appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Daniel Eagan

It has been a while since Tony Leung Ka-fai last made a high-profile appearance at a European film festival to promote a film, so the occasion feels a little special.
Still, when we sit down with him during the 2025 Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, the Hong Kong film legend is waiting patiently in the hospitality suite of the Teatro Novo, quietly sipping a beer as journalists and photographers swirl around the room.
“I like this festival,” Leung says. “I enjoy Udine and the audience here. Cannes is more formal, more commercial. You have to be on all the time.”
This year the Far East Film Festival awarded filmmaker Tsui Hark a Golden Mulberry for Lifetime Achievement. Leung introduced Tsui to a sold-out crowd and handed him the award after a screening of Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, the pair’s most recent collaboration as star and director respectively.


In the film, which is based on seven chapters of Louis Cha Leung-yung’s 1959 tale The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Leung plays Venom West, a power-mad martial artist who intends to take over the world by stealing an important scripture.
The film concludes with a bruising, drawn-out battle between Venom West and hero Guo Jing, played by young Chinese actor Xiao Zhan.
“When we were working through that sequence, I never felt tired,” Leung says. “But after the day is over, when I was sitting in my room, when they removed my wardrobe and took my make-up off, I collapsed.”

Does Leung prefer playing heroes or villains?
“Either one,” he answers. “My life is as Tony Leung. That’s my reality. But every time I make a movie, it’s like another life, a second life. It doesn’t matter if I’m good or evil, sharp- or bad-looking.
“For over 40 years, I’ve worked on something like 150 movies. Most of them different characters, different looks, different emotions. Being an actor makes me feel very lucky. Most people have only one life, and I’ve been able to experience hundreds.”
The actor says he doesn’t need to draw on his own experiences in building his roles.
“Say you want me to play an emperor. Of course I’ve never been an emperor, but I can study how emperors behaved, learn what it is they did. Then, when I am sitting in a dressing room, when I am putting on the wardrobe, when I get my make-up, I will feel how they feel. I start to be an emperor.

“Everything on the set, the props and set-ups and actors and extras, they help create the effect that I’m no longer Tony Leung, I’m the emperor.” He whispers this last bit dramatically.
Leung points to the books and photos that go into his research, but he also looks back on his youth, when he was an only child who didn’t speak much.
“Now I talk too much,” he laughs. “But then I didn’t have friends, I didn’t have work. I would just look out the window and watch people. ‘Why is that man walking like that? Why is his hand like that? What does that facial expression mean?’
“Years later that might pop up when I’m preparing a role. I’ll remember a person, an attitude, a gesture. It all helps me as an actor.”

After Udine, Leung will head to the Cannes Film Festival to support Sons of the Neon Night, the crime thriller written, produced and directed by Juno Mak Chun-lung that is set to premiere in the festival’s Midnight Screenings section.
“I’m only one of four or five [lead] actors,” Leung says, referring to the star-studded ensemble cast that also includes Takeshi Kaneshiro, Lau Ching-wan and Louis Koo Tin-lok.
“They are all intermingled in the story, all advancing the narrative,” Leung adds, without giving away anything specific about the story.
The actor is suddenly drawn to a fly trapped in his beer. An assistant wants to replace the drink, but Leung very carefully rescues the fly, which stumbles about a bit before flying away.
It is a convenient way to avoid saying anything concrete about Sons of the Neon Night, which was filmed in 2017 and 2018 but is only being prepared for release now. Over the years, the project has been jokingly labelled one of the “urban legends” of Hong Kong cinema by industry insiders.

Instead, Leung is far more eager to speak about his ability to leave a character behind when he leaves a set. “When I go home, I can turn them off, like flipping a switch. It’s something I’m good at,” he says.
Leung is also pretty good at acting, given that he has received best actor awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards in four different decades, for the films Reign Behind a Curtain (1983), 92 Legendary La Rose Noire (1992), Election (2005) and Cold War (2012).
“Awards mean nothing to me,” he insists. “Actually, I think the best award I receive is when I walk on the street as Tony Leung, and people wave to me or call my name.
“That is my happiest time.”
Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook


From Cheng Pei-pei to Michelle Yeoh, Hong Kong cinema’s history of action heroines

Hong Kong film festival celebrates 37 years of queer cinema

Famous Chinese women in folklore, from Hua Mulan to a consort who brought down a dynasty

‘Rest in eternal peace’: veteran horror actor, filmmaker Simon Loui dies at age 62

Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

Tony Leung Ka-fai reflects on his career ahead of Sons of the Neon Night’s Cannes premiere

Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka-fai at the 2025 Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, where he presented director Tsui Hark with a lifetime achievement award. Photo: Riccardo Modena

Tony Leung Ka-fai as Venom West in a still from Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants. Photo: Handout

Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka-fai (centre) hands the Golden Mulberry award for Lifetime Achievement to filmmaker Tsui Hark (right) at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy in 2025. Photo: Alice BL Durigatto

Tony Leung Ka-fai in a still from Cold War 2 (2016). Photo: Handout

Tony Leung Ka-fai in a still from Sons of the Neon Night. Photo: Online

What Taiwanese film legend Sylvia Chang enjoys most about working with emerging directors

Sylvia Chang at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy in 2025. Photo: Alice BL Durigatto

Sylvia Chang at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy in 2025. The actress, director, writer and producer reflects on her career and talks about her busy work life at the age of 71. Photo: Alice BL Durigatto

Sylvia Chang and Tian Zhuangzhuang in a still from Love Education (2017).

Chang in an interview with the Post in 1995. Photo: SCMP

Chang and Huang Xi, director of Daughter’s Daughter, at the 2025 Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. Photo: Riccardo Modena

Chang (left) and Karena Lam in a still from Daughter’s Daughter. Photo: Sun Lok Productions

Chang and George Lam in a still from Passion (1986), directed by Chang

Chang receives the Golden Mulberry Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Far East Film Festival. Photo: Alice BL Durigatto

Chang in a still from That Day, on the Beach (1983), which she also produced. Photo: Central Motion Picture 

Sally Yeh (left) and Chang in a still from Shanghai Blues (1984). Photo: Film Workshop

Hong Kong 1941 with Chow Yun-fat an unflinching look at Japanese occupation of then-colony

Alex Man and Cecilia Yip Tung in a still from Hong Kong 1941. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

(From left) Chow Yun-fat, Cecilia Yip Tung and Alex Man Chi-leung in a still from Hong Kong 1941, set during the Japanese military occupation of Hong Kong. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Chow Yun-fat (centre, with cigarette) in a still from Hong Kong 1941. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Chow Yun-fat (left) and Alex Man in a still from Hong Kong 1941. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Cecilia Yip and Chow Yun-fat in a still from Hong Kong 1941. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

A still from Hong Kong 1941. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Alex Man and Cecilia Yip in a still from Hong Kong 1941. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Chow Yun-fat in a still from Hong Kong 1941. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

From a RoboCop x Russ Meyer story to Shu Qi as sexy avenger, Hong Kong exploitation films

Actress Shu Qi in a sceneSex and Zen II. Photo: Wong Jing’s Workshop Ltd

Hsu Hsiao-dan (centre) and Amy Yip (right) in a still from Robotrix, a 1991 exploitation film made in Hong Kong and described by the Post’s critic as “like a Chinese RoboCop invested with the spirit of Russ Meyer”. Photo: Online

Fan Mei-sheng (left) and William Ho Ka-kui in a still from Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. Photo: Fortune Star Media

Louis Fan in a still from Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. Photo: Fortune Star Media Limited

Louis Fan (centre) in a still from Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. Photo: Fortune Star Media

Chikako Aoyama in a still from Robotrix.

Shu Qi in a still from Sex and Zen II (1996). Photo: Wong Jing’s Workshop

What’s ‘extended’ in new In the Mood for Love cinema special edition in 4K?

Maggie Cheung in a still from In the Mood for Love 25th Anniversary Special Edition. Presented in a brand new 4K restoration, this extended edition of the 2000 masterpiece boasts nine minutes of never-before-seen footage.

Tony Leung in a still from In the Mood for Love 25th Anniversary Special Edition.

Maggie Cheung in a still from In the Mood for Love 25th Anniversary Special Edition.

Tony Leung (front) and Maggie Cheung in a still from In the Mood for Love 25th Anniversary Special Edition.

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

Prolific Hong Kong actor feels ‘very lucky’ to have played so many different characters, and reveals what goes into creating them


Prolific Hong Kong actor feels ‘very lucky’ to have played so many different characters, and reveals what goes into creating them.


Tony Leung Ka-fai reflects on his career ahead of Sons of the Neon Night’s Cannes premiere

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Prolific Hong Kong actor feels ‘very lucky’ to have played so many different characters, and reveals what goes into creating them

Prolific Hong Kong actor feels ‘very lucky’ to have played so many different characters, and reveals what goes into creating them