POP STOP

Having canceled his press conference on Wednesday because he was feeling unwell, Tony Leung (梁朝偉) looked better and was talkative about the film 2046 yesterday.

Having spent four years shooting the movie, in which he reprised his character from Wong Kar Wai's (王家衛) In the Mood For Love [three years in the making], Leung said it was a painful experience as an actor, even though he was a long-term friend and co-worker of Wong.

"When I was already absorbed in the character of Chow Mo-wan, I needed to jump out of character to shoot Infernal Affairs and Hero, and take on totally different roles. And then the process of 2046 took so long that I had to jump back to Chow Mo-wan again."

Even so, Leung said 2046 was his best performance in a movie so far. "I think I've reached my best in acting. I give myself 90 percent. Why? Because there are so many layers and changes in my character. My character in In the Mood For Love is very tender and repressive. But for this film I need to put on the voice of a tramp in Won-kok. You know I worked three years on the character for In the Mood For Love so it was really hard to shift onto the new character, but he is still named Chow Mo-wan."

Kissing Gong Li (鞏俐) for 30 seconds in one of the final scenes of the movie was memorable for Leung. "It took 30 times for us to do that kissing scene. You know Wong Kar Wai. He is such as meticulous director that he would shoot us kissing from the right angle, about 10 times, and then from the right, and then in the front with a wide angle. I really admire Gong Li because she had to cry more than 30 times for that scene."

"Oh, but you enjoyed the kissing scene. It was comfortable, wasn't it?" interrupted Wong Kar Wai, by his side.

Asked how he felt about being invited to meet with Robert DeNiro, Leung said, "Of course I'm very excited. Meeting with my idol is a thrill. It would be for any Hong Kong actor of my generation. But the actor said he has no time to think about what to say to DeNiro. "I need to practice kung-fu for the next project," where he plays the teacher of Bruce Lee.

Last week, Hong Kong pop star Jacky Cheung (張學友) was in town to promote his new album Black and White (黑與白) and found himself outdoors on an MTV photo shoot during one of Taipei's occasional air-raid drills. Shocked by the sight of Taipei's usually bustling avenues suddenly emptied of cars, the singer agreed with the MTV crew that it'd be a good time for a photo op in the middle of the road. The cops thought differently, though, and now Jacky faces a fine of up to NT$150,000 that sent Universal Records' vice president Fan Chih-chao (范智超) through the roof in anger. MTV has since stepped forward with an apology and an offer to pay the fine.

Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) also found himself in hot water last week when he and Zhang Wei-jian (張衛健) ended up on a Hollywood blacklist for hospitalizing another actor in Beijing in a heated fracas. To try to defuse the dispute, a representative from Hong Kong's television workers association visited the injured Wang Bozhao (王伯昭) in hospital to extend apologies from Tse and Zhang, which Zhang brushed aside saying that he expected both actors to visit him at the hospital. A few months ago, the famously hot-headed Tse claimed to be cooling his jets with a tai-chi regime, but his latest outburst suggests that maybe he got bored of that.