12.05.2004
lee kang sheng
reading an interview with tsai ming liang today (with rebels of the neon god sitting here in its netflix package, waiting to be watched), i was reminded of how much i love lee kang sheng, the star of most of his films.
lee kang sheng's enigmatic blankness is too fickle and peculiar to merit comparisions to the bold singularity of a clint eastwood or an alain delon. his non-presence is not a directorial command to "fill in the blanks" with one's own content (as in the famous "perfect blankness" of greta garbo). he is, in all of the films i've seen him in, a rather peculiar fellow who gives embodiment to a wholly interior monologue/crisis of great distinction. kang sheng's behavior is often disingenous in its blankness; it is the mark of a masterful faker.
in eastwood, you get icy determination. the sublime inhumanity of the no-named-gun-for-hire is the result of his clarity and conviction. he seduces you with his superhuman purity. there is no code to crack in the clintonian cowboy. his cards are on the table.
lee kang sheng, by comparison, arrives at awkward sublimity through repression. he is cool and understated, and yet somehow amounts to a dormant powder keg. he is the perfect protagonist for ming-liang and his erotic meditations on privacy (see, for example, the near-malevolent anonymity of sex in the river). his body eminates a strange longing, but its shape never takes complete form.
the "kang sheng protagonist" is whole and multi-dimensional, yet explicitly unavailable. the respect he affords to his characters propels them beyond mere trickery. it is not binary, misplaced desire that makes him alluring. his secrets are too infinite (and too interesting) to point to any great unveiling. kang sheng cannot be assimilated. his charisma, for me, sits within one of those great windows of the world from which i feel wholly seperate, but which i witness as if it were a miracle.
lee kang sheng's enigmatic blankness is too fickle and peculiar to merit comparisions to the bold singularity of a clint eastwood or an alain delon. his non-presence is not a directorial command to "fill in the blanks" with one's own content (as in the famous "perfect blankness" of greta garbo). he is, in all of the films i've seen him in, a rather peculiar fellow who gives embodiment to a wholly interior monologue/crisis of great distinction. kang sheng's behavior is often disingenous in its blankness; it is the mark of a masterful faker.
in eastwood, you get icy determination. the sublime inhumanity of the no-named-gun-for-hire is the result of his clarity and conviction. he seduces you with his superhuman purity. there is no code to crack in the clintonian cowboy. his cards are on the table.
lee kang sheng, by comparison, arrives at awkward sublimity through repression. he is cool and understated, and yet somehow amounts to a dormant powder keg. he is the perfect protagonist for ming-liang and his erotic meditations on privacy (see, for example, the near-malevolent anonymity of sex in the river). his body eminates a strange longing, but its shape never takes complete form.
the "kang sheng protagonist" is whole and multi-dimensional, yet explicitly unavailable. the respect he affords to his characters propels them beyond mere trickery. it is not binary, misplaced desire that makes him alluring. his secrets are too infinite (and too interesting) to point to any great unveiling. kang sheng cannot be assimilated. his charisma, for me, sits within one of those great windows of the world from which i feel wholly seperate, but which i witness as if it were a miracle.
