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SINGAPORE: American-born-Chinese actor Daniel Wu is an outsider. In fact, he has been an outsider all his life. Now, he is even playing an outsider in his latest movie, Shinjuku Incident.
Do we pity him? No. For one, he gets all the pretty girls. Second, he has all the looks. And third, even as an outsider, he is doing pretty darn well in Hong Kong cinemas, isn’t he?
Still, anytime he feels left out, he can always make his way to multi-racial Singapore. The media scene here – and all the girls – will welcome him with open arms, as sure as eggs are eggs.
“I have been an outsider all my life,” said Wu, when he recently came to town with co-star Jackie Chan to promote Shinjuku Incident. “In America, I’m an outsider – I’m not white, I’m not a blond hair, blue eye guy. When I first came to Hong Kong, people called me names – they don’t think I’m Chinese. So what the hell am I?
The 34-year-old California-born actor lived his childhood life in America, and only made his way to Hong Kong in 1997, where he was spotted by a film director while modelling for a clothing brand.
Despite initial inability to speak Mandarin or Cantonese – he only spoke English then, Wu successfully completed film projects. Efforts to learn the language and the dialect led him to more prominent roles, propelling him to become a household name in Hong Kong and much of Mandarin-speaking Asia.
Who better then, to know living life as an outsider then Wu? Even being an outsider in Japan is nothing new to him – the actor once lived in Tokyo to study Japanese architecture whilst studying for his architecture degree in the University of Oregon.
“So you see, I’m very used to trying to fit into new cultures. I’m always feeling like an outsider and trying to fit into whatever society I’m going to,” Wu explained.
In Shinjuku Incident, Wu and Chan play Chinese illegal immigrants Jie and Steelhead, who struggle to make ends meet living as minorities in Tokyo, but unknowingly get into tussles with the Japanese mafia.
Despite having gone through the outsider experience twice in Japan – in real and in reel – Wu said he “does not find it difficult to integrate into the Japanese society at all.”
“Japan is a very fun country because there are those who are very traditional, and those who are very extreme,’ he said.
“They can live together, and accept each other as they are. In fact, I think Hong Kong or China may be a more difficult place to integrate into because if somebody is dressed too differently, or behaves too differently, people may disapprove.”
In the movie, Wu’s character takes a dramatic turn from a timid guy who becomes gothic punk with a serious drug addition problem – another collection for Wu’s portfolio of dark characters that include killers (New Police Story) and homosexuals (Enter the Phoenix).
“I like dark movies/characters a lot. I think they allow me, as a person, to get in touch with that dark side of me. The dark side which I perhaps suppress in everyday life. (laughs) These roles let you question yourself and you get to know yourself better. I’ve never been afraid of my dark side,” he said.
But having played many controversial and anti-heroic characters, Wu is hoping his next role will take the exact opposite path Jackie Chan hopes to take.
While Chan wants less action films (see related news), Wu is more than happy if kung fu films could go his way. After all, the latter is skilled in fighting, having learnt wushu since the age of 11.
“I first came into the acting circle, I was afraid of being typecast as an actor who can only play certain roles – such as fighting roles just because I can fight. So I took roles that didn’t allow me to fight,” he said. “But after so many years, people have forgotten that I know how to fight. So I hope to, just once, do an entire show where I get to fight from start to end.”
Shinjuku Incident is shown in cinemas across Singapore from April 2. The movie is rated NC16 for scenes of violence.
- CNA/yb
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