Leon Lai plays the lead role of the Peking Opera master in Forever Enthralled.

The controversy has never stopped since Hong Kong singer/actor Leon Lai was cast to play the role of the Peking Opera master.

He is a Hong Kong singer who never learned Peking Opera; he is much taller than Mei and his acting skills have been questioned.

But director Chen Kaige sees something common in Lai and his role - neither men had a very happy childhood.

Mei's parents died in his childhood and he was considered a hopeless pupil by his first teacher.

Born in Beijing, Lai's parents divorced when he was a little boy. He left for Hong Kong at 7 with his father. There he was an outsider among his peers, because he did not speak the local dialect. When things started getting better he went to Britain to further his studies and he became an outsider again.

In his early days, striving to be a star, Lai sold cell phones and sang in bars to support himself. He had to borrow money from friends when his father needed money to get an operation.

Although, in the 1990s, he was one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" in the Hong Kong pop music industry, for many years he was considered a good-looking idol rather than a skilled singer.

"He made his name by his own efforts in a new land and maintained his fame for many years," Chen says. "Somewhere in his heart there must be something similar to Mei."

During their first talk about the film, Lai listened to Chen quietly and seldom interrupted. When Chen finished, he said: "I would not be surprised if I was not chosen, but if I was the one, I wouldn't play Mei Lanfang, I want to be Mei Lanfang."

One day later when shooting, Chen found Lai pacing alone in a corridor in costume and makeup, reciting his lines silently. The view of his back touched Chen. "I think he can relate to Mei, in the sense that he must be scared under great pressure, but has to overcome it again and again."

Lai's response to the doubt and controversy was simple. "Children learn fast, because they do not care about others' opinions," he says. "They only focus on things they like and feel curious about."

Chen would not compare Lai to the late Leslie Cheung, who brilliantly performed an obsessed Peking Opera actor in Chen's famous film Farewell My Concubine.

"The two characters are very different in personalities," he says. "This is not a 110m race, in which the one who takes the lead wins."

(China Daily December 2, 2008)