dearest-leslie, lots of love, lesliesarang

Teasing his audiences with a seductive style that both flirts and forbids, durable Leslie cheung - actor, singer , pop idol - is
Hong Kong's great phantom lover.
In the first minutes of Wong kar Wai's 1990 Days of Being Wild. Leslie Cheung strikes up a chat with Maggie cheung. She's lovely and lonely ; he's smoldering and supercool. Out of the blue, he purrs a boast to Maggie ; You'll see me in your dreams tonight," next day he comes by again and she brags that she didn't dream of him,." Of course,"he replies with practiced confidence "you couldn't sleep at all."
That's our Leslie ; suave, cocksure, with a touch of the brute ( they love him for it ) and a hint of sad solitude. A Canton - pop idol and film star since the late '70's, cheung has been called "the Elvis of Hong Kong" by cannadian critic John Charles. He gets top dollar for film work, his new CD Forever Leslie is climbing the charts, and his concerts still pack'em in around the world ; for a pre- Christmas gig at Caesars Place in Las Vegas, tickets went - fast - for as music as $238, ---skip over certain sentences ---
Cheung could qulify as a monument to pop longevity if he was not still in his glistening prime - and if he was not still so damned gorgeous. Any vistor to Hong Kong who mentions his name to a local will hear the same refrain ; "Guess how old he is" (as if he kept rotting portrait of himself in the attic )
Cheung is 44, and if he has changed at all during his half - life in the public eye, it is to become more wily in the lavishing and husbanding of his allure. He simultaneously

forbids. He is the most cunning, provocative tease in Asian showbiz.
As an actor, he is terrifically versatile, at ease in art films ( as farewell My Concubine's conflicted gay opera star), adtion thrillers (as the sensitive young cop in A Better Tomorrow ), fantasies (as Brigitte Len's mountaintop lover in The Bride with White Hair ), dark romances (as the haunted singer in The Phantom Lover )
and fluffy comedies (as the music mogul in He's aWoman, She's a Man). Last year he played a psycho killer in Double Tap. Inside these varied characters is the irreducible, enigmatic "Leslie" : a beautiful man whose sexuality is a gift or a plague to those who fall under his spell. Typically, they anyone else in movies. But he doesn't just mesmerize the camera ; he works subtle wonders before it. He glamorizes a scene in Days of being Wild just by appraising himself in a full - length mirror while doing an expert cha-cha and then, in umforgiving close up without moving a vuscle, he will shoehow change emotional temperature. You can see feelings rise in him like a blush or a burise.
In concerts he woos staid Cantonese audiences util they are dancing en masse in front of the stage. votaries to the pop god. their innocent ecstasy turns him on ; Cheung has an almost maked love for being loved, In his year-long Passion tour, which concluded two weeks ago in Hong Kong. he wore eight Jean - Paul Gaultier outfits, in ascending order of outrageousness, from a white tux with angel wings to a naughty skirt (and long black wig ). At his Toronto concert a voide cried out,
" I love you, Leslie! " he said, " I love you too, whether you're a boy or a girl." The line happens to be one he delivered in He's a Woman, she's a Man, but it winks at Cheung's androgynous appeal, With a soul both pensive and explosive, equally capable of derisive laughter and hot tears, Leslie is all man-woman.---skip over some sentences ---
Cheung did smart star turns as the lovers of two beguiling spedters in A Chinese Ghost Story and Rouge, and he would later earn inrternational acclaim in Chen Kaige's Concubine - still his fullest, grandest performance. But it was Wong Kar Wai who illuminated the inner Leslie on the big screen. Days of Beng Wild made
him a 60's Ah Fei (shiftless youth) whose mistreating of women is his payback to th mother who deserted him ; it won Cheung a Hong Kong Film Award for best actor. In Ashes of time, cast as martial-arts scoundrel, he ably anchored a film of top Chinese stars and rapturous visual splendor. In the not - so- gay drama Happy Together he taught Tony leung Chiu-Wai how an actor prepares.---skip over ---
Though cheung has directed an hourlong music drama and an all- star anti-smoking film, he will keep acting ; he soon joins anita Mui and karen Mok in a stanley Kwan film, and hopes to work with Zhang Yimou and the Crouching Tiger princess, Zhang Ziyi. Still, forever- young Leslie is having midlife doubts about his standing in post-97 Hong kong. "I've workde bloody hard for 20years," he says passionately. " I was penniless, dying hard for my groceries, I can now live in a reasonably sized deteached house. I'm still very strong in japan and Korea, but I may be a little passe in Hong Kong. The place is so extravagant, vulgar, expensive. i may be too soft for Hong Kong. I don't always count myself as one of them."
Leslie , dear boy, why not try looking at yourself in the mirror and doing an elegant cha-cha? You'll see what you've been and still are : phantom lover, concubine, sweet prince.

---Reported by Stephen Short / Hong kong ---

Leslie Cheung is Hong Kong's great male diva. The flamboyant singer and actor talks candidly with TIME's Stephen short about movies, fame and growing up.
TIME: You are sometimes called one -take Leslie, because directors get what they want immediately. Is that so?
Cheung: The longest scene i ever shot was with Wong Kar-wai in "Days of Being Wild." Maggie cheung and i are having a conversation in bed about her cousin or something like that. Anyway, it took two days and 39 takes to shoot. Wong did not give us a clue and i asked what was wrong with the previous 38 takes, he wouldn't tell us.
TIME: Have you ever turned down a project from kar-wai?
Cheung: I'm usually kar-wai's first pick. I'm his favorite. Even for "cheungking Express" he approaghed me first, before tony leung. But as you know I was so busy at that time. i was doing "Shanghai Grand." i was working with Peter chan on "He's a woman, She's a man." so kar-wai calls me and says, "Leslie, I've got this great story. would you like to try doing a film Faye wong? At that time i had some reservations. I said to him.,
'Kar-wai, can she really act? i told him it would be delightful to work with him, but sadly not at that time, as I was too busy. so then he approached tony Leung. he also asked me to do "Fallen Angels," for which leon lai got picked. Later kar-wai called me up for "Happy Together," andy lau originally wanted to be in the movie, but I'm not sure what happened to that. i was doing "Viva Erotica" at that time. so i spoke with kar-wai again and thought his offer was quite reasonable, though i took some convicing. We talked schedules, terms, deadlines...Kar-wai's a very clever guy. he knows how to handle things.
TIME: Everybody I talk to wants to work with you. Who do you want to work with?
Cheung: I'm hoping kto work with (Chinese actress) Zhang ziyi next year. I think (singer) Karen Mok and her would be brilliant in a film. i'll have to pull some strings. the movie would be similar to "Beaches." the Bette midler flim. Interesting. Don't you think so?
TIME: you could put Karen and Ziyi in a Nescafe commercial and i'd pay good money to watch it. you were a huge canto star in the '80s. What's changed since?
Cheung: Things are getting much more conservative. and politically correct. I'm lucky that i can still survive and maintain my place at the top. a lot of it is to do withthe media. A few years back they never put anything positive in the tabloids. Take tony leung, for example. he wins the best actor award at cannes. Now that should be............