One of the things Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung Chiu-wai likes about acting is the novelty – “you’ll never repeat the same role”.
When it comes to the changes made to his beloved cinema by technology like AI, however, there are a few things he seems to prefer to keep constant.
The 63-year-old is president of the main jury at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), and on Friday he sat down with AFP and The Hollywood Reporter for a wide-ranging interview covering artificial intelligence, Chinese cinema and his future projects.
Filmmaking has not been exempt from the disruption caused to the creative industries by the rapid development of AI in recent years.
“I think AI is a double-edged sword,” Leung said when asked about her influence.
“‘It saves a lot of time’ means it saves a lot of money… But at the same time, a lot of people will lose their jobs.”
The beneficiaries, he predicted, will be the usual “popcorn movies”: “You don’t have to think. There’s no creativity. It’s just calculation.”
Filmmakers are experimenting more with new tech tools, with SIFF this year debuting an initiative in which selected teams were given a month to create AI-assisted short films.
Asked if he thought a film created with AI could really be considered art, Leung paused for a few seconds.
“But it doesn’t have a soul,” he replied almost uncomfortably. He stopped again.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s an art. No.”
Leung is clear about the challenges facing cinema globally – particularly the clamor for attention against streaming, gaming and algorithm-driven short content on social media.
He said he “really hates” looking at the phone.
“I feel sad. When I was a kid, I used to watch movies in a big cinema with a big screen and somehow it’s getting smaller and smaller these days,” he said.
“For me, films should not be seen outside the cinema.”
Creativity and censorship
Leung’s collaborations with Hong Kong counterpart Wong Kar-wai are emblematic of the golden age of the city’s film industry in the 80s and 90s.
An Asian art house icon, he’s also taken on Hollywood, playing a supervillain in Marvel’s 2021 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
He received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 2023.
SIFF is showing a retrospective of his works this year, but Leung will not be in the audience.
“I’m the kind of actor who doesn’t like to look back at my old films,” he laughed.
It was a time when mainland Chinese industry was still in a “learning phase”, including from Hong Kong, he said.
“Now they have their own opinion about making films because they are the only ones who know the local culture, the local structure,” he added.
Although he stated that he did not know the mainland scene “very well”, he pointed to animation and small-scale productions as bright spots.
The latter was allowing experimentation without huge financial risk, which was good for the film industry as a whole, he said.
“At the same time, maybe they should loosen their censorship a bit so that they have more different types of films and less restrictions on creating restrictions,” he added.
A kind of chaos
In Leung’s latest film, Silent Friend — his first outing in an all-European production — a ginkgo tree plays a central role.
“It really changed my perspective on plants,” he said, his expressive face lighting up as he explained mycorrhiza, a symbiotic relationship between fungi and plant roots.
“They know how to react to the outside world. They can do a lot of things… So I believe plants have intelligence.”
Laughing, he said that making the film had been “kind of chaos”.
The crew found “a harmony” by “dancing together”, taking no particular direction and improvising a lot.
“When I first saw it… I was like, wow. After the editing, it’s something very different,” he said.
Leung has three projects on the go at the moment – a film with Hong Kong director Johnnie To, a production set in India and a broadcast series.
For him, the most important factor is the director.
“What kind of story, what genre, it’s not important to me,” he said.
“I love their movies, or I love this person… That’s how I choose projects.”
He said that he has changed his attitude to seek perfection in roles.
“The film is an act of truth, which does not happen on the screen, but in the heart and in the gut of the spectator,” he said.
“If you are real, that is what you should pursue… not perfection.”
