On the day of the Taiwan premiere of his second feature Help Me Eros (幫幫我愛神), Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) arrived on time for our interview amid his hectic schedule. Neatly dressed, the 40-year-old actor and director comes across as a melancholy man of few words, reminiscent of the roles he has played in Tsai Ming-liang's (蔡明亮) films. Lee began his acting career after being spotted by Tsai in front of a video arcade in the Ximending (西門町) shopping district and subsequently starred in the director's feature debut Rebels of the Neon God (青少年哪吒). After nearly two decades of working with his pupil, Tsai has made Lee an internationally recognized actor and a director with two features under his belt. His newest movie is a modern story about the societal ills of materialism, and is filled with sex, food and drug use.
Taipei Times: What was your earliest experience of cinema?
Lee Kang-sheng : When I was little, there was a temple near our home. Hand puppet shows and Taiwanese opera were staged there and later films were screened to celebrate the deity's birthday and Chinese New Year. Sometimes I would sneak backstage to satisfy my curiosity and see the performers change by accident. We kids would spend the whole day watching movies. I remember Jackie Chan's (成龍) movies were must-sees during the temple's Chinese New Year celebrations.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF COURTESY HOMEGREEN FILMS
TT: You have been working with Tsai for more than 15 years. How do you interact as far as the working relationship goes?
LKS: We have worked as a team with the same cinematographer, editor and recording engineer right from the beginning. Tsai has a peculiar way of writing his screenplays. Every time he is stuck, he has to go back to scene one. We never once started shooting a film with a complete script because Tsai has this habit of returning to the starting point and re-examining himself again and again. During this process, he talks to the actors and asks us what we would do as characters under certain conditions. In this way, some parts of the scripts were the result of our collective discussions.
TT: Your onscreen persona is slightly melancholic, withdrawn and rebellious. Does the image share many resemblances to you in real life?
LKS : Only partially. I'm not a talker and can't express myself very well, so sometimes people think I am a loner when, in fact, I am just quiet in front of strangers.
TT: What does Tsai mean to you and you to Tsai?
LKS : Tsai plays multiple roles in my life. He is my mentor, my director, my friend and sometimes my mom, who can nag me over all sorts of things like smoking or gaining too much weight (laughing). I think I am like a family member to Tsai. Having come from Malaysia to study, he was alone in Taiwan and didn't have many friends. He is, in fact, the lonely, withdrawn one in his films.
TT: Did you two hit it off right from the start?
LKS : Hmm, I think it all began with my illness. (Lee suffered from a mysterious neck injury for nine months after Rebels of the Neon God.) Things didn't go well during that period of time. I had no luck with work either because I don't brownnose my way up or take the initiative to fight for roles. Tsai probably felt sorry for me, and took me to see the doctor sometimes. My parents also invited him for dinner from time to time because Tsai was all alone in the city. That's how we've grown so close.
TT: It is said that in terms of style and subject matter, you and Tsai share many similarities, including long takes, a stationary camera and reflection on the ills of contemporary society. What's your take on such a connection?
LKS : When I make films, I try to be different from Tsai. For Help Me Eros, I wanted it to have a tang of magical realism and a dynamic feel. I talked to several cinematographers for possible cooperation. In the end, I couldn't get used to their work, which was dizzying because of the constantly moving lens. It's like learning kung fu. If you have been a disciple in one school for more than a decade, converting to another school will get you nothing but failure on both fronts.
In my filmmaking, I always turn to the familiar. The Missing was inspired by my family. Help Me Eros comes from my own experiences and personal reflections on contemporary society.
TT: What do you think you would be doing now if director Tsai didn't spot you in Ximending some 17 years ago?
LKS : I would probably be a civil servant or work in broadcasting. My older brother was a broadcasting major, and I too was into that stuff back then.
TT: When did you first try to write screenplays yourself?
LKS : It was around the time I finished What Time Is It There? and felt a sudden urge to create. I wrote a script and applied for the government's Subsidy for Film Production fund (輔導金) and didn't make the deadline. The script was on the shelf until Tsai wanted me to make it into a short film (The Missing, which was one of two films that made up Goodbye, Dragon Inn , 不散). The script underwent many revisions. Help Me Eros was revised nine times. My way of doing things is to have a frame of narration first. New ideas and changes come later when we start scouting for scenes and actors.
TT: What propelled you to make the shift from actor to director?
LKS : It's just a natural evolution. When I don't act in movies, I work as a member of the production team for Tsai's commercials, short films and documentaries. As an actor working in Taiwan, I don't have that many films to work on but lots of spare time to utilize, so I sometimes work in the technical departments or play the stock market like in Help Me Eros, which is only partially based on my own real story (laughing).
TT: Director Tsai contributed to your new film both as the executive producer and production designer. Did he give you enough freedom to do your own thing?
LKS : Tsai was on the set most of the time. On one hand, I felt pressured and on the other I felt secure having an anchor like him. We often had discussions, but had disagreements and quarrels too since both of us are directors and directors often have strong points of view. If I believe his opinions are good for the film, I certainly take them, but sometimes I just have to stick to what I think is right in order to make a breakthrough, to realize my own visions. Tsai would keep his mouth shut when I asked him 'Who is the director here?' (laughing). He's really good with words and I can never win a debate with him. I have to go back home, sort my thoughts and plan out what I should say to him the next day. Tsai always agreed with my ideas in the end.
TT: Help Me Eros grabs the attention with plenty of explicit sex and pot-smoking scenes. What are the points you want to make in the film?
LKS : One of my interests is to look at the "strawberry generation" (草莓族) [people born in the 1980s who are viewed as detached from politics and unfamiliar with hardship], which can't deal with pressure. They escape reality through drugs. In my film, the escape is sex, pot, food and designer brands. They all look for an exit, but it is like a mirage, capricious and easily broken like instant love and success on the stock market.
TT: Why do you choose to present the erotic and pot-smoking scenes in a way akin to a religious ritual?
LKS : I think it is because I'm still young as a director. Unlike Tsai, who received academic training, I express myself in a direct and raw way. I often say my work is much like the brand logos in the film, just out there, stark naked, for people to see. I try to be closer to the audience. They can take my films as a springboard to enter Tsai's more perplexing world.
TT: You, Tsai and the cast members have been on campus tours around Taiwan to promote the film. What's been your experience in drawing young audiences back to Taiwanese cinema?
LKS : Speaking from my own experience, it's getting harder. Two-thirds of the student participants used to buy tickets after each lecture, now that number has dropped to one-fifth. Since promotions at universities sometimes can't even cover our touring expenses, we had to go to night markets to sell tickets. It's hard, but we will keep doing it and wait for the seeds to bloom.
TT: How did you pick the cast for such an X-rated project?
LKS : Initially, I wanted Jay Chou (周杰倫) to play my role, but I think his agent didn't even pass the script to him. For the leading lady, my first choice was Vivian Hsu (徐若瑄), but she turned me down after three meetings. I went for Ivy Yi (尹馨) eventually because she is a hard-working actress with the look of a star, and she was willing to work with me.
TT: In your blog, you said the entire female cast burst into tears after the erotic scenes were shot. Was it really hard to shoot those scenes?
LKS : I think they cried because they felt they made quite a sacrifice as well as over what they achieved. It's a mix of emotions.
TT: But to you, erotic scenes aren't as hard any more?
LKS : Yes, thanks to the training I got in The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲).
TT: Do you go for extra workouts to prepare yourself for nude scenes?
LKS : Yes, I usually don't care of my appearance. It is Tsai who always warns me not to let myself go when, in fact, he is the arch-criminal behind my plumping figure. He feeds me an unlimited supply of between-meal nibbles on the set. I start going to the gym one month before shooting, but I think now I need two or three months since I'm not in my 20s anymore (laughing).
TT: Where did you get all those marijuana plants in the film?
LKS : We were forced to grow them ourselves since no police station could be of any help. Every time we read in the newspapers that there had been a raid on marijuana producers, we called the police department, but they always said the plants were evidence and couldn't be loaned. We tried the fake ones, but they looked ridiculous. We contacted other sources, but no one dared to lend us the plants. So we found some seeds, let them grow for two months and destroyed the plants after shooting. Oh, and by the way, I do want to know what we should do the next time we run into a similar problem.
TT: Do you consider yourself an erotic person like your onscreen persona?
LKS : Erotic? I thought what I played in the films was a melancholy lad (laughing). Yeah, I guess I'm erotic. It's good to be erotic and I can use some of the eroticism to cure my blues (laughing).
A leading actor in Tsai's films ever since Tsai's feature debut, Rebels of the Neon God, Lee has also acted in Lin Cheng-sheng's (林正盛) A Drifting Life (春花夢露) and Sweet Degeneration (放浪) as well as Ann Hui's (許鞍華) Ordinary Heroes (千言萬語). His performances in Vive L'Amour (愛情萬歲), What Time Is It There? (你那邊幾點) and The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲) were awarded in international film festivals. As a director, Lee has drawn an equal amount of attention from the international film circle: The Missing won top honors at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Pusan International Film Festival; Help Me Eros was recognized in the World Film Festival of Bangkok and the Gijon International Film Festival in Spain.
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