![]() ![]() And I remember the audience clapping, cheering Leslie on… They were crying, yelling ‘Leslie, good job.’” “He sang that song to confess his love for his lover. “I went to one of the shows of that concert,” Kwan told GQ. He dedicated a song to his boyfriend Daffy Tong every night, which was widely understood by his fans to be a statement about his sexuality. The shows on his 1997 Red tour featured a sexually-charged take on the kitchen scene, with Cheung and a male dancer both dressed in sparkly black tuxedos-Cheung accessorizing with red heels, of course. Cheung initially became famous in 1977 as a contestant on the Hong Kong TV show Asian Music Contest, winning second place with a cover of Don McLean’s “American Pie.” As his profile as a pop singer grew, he started acting in largely lightweight roles on film and TV, before finally breaking through as a leading man in the late-80s.Ĭheung came out of the closet in 1997, after the release of Happy Together, and the film seemed to embolden him: In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Cheung and his co-star Tony Leung dance the tango in an empty communal kitchen. But he also maintained a parallel career as a provocative pop star. Twenty-five years later, Happy Together is remembered as one of the greatest LGBTQ films of all time – and for a definitive performance by the queer Asian icon Leslie Cheung.īefore Happy Together, in which he plays a tempestuous, wanton playboy trapped in a bad romance in Buenos Aires, Cheung was best known for roles like in John Woo’s landmark action film A Better Tomorrow and Stanley Kwan’s tragic romance Rouge, which showcased his dual personas as brave hero and sensitive, androgynous diva. ![]() At the time, reporters wondered if this would be the great director’s statement on the historic transition but instead, he made a film about doomed gay love in Argentina, saying “I thought that the best way to avoid answering the question was to go make a movie abroad.” Wong went on to win the Best Director trophy at Cannes against a stacked deck that included Ang Lee, Michael Haneke and Wim Wenders. Hong Kong was just about to be handed back to China when Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1997. ![]()
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