-rated movies on Douban, as well as the corresponding behind-the-scenes stories.

NO.1 "Farewell My Concubine"

The top five Leslie Cheung's Douban scores are all concerts, of which the 97 concert, the 1989 farewell concert, and the hot concert all scored 9.8, and the Lakuo concert and the 86 love concert were 9.7 and 9.6.

The highest rating of the film is "Farewell My Concubine", with more than 2 million people scoring a high score of 9.6, and this film is also widely regarded by the audience as director Chen Kaige's best work.

But the filming of "Farewell My Concubine" is very bumpy, there have been reports that the role of Cheng Dieyi, Chen Kaige first thought of Zunlong, but when the two sides communicated, the other brokerage company said that Zunlong's two dogs should enter and exit with him, and the crew should equip Zunlong with two bodyguards, two maids, a Taiwanese teacher, a Mandarin teacher, a physical teacher, and wash his face and brush his teeth with mineral water by air, and also equipped with camping cars, tennis courts and swimming pools.

These harsh conditions made the crew finally give up Zun Long and choose Leslie Cheung. In contrast, Leslie Cheung does not have any additional requirements in life, but occasionally invites the crew and actors to drink coffee together when he finishes work early. And for this role, Leslie Cheung devoted himself to it, in the words of Chen Kaige, "extreme hard work", before the movie started, Leslie Cheung lived in Beijing for six months, concentrating on learning drama, and even a stand-in was useless. Because the film is very good, even the New York Times commented that "Farewell My Concubine" is "a new peak in the history of Chinese cinema and a masterpiece in the history of Chinese cinema." ”

But Leslie Cheung himself not only has a deep understanding of "Farewell My Concubine", but also has some different opinions. In 2002, he went to Hong Kong Chinese University to share and answer questions from classmates, and he asked not to make videos and audio recordings, but the text was collated.

Speaking of the ending of "Farewell My Concubine", Leslie Cheung said that Cheng Dieyi killed himself on stage, which was conceived by him and Zhang Fengyi, thinking that the movie did not need to arrange their old reunion as he wanted to say, which would make the "drama" fade, and the ending they only needed to recall each other with their past feelings and feelings, and gently bring them over.

At the same time, Leslie Cheung also commented on director Chen Kaige, believing that Chen Kaige never wanted to clearly show the feelings between the two men in the movie, but used Gong Li to balance the plot of the same-sex relationship in the story, thereby enhancing Gong Li's status in the movie. Therefore, in addition to playing the role of Cheng Dieyi, Leslie Cheung must also pay attention to balancing the director's taboo on same-sex love to some extent.

NO.2 "Spring Light"

"Spring Light" should be director Wong Kar-wai's most controversial work. On the one hand, the film has won Wong Kar-wai a number of honors, winning the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Horse Award winning a number of nominations and the Best Cinematography Award, the Hong Kong Film Awards allowing Tony Leung to win the Best Actor Award, and Leslie Cheung, who was nominated together, lost.

With only 2 pages of script at the start of the film, Wong Kar-wai took Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on the other side of the world. However, after arriving at his destination, Wong Kar-wai did not turn on the camera, always saying to wait, and before departure, he and the actor agreed to shoot only 6 weeks.

Leslie Cheung, who was anxious to go back to prepare for his comeback concert, was not only anxious, but also sick, he had severe diarrhea, and at first the doctor just said that he was not convinced and had a good rest. However, Leslie Cheung's condition became worse and worse, and he even became ill to the point of collapse, until he consulted a doctor in Hong Kong to confirm that he was infected with amoebic virus, which would be life-threatening if not treated in time.

Although the drama is bigger than the sky, life is more important! In such a situation, he should have been immediately arranged to return to Hong Kong for treatment, but Wong Kar-wai not only did not arrange for Leslie Cheung to return to Hong Kong, but in order to prevent someone from escaping, he collected everyone's passports. And Leslie Cheung, who was seriously ill, even began to think about his own death.

In this way, it waited until Leslie Cheung's condition improved, and the movie started. Although "Spring Light" is regarded as a classic by fans, this movie also attracted Wong Kar-wai's reputation for using Leslie Cheung and ignoring the life and death of actors.

NO.3 "Qiannu Ghost"

Douban scored a high score of 8.8 to more than 700,000 viewers, and then launched two sequels, which were constantly remade, which is enough to prove the classic status of "Qiannu Ghost".

"Qiannu Ghost" director Cheng Xiaodong, executive producer Tsui Hark, he led the project. When filming "The True Color of Heroes", Tsui Hark had already begun to conceive of Ning Caichen who starred in "Qiannu Ghost", but Leslie Cheung initially refused, because he had acted in costume dramas, but the response was not good, not to mention that "Qiannu Ghost" was terrifying and weird, so he didn't want to participate.

It is rumored that in order to persuade Leslie Cheung, Tsui Hark accompanied Leslie Cheung to walk his dog every night, although he was afraid of Leslie Cheung's dog and did not give up, and finally impressed Leslie Cheung and persuaded the other party to star.

In the end, "Qiannu Ghost" won a big victory, not only did it have a good reputation, but also got a box office of 18.83 million Hong Kong dollars, setting off a boom in Hong Kong filming costume fantasy martial arts films, and then New Art City shot "Qiannu Ghost 2: The Way of the World" while the iron was hot, but when it came to "Qiannu Ghost 3: Dao Dao", Leslie Cheung didn't want to repeat the same role all the time, and Tsui Hark couldn't convince him anyway, so the protagonists were replaced by Tony Leung and Jacky Cheung, of course, the reputation and ratings were not comparable to the first two.

NO.4 "Across the Sea"

With a Douban score of 8.8, "Across the Sea" is one of director John Woo's masterpieces, and is praised by fans as the pinnacle of Hong Kong's romantic police and bandit action movies.

The reason why it is labeled "romantic" is actually unintentional. Before "Across the Seas", John Woo filmed "Two Heroes of Blood", although it seems to be a classic now, but at that time it lost word of mouth at the box office, which made John Woo a little frustrated.

In order to help him, Chow Yun-fat found Leslie Cheung together and promoted the project "Across the Seas", and even said that the salary could be negotiated, and also joined forces to invite Zhong Chuhong.

Due to the strong support of friends, the production cost of "Across the Seas" is very low, it is said that it is only more than 1 million, in order to catch up with the schedule of the New Year, but also to reduce production costs, the first half of the film did not have too many big scenes, but tried to highlight the romantic color, and the second half began to burst action scenes. After its release, the film was a great success, with a box office performance of 33.39 million Hong Kong dollars, ranking fourth in the 1991 box office list, and also helped director John Woo out of the trough.