Tony Leung’s Smoldering Cool The Hong Kong–born icon on drinking with Wong Kar-wai and what he wanted to change about Marvel’s Shang-Chi.

By Bilge Ebiri

Tony Leung in In the Mood for Love (2000). Photo: Miramax/Everett Collection

It’s incredible to think, 40 years into his acting career, that Tony Leung is just now appearing in his first European film, with his starring role in Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s mesmerizing drama Silent Friend. And it was only five years ago that he made his first Hollywood movie, starring as the villain in the superhero movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. 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. 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. During a recent (and rare) trip to New York, we talked about his new film and his whole career.

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