Born on 10/1173 in Taiwan
One could possibly pinpoint the beginning of Hong Kong’s movie infatuation with longhaired pretty boys on Takeshi. Beginning in the mid-90s he brought his soulful eyes and sensitive good looks to Hong Kong and was soon elevated to an Idol status among teenage girls and having his face plastered across innumerable glossy magazines. Admittedly Ekin Cheng was on the scene before Takeshi, but he didn’t really achieve idol status till his Young and Dangerous films. The difference for me though between Takashi and the idol boys that have followed is that Takeshi is actually very talented.
When he turns to Brigitte Lin in Chungking Express and tries talking to her in four different languages (i.e., Cantonese, Japanese, English and Mandarin), it gives a hint as to his multi-cultural background. Half Japanese and half Taiwanese Chinese, Takeshi grew up and attended a predominantly English-language International School in Taiwan and began appearing in commercials at the age of fifteen. A few years later he began making music and released six albums between 1992 and 1993. This brought him to the attention of filmmakers in Hong Kong and it wasn’t long before he was starring in films.
In fact his first film was the sequel to The Heroic Trio, The Executioners, in which he plays a messiah like figure in a futuristic world – sort of a different kind of idol. He followed this with a small role in Mermaids Gets Married, but his next film shot him into the stratosphere with his charming turn as a lovelorn policeman in Chungking Express who flirts with a mysterious femme fatale but ends up only eating plates of chef salads and chips plus cleaning her shoes while she sleeps. Director Wong Kar-Wai clearly liked his performance enough to cast Takeshi in his next film – Fallen Angels in 1995. In one of his most bizarre roles, Takeshi plays a mute character who breaks into various business establishments after closing to re-open them for business.
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