Review of Firelight of a Different Colour, by Nigel Collett, Signal 8 Press, Hong Kong, 2014.

Firelight of a Different Colour by British author Nigel Collett is the first biography of Hong Kong superstar Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing to appear in English. Collett spent 10 years researching and writing this book and in the introduction Collette characterizes it as “the brief and provisional story of his [Cheung’s] life” and an “attempt to understand Leslie’s achievement and the cause of his death.” The book is described as “a first step in bringing Leslie to the notice of the English-speaking world.” (15-16)

 The actual book is something rather different from the author’s description. Those unfamiliar with Leslie Cheung, especially outside of Asia, will hardly gain much insight into why Cheung is held in such high esteem in Hong Kong and throughout Asia, a superstar not only in film but likewise in popular music. Because family and friends of Leslie Cheung declined Collett’s requests for interviews, he relied almost exclusively on previously released information in the form of published articles and interviews, musical recordings, and video recordings. Collett, however, utilizes anonymous sources that raises a number of troubling methodological and ethical issues.

 A number of fatal flaws are evident in the approach Collett adopted in this biography. He is almost entirely uncritical in his use of published sources despite the fact that it is well-known Leslie Cheung was not always well-loved or treated even-handedly by the Hong Kong media. There is also the issue of Leslie’s own statements made in interviews by this often hostile press. To say Leslie he had an adversarial relationship with many in the Hong Kong media is not to overstate the case. An opportunity was missed to delve more deeply into the complex dance that Leslie performed with an intrusive and often adversarial media throughout his career. To understand why there are so many contradictions in Leslie’s statements to the press, especially about his private life over the years requires a more serious and sustained examination of this issue than is found in this book. Collett mostly ascribes Leslie’s contradictory statements to an attempt to disguise his homosexuality from the press. While there certainly is a kernel of truth to this, it is evident that more is behind many of Cheung’s pronouncements to the press. This is a major issue since it concerns Cheung’s self-presentation to the public and begs for a much deeper analysis than Collett provides.

 Collett also displays a troubling tendency to try and force Leslie Cheung into the role of tortured gay man. A great deal of attention is paid to Leslie’s adolescence and early adulthood, just the period of time that Leslie worked hardest to keep veiled from prying eyes. This is the period about which we have the sketchiest information and when Collett relies heavily on his anonymous sources for information about Leslie’s sexual orientation and private life. As we are never told who these informants are, it is impossible to judge not only the veracity of their statements about this murky period in Leslie’s life, but also to know if they have an agenda where Leslie is concerned. Because Leslie was so good-looking, popular successful and eventually quite wealthy, he inspired a certain amount of jealousy in Hong Kong. Not everyone who calls himself Leslie’s friend is necessarily what he appears to be.

 A second problem encountered in Collett’s treatment of Leslie’s sexual orientation is more fundamental. Collett appears to view sexual orientation in binary terms, i.e., straight or gay (at least where Leslie is concerned). The fact that Leslie had romantic  and even sexual relationships with women, and proposed to at least one of his girlfriends during this period of time is dismissed by Collett. He views Leslie during this period of his life as a deeply tortured homosexual trying to act in accordance with the norms of a heterosexual society. In many ways Collett wants to define Leslie primarily by his sexual orientation, attributing much of his greatness as a performer as well as the debilitating mental illness at the end of his life that led to his suicide to his homosexuality.  Collett as a gay man raised in England in the 1960s and 70s had his own personal experiences related to that sexual orientation. But he is all too ready to transfer his own experiences onto Leslie, who was born in a later era and in a very different culture and family, as if they are universal and equally applicable to all gay men.

 The only statement Leslie made to the press specifically about his sexual orientation was to the American film critic Roger Corliss in a 2000 interview for Time Magazine. In that interview Leslie described himself as bisexual. Collett dismisses Leslie’s statement as another example of his inability to be honest with the press and public about his true sexual orientation. But by 2000 Leslie had been in a long-term relationship with another man for close to 20 years. This fact was by then well-known to both the press and general public in Hong Kong. Leslie had nothing to gain or lose by not being honest at this point in his career. Rather than examining why Leslie might have made this statement at this time, to this individual, for this English-language foreign-based publication, Collett simply dismisses it and moves on. Leslie displayed an amazing ability to perform gender on stage and screen. Rather than presenting a binary, black and white, straight or gay image of gender and sexuality, Leslie treated it in performance as a continuum from one pole (straight) to the opposite pole (gay) with a great deal of gray area between that combines features of both genders. He appeared to delight in positioning himself in ever shifting places along this spectrum. Sadly, such an analysis of Cheung’s treatment of gender is not to be found in Collett’s book.

 Collett’s biography of Leslie Cheung is basically merely a detailed chronicling of Leslie’s life presented year by year, month by month, week by week, and event by event. A brief synopsis (unfortunately not always accurate) of every movie and documented tour Leslie made is included. Very quickly it becomes a numbing catalog of details, each treated with equal importance. In the midst of so much undifferentiated information, Cheung’s greatness as a performer gets lost. Rather than placing Leslie’s film roles in the larger context of Hong Kong cinema in its golden age in the 1980s and 90s, we merely get synopses of the films one after another. There is a lot of description, but painfully little analysis.

 When we come to Leslie’s musical career, the treatment is even more disappointing. There is little discussion of the broad outlines of Cantopop and no real in-depth analysis of how Leslie revolutionized the recording industry in the 1980s. Similarly, there is precious little analysis of his staged musical shows, only more repetitive description. Cheung’s musical career, every bit as influential and perhaps even more popular with audiences than his film career, is precisely the area that Westerners know the least about. In fact, most Western audiences don’t even know that Leslie was a singer and mesmerizing live performer, and that he was the premier male musical icon of his era! This is another huge missed opportunity if this book is genuinely aimed at Western audiences. Collett is also inaccurate in saying that many of Leslie’s CDs are no longer in print. In fact, all of the Universal/Access Music CDs were reissued in a boxed set in 2011 and more have been reissued as individual discs since then.

 Collett also does little with the music videos that Leslie starred in and sometimes wrote and directed from 1996 onwards. Many of them are more like short art house films than they are standard music videos, and these videos in which Leslie’s creative hand are so evident clearly demonstrate Leslie’s approach to music and film. Collett does not appear to have studied them closely at all and even conflates two different videos, for the songs “I” and “Big Heat,” into one! Similar odd mistakes are also evident in Collett’s descriptions of the musical shows (that are well-documented on DVD even now and readily available 10 years after Cheung’s death). It is a shame that Collett didn’t examine the abundant available primary sources with greater care.

 Additional potentially fruitful areas of inquiry are also regretable absent from Collett’s book. Leslie Cheung was a new type of iconic superstar in Hong Kong. It would be very helpful to discuss Leslie in terms of his celebrity and the celebrity culture that both created Leslie the icon, and that Leslie the artist helped to redefine. A great deal of work has been done in academic circles on the subject of celebrity and it would be interesting to see what Leslie Cheung could contribute to this topic.

 This also brings up the question of fans and fandom, again an area that is very important in discussing the life and after-life of Leslie Cheung. Collett interviews one fan, Amanda Lee, who first met Leslie when she was 8 years old in 1980 and was a volunteer with his fan organization until it was disbanded in 1989. But he plumbs her primarily for factual data about Leslie and does not appear to have questioned her about the fan experience during Leslie’s superstar icon phase. There is also the fundamental issue of the role of fans in the perpetuation and reshaping of Cheung’s legacy after his death. In many ways, this continual reshaping of Cheung’s life and legacy by fans presents those newly encountering Leslie Cheung with a different experience from what fans had during his lifetime. With Leslie’s explosive growth in popularity among certain segments of the population in Mainland China in recent years, we are currently witnessing another major reshaping of Leslie’s legacy. Finally, there is also the issue of Leslie now being the primary representative of some almost mythic golden age of Hong Kong from the 1970s until 2003. This era is now commonly seen to have come to a close with the SARS epidemic and the deaths of Leslie Cheung (in April )and Anita Mui (in December) of that year. So much added meaning now resides in the figure of Leslie Cheung for many citizens of Hong Kong, yet Collett never explores any of these critical issues around Cheung’s constantly developing legacy.

 Collett set out wanting to write an intimate tell-all biography of Leslie Cheung, especially as regards his private life and sexual orientation. For reasons that remain unarticulated, those who knew Leslie declined to cooperate with the author. Collett gleaned what information he could from printed sources and a few anonymous informants, determined to follow the agenda he had set out for himself. But in his determination to produce such a work, he has missed the wealth of information about Leslie Cheung that is begging for exposition and analysis. Instead of taking on this challenge, Collett chose to take the easy path of simply providing a chronology of  Cheung’s life and work. This information is already readily available in English on several fan sites, which Collett himself heavily utilizes in his chronicle of the Life and Times of Leslie Cheung. Any trained scholar (as Collettt claims to be) knows that pet ideas and preconceived notions about a research topic often need to be reshaped or even relinquished in the face of what the research actually uncovers.. Rather than using the primary and secondary sources to develop his thesis, Collett seems to have approached his topic with hard and fast preconceived notions of who and what Leslie Cheung was. Instead of analyzing his source material in a way that might illuminate the issues he was attempting to explore in all their complexity, Collett simply minimizes and even dismisses information that doesn’t support his agenda, or tries to recast the facts by engaging in excessive supposition and risky extrapolation. In the end, this biography cannot be recommended as either a fair and representative picture of Leslie Cheung or as a well-written example of biography in general. The life, career, and after-life of Leslie Cheung is a marvelous topic for scholars and future biographers. Sadly, such a biography will have to waif for another author to write it..

I am not well versed on the multitude of Cantopop performers active in Hong Kong today. I am familiar with about 20 artists, generally the most popular veterans of the Cantopop scene, the "stars," if you will. A number of the artists who participated in the ReImagine project were unfamiliar to me and, truth be told, there may be good reasons for that. Those previously unknown to me generally are lesser talents who do not command the same attention and respect as the stars. Like popular music everywhere, many aspire to be stars, but only a handful possess what it takes to truly reach the top echelons of the profession.

I could catalog many essential qualities that separate the stars from the rest, but I think one fundamental distinction will serve here. There are singers and there are performers. Singers approach a song as music--a melody--first and foremost. They sing words, but often they do not "deliver" the song through its lyrics. Performers, on the other hand, focus on communicating something through the performance of the song. They are not content with simply singing the musical notes and words on the printed page. These are merely a starting point for sharing something much richer with an audience. A performer is always aware of the audience and seeking to make a connection with it. Many mere singers have finer vocal instruments in terms of pitch, timbre, range, etc. than some of the stars. But whose who are simply singers do not deliver the emotional immediacy and excitement or rivet the attention of the audience the way a charismatic performer can. A performer draws the audience in and captivates them, while a singer merely sings at and for an audience, but there isn't much emotional connection. A fine voice alone is not enough.

One of the things that was most remarkable about Leslie Cheung was his riveting performances, both on stage and in studio recordings. His voice is a living thing possessing a thousand colors, each one of his performances is worthy of Sheherazade and her 1,0001 tales of wonder and imagination. Music and lyrics are vehicles for creating an entire richly nuanced world for the audience. Leslie never just delivered a melody and lyrics, he always invited the listener into a world that he created, a world he wanted the audience to experience alongside him as he fashioned it through performance.

Faced with such a legacy, it is not surprising that many of the performers in the ReImagine concert fall far short of the bar set by Leslie Cheung. He is destined to be remembered as one of the greatest, if not the greatest performer in Cantopop history. Those who fared best were the talented top-tier performers who have forged their own signature style and polished their stage presentation. Those who suffered in comparison were those who didn't bring as much to the table in terms of talent and experience, though it wasn't just a question of experience. One seasoned veteran, Prudence Liew, performed "Left, Right Hand" in a histrionic manner worthy of a Las Vegas review that was truly cringe-worthy. Other singers whose performances didn't convince were Stephanie Che, who merely went through the motions in "Die as Dreaming, Live as Drunk." Perhaps she thinks her deadpan monotone delivery is cool. It is not, it is boring. Keeva Mak shouldn't have been put into a gender-bending lesbian-esque number with her weak voice that breaks on every other note and her timid performance style. Shame on the producer for tormenting Keeva (and the rest of us) with this unwise attempt at kink that only makes the viewer want to see Leslie's over-the-top gay boys night out music video 100 more times rather than be insulted by poor Keeva's embarrassing performance.

Robyn and Kendy should stay on the coffee house circuit, which is about the only place one would want to see their cutesy two girls with accoustic guitars and tiny, tiny voices that won't stay in tune shtick. At 17 can't come out of hiatus fast enough. Against that gold standard, Robyn and Kendy are an embarrassment. Alex Lam should join them at the coffee house. His father may be a Cantopop legend, but Alex performs in a manner that is so small and internal, you keep looking at the stage trying to find the performer.  I wonder who was passed over to include Alex in this project? But the lowest of low points has to be Kay Tse's vain attempt to perform Leslie's signature song, "I". The little girl voice, combined with the jazzy arrangement, works against the message of the song. In many ways "I" was Leslie's coming out song. He wrote the melody and asked the lyricist, Lam Jik, to start the song with the line, "I am what I am," from La Cage aux Folles. Given its source, it is pretty clear what the intention of that line is. Hearing Kay Tse deliver the line as a virginal ingenue goes beyond subverting the message of the original version of the song. Again, it is very hard to know what the intention of Alvin Leong was in his selection of this song with this arrangement for Kay.

Even a Cantopop veteran can get into hot water trying too hard to reinterpret Leslie when that interpretation is highly mannered and frankly irritating. I know many in Hong Kong consider Eason Chan to be the current king of Cantopop. For five years now, I have been trying to figure out why. His performance at the Reimagine concert did nothing to dispel the mystery. Eason's rendition (I am being kind, I could have chosen a much harsher word) of "The Coldest Day" begins on video with Eason wearing a typically bizarre Eason Chan outfit (black cap with large pompom and dark glasses) singing the song acapella. Perhaps taking to heart Leslie's attention to lyrics, Eason sings each phrase painfully slowly, punctuated by what feels like an interminable pause between each line. He continues in this highly mannered and irritating fashion for several minutes. Just when you feel like you can't stand anymore and are reaching for the fast forward button on the remote, the orchestra swells and Eason pops up on stage via the center stage elevator to sing the song at a frisky tempo with a great deal of emoting. At the end, the audience applauds enthusiastically and I am left once again to wonder what it is about this performer that strikes such a chord with contemporary Hong Kong audiences.

But not all of the performances were as disappointing or mystifying as those just enumerated. Karen Mok delivers a fine version of "Little Star". She had a close and tender friendship with Leslie, whom she calls Uncle Leslie during her testimonial at the end of the song. Neither Kelly Chan nor Sandy Lam were able to perform live, but did perform via a taped performance played during the concert. Kelly perhaps comes closest to capturing Leslie's vocal delivery in "The Four Seasons". It is all and all a charming, fresh vocal performance that enchants and captivates. The same is true for Sandy Lam, who knew Leslie for many years and collaborated with him on a hit song and music video. Her version of "Passing By Dragonfly" is beautifully reinterpreted in a manner that stays true to the feeling of the song as Leslie performed it, but personalizes it in the manner of a Sandy Lam song. Both Kelly and Sandy turn in very satisfying performances.

Anthony Wong collaborated with Leslie Cheung on an entire album project, the Crossover EP. Like Leslie, Anthony displays a sensitivity to language and a high degree of engagement with the lyrics when he performs. Trained in stagecraft and acting with the avant-garde theater group Zuni Icosahedron, Anthony typically combines words, music, stage, and audience in his engaging, engrossing, and sometimes electrifying performances. Here the scope is more limited, but he still draws the audience into the performance and has the added advantage of performing with Leslie's voice as part of the vocal track. The audience recognizes what a marvelous performance they have just experienced and show their appreciation with warm applause.

Another standout is Hins Cheung. I was familiar with the name, but not his work. Watching his rendition of "Red," and "Missing You," I discovered a new Cantopop performer who really impresses me. The man has some pipes and performs the R&B arrangement with style, passion, and precision. He knows how to connect with an audience and used costuming and gesture to enhance his impressive performance. The man is a major divo on stage, with a stage presence every bit as commanding as a leading tenor performing at La Scala. 

Video:

But the biggest surprises of the night were the performers I had never seen and only two I had heard of before. The producer of the DVD wisely grouped these artists together in a block. The Chung Brothers began the set. They are two brothers who perform blues-tinged gospel music and are better known to the Christian music set than to your average Cantopop fan. But they turn in an effortless, tasty blues version of "Without Love." One brother sings and the other plays harmonica. The song swings and is a delight. The performance is light, gentle, and free of pretension. My only regret is that the Chung Brothers were not included in the studio recording.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooH5GpZbwGI&feature=relmfu

After a colorless performance by Alex Lam of a fascinating arrangement of "Blamefully Beautiful," the vocal duo Swing takes to the stage. I had no idea who Swing was, but was immediately won over by their energy, infectious charisma, sweet harmonies, and spot-on musical interpretation. Looking at the program booklet, I see that one of the members of Swing is Eric Kwok who is also listed as composer of "Love in Houston," the song Swing performed. Their reinterpretation of the song is 180 degrees from Leslie's original but, since the composer of the song is one-half of Swing, and the arrangement is such a satisfying new take on that composition, it was one of the great revelations of the ReImigine Leslie Cheung project.

Video: http://youtu.be/tbZM68Z_kFs

An even more radical reinterpretation of one of Leslie's hits from the 1990s was turned in by the rock band Mr. Electric guitars, bass, and drums play an intro that sounds nothing like anything heard on a Leslie Cheung album. Then the singer sings the first verse accompanied only by a driving bass and drums. It takes a few seconds to even recognize the song as "Blamefully Beautiful." But the real surprise comes with the chorus, which is given a full driving rock treatment. This version is virtually unrecognizable from Leslie's original version, but it works on so many levels, infusing the composition with new energy and a new sound. Truly this is the most successful and exciting re-imagining of Leslie's music in the show.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV09rleV7AM&feature=relmfu

Next the band is joined by Swing and Alex Lam for a blistering rendition of "Big Heat," again in a raucous arrangement that puts a totally different spin on the composition.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-IxsfaQMrY&feature=relmfu

Hacken Lee is trotted out at the end to wrestle with a horribly over-orchestrated, cacophonous, arrangement of that most beautiful of songs, "Bewildered." The original version and its accompanying music video are subtle and restrained. Leslie's preference seems to have been for clean, stripped-down arrangements that wouldn't overpower his voice. All of that has been thrown out in the new arrangement which has as many instruments playing as loudly as possible as they can for most of the song. Hacken Lee is at the mercy of the ill-chosen arrangement and his performance suffers accordingly. Things improve slightly with "Wind is Blowing," but Hacken has such a different way of singing from Leslie, which is quite apparent as the arrangement of this song sticks fairly close to the version Leslie performed throughout his career, that it is hard not to prefer Leslie's iconic reinterpretation of the Japanese classic. This isn't a style of music that allows Hacken to shine, it seems.

After two hours of highs and lows, the concert finally comes to an end with a group rendition of that Cantopop standard that Leslie passionately embraced, "Star." Perhaps unwisely the song starts with a video montage from the Passion Tour DVD and Leslie singing "Star" in voice over. Once again, you get to hear and see all of the elements that made Leslie such a special performer. Within only a few notes, the performance has drawn in the captivated listener. But then Leslie's voice ends and the singers at the concert begin singing a line or two in turn. The contrast to what we have just heard is almost painful. Universal Music's experiment in "updating" Leslie's hits from the 1990s for the 2010s is drawing to a close. Perhaps Universal hopes that this project will give a shot in the arm to its current stable of performers. Or perhaps the hope is that at least some of these performances will trigger a curiosity about the original Leslie Cheung versions of these songs. Certainly Leslie Cheung fans would rather listen to his renditions of these songs than most of the reinterpretations presented here by Universal Music. By placing Leslie Cheung and his music alongside these contemporary versions, the gulf between what Leslie achieved and the current state of Cantopop music is sobering. A handful of artists are up to the task of creating vital and viable versions of the original hits. For the rest, those failed attempts will soon fade from the public consciousness and will in no way take away any of the luster from the Leslie Cheung originals.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9BXc54jh6k

Musically, the album can be divided into three distinct sections. It begins with an opening sequence of three slow to mid-tempo songs with minimal electronic effects. These songs (two in Mandarin and one in Cantonese) hark back to some of the gentler, more lyrical strains of Wong's earlier work. 

Video: http://youtu.be/rP1gh9xFtqw

First single
Video: http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/61056994-1733976784.html

Video: http://youtu.be/2GLIJSB-rQI

The third distinct group of songs on the album features three numbers composed for "The Forbidden City," a production presented by Zuni Icosahedron for the 2009 Architecture is Art Festival . Musically, these numbers are the real standouts of the album. "The Forbidden City" focused on the architectural and dynastic history of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Wong portrayed a raven figure who is an observer of this history. The fact that these songs are the work of a single composer and were performed by one character in a stage production gives them a coherent, unified style, even though they are written in a variety of musical idioms. Perhaps, because this stage production also featured a Kun opera singer performing in that musical idiom, the three songs composed for Wong have a more classical (both Western and Chinese) feel, though they are still clearly pop music in the way they are performed. In these compositions, the emphasis is on Wong's singing and these songs beautifully showcase his clear, almost angelic upper register and precise delivery style. That a man of almost 50 should still possess such a beautiful, delicate and pure upper register is truly amazing. In these gorgeous songs Wong takes the listener from the earth to the heavens and back again, riding on his amazingly expressive and crystalline tone. His precise enunciation and exact placement of pitch also are important elements that are fundamental in producing of these gorgeous vocal tracks.

Video: http://youtu.be/6-4HbZjTRHk

Promo for Zuni Forbidden City show
Video: http://youtu.be/C2Oetu4FW0I

Video: http://youtu.be/BMnDouBFETM

Anthony Wong is famous in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China for songs that challenge listeners with their lyrics and musical innovation. But he deserves to be equally famous for his gorgeous music, highly inventive covers, and unique and bewitching way of singing. Singing in Cantonese and focusing on Chinese markets has limited his exposure in Europe and North America, which is a shame since he has been making some of the best music anywhere in the world for the past 25 years. This latest album is another chapter in a marvelous musical legacy that deserves to be as well-known outside of Greater China as within. Although the lyric content of his work is not readily available to those who do not understand colloquial Cantonese (and, to a lesser extent Mandarin), his work more than stands on the strength of the music alone. How much more amazing must Anthony Wong's music be when the lyrics are intelligible! But perhaps it is the strength of so much of his lyric content that has distracted listeners over the years from the vocal ability of this artist and the arresting quality of the compositions and their inventive arrangements. This latest studio release from Anthony Wong is another brilliant example of a restless artist producing highly personal work of the highest calibre. Wong is a true Hong Kong original bridging East and West, mixing Cantopop and Chinese traditional styles with Anglo-American music of various genres with a dash of Continental techno added as piquant seasoning. Anthony Wong is a man of many facets, musically and artistically, and 拂一身還滿 is a highly personal expression of Wong's current wide-ranging interests. A thinking man's singer who can bring a tear to your eye with the sheer beauty of his voice, but who can just as easily get you up on your feet dancing to one of his exuberant up tempo songs, Anthony Wong is Hong Kong's most interesting performer whose releases always exceed expectations. This latest album is no exception.