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Film acting as cultural practice andtransnational vehicle: Tang Wei’sminimalist performance in Late Autumn(2011)Sabrina Qiong Yua

a School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University, Newcastle,UKPublished online: 10 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Sabrina Qiong Yu (2014) Film acting as cultural practice and transnationalvehicle: Tang Wei’s minimalist performance in Late Autumn (2011), Transnational Cinemas, 5:2,141-155, DOI: 10.1080/20403526.2014.955669

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20403526.2014.955669

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Film acting as cultural practice and transnational vehicle: TangWei’s minimalist performance in Late Autumn (2011)

Sabrina Qiong Yu*

School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK

The central question of this article is: how can a non-Hollywoodized acting stylebreak national and cultural boundaries to become transnational? By a close analysisof Chinese actress Tang Wei’s award-winning performance in the South Korean filmLate Autumn, this article argues that Tang’s unspoken and minimalist acting style isdeep-rooted in East Asian cultural and aesthetic traditions, and can be understoodas a distinctive cultural practice. It tries to challenge some critical clichés in theHollywood-centred discussion of transnational film acting, including that theHollywood realistic acting is the norm against which acting in other cultural contextsshould be evaluated; and that a good command of English is fundamental to transna-tional performance.

Keywords: transnational acting; non-Western performance styles; pan-Asianfilmmaking; East Asian aesthetic traditions; vocal performance; minimalist acting;Tang Wei; Late Autumn

In the introduction to Movie Acting: The Film Reader, Pamela Robertson Wojcik raisesa series of questions that are key to our understanding of film acting and have not yetbeen properly discussed. One question Wojcik asks in particular is: ‘has there been aloss of national cultural specificity in performance with the globalization of film starsfrom Hong Kong or Australia?’ (2004, 10). A hypothesis can be detected in Wojcik’squestion. That is, the existence of a culturally specific performance style in differentnational cinemas is already presupposed. Yet there is not a ready-made category of dif-ferent acting styles in different film cultures. Discussion about culturally specific actingis rather dispersed and its classification rather vague.

Cynthia Baron differentiates European modernist performance traditions from Holly-wood realistic and naturalistic performance tradition in her discussion of ‘bizarrelystressed acting’ in John Woo’s The Killer (1989). She considers the acting by the HongKong actors in this cult film to be indicative of postmodern film performance, wherebyperformances slip back and forth between ‘low-key naturalism and exaggerated theatri-calism’ and mix a restrained quality with an expressive use of voices, facial gestures,poses and body movements (Baron 2004, 298). Together with an analysis of JohnWoo’s adoption of both modernist and over-the-top cinematic strategies, Baron arguesthat the acting style in Woo’s films does not belong to the two major Western perfor-mance traditions (naturalism and theatricalism) and requires new ways of defining act-ing. In her exploration of method acting in Hollywood, Virginia Wright Wexmanidentifies two distinctive schools of performance: the British tradition and the Method.

*Email: sabrina.yu@ncl.ac.uk

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

Transnational Cinemas, 2014Vol. 5, No. 2, 141–155, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20403526.2014.955669

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She argues: ‘where the British school focuses on external technique, emphasizingmakeup, costume, and verbal dexterity, the Method relies on understatement and what itcalls “inner truth”, cultivating an aura of mood and emotion derived from the actor’sown persona’ (Wexman 2004, 128). For Baron, Wexman and many other critics, filmacting in Hollywood is rooted in realistic tradition and ‘tends to favour “invisible” natu-ralistic styles’ (Wojcik 2004, 1–2). This realistic acting style has been very influentialand has defined what is understood to be ‘good acting’. European performance tradi-tions are obviously more diverse and difficult to categorize, but they are often discussedin opposition to the Hollywood performance tradition. Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobsargue for a specific French and European acting tradition resulting from different editingstyles comprised of slower European editing and rapid American editing. ‘Given theirlengthy takes and tendency to employ deep staging in long shot’, they note, ‘Europeanfilms necessarily relied more upon the actor and the acting ensemble to provide dramaticemphasis’ (Brewster and Jacobs 1997, 111).

There is a tendency to overvalue a realistic acting style exemplified by the Methodand non-Western performance traditions have consequently not received much criticalattention. The limited literature tends to apply or adapt Western performance models inthe discussion of non-Western acting traditions, reading them as either a syncretism ofor a deviation from Western traditions. As a result, Western performance style, and real-istic Hollywood acting in particular, has become the norm against which acting in anon-Western cultural context is evaluated. The other popular method employed in Eng-lish-language writing on non-Western performance styles emphasizes their theatricalconnection and traces their influence from theatrical traditions; energetic performancesin Hong Kong action films have often been seen as rooted in Peking Opera, for example(Bordwell 2000; Hunt 2003). As Baron observes, performance in The Killer has beeninfluenced by ‘Chinese theatrical traditions that emphasize the coordination of codifiedmovements and vocal rhythms’ (2004, 302). Similarly, melodramatic actingcharacterizing Indian cinema is often associated with diverse traditions in Indian folktheatre (Kapur 1993; Chakravarty 2013).

It seems that different acting styles tend to be discussed in binaries, such as realis-tic/theatrical, modernist/postmodern, Western/non-Western. While it might be easier totalk about acting and performance in this comparative way, this oppositional analysisoften risks ignoring the unique features of different performance styles and the overlapbetween them, especially when it comes to the discussion of non-Western performancetraditions. I would like to argue in this article that non-Western performance traditionsshould be discussed in their own right rather than as variations of Western traditions.They should be located in their specific cultural and aesthetic contexts and they shouldbe considered from more complex, multiple perspectives. Wojcik’s question about apotential loss of national cultural specificity in transnational performance also assumesthat in order to become a global star, an actor might have to compromise their uniqueacting style nurtured in their own culture. This opinion can easily find resonance. Intheir introduction to Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader, Elizabeth Ezra and TerryRowden argue that the ‘performance of Americanness’ can be seen in many transna-tional stars such as Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Catherine Zeta-Jones,Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas and is ‘increasingly becoming a “universal” or“universalizing” characteristic in world cinema’ (2006, 2). For Ezra and Rowden, inorder to cross national boundaries and reach a global audience, transnational stars haveto somehow allow their performance to be Americanized or universalized.

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While increasing critical attention has been paid to transnational stardom (Yu 2012;Fujiki 2013; Meeuf and Raphael 2014), it is undeniable that the number of transnationalstars is still relatively small and transnational stardom, in many ways, is predominantlya Hollywood phenomenon. The transfer of stars between film industries is almostalways in one direction, that is, stars moving from other countries to Hollywood, notvice versa. By contrast, there is a much bigger population of transnational performerswho are cast in foreign films (not necessarily Hollywood films), although they are lessvisible. I would like to make a distinction between transnational stars and transnationalperformers where, for the latter, their stardom in their home countries brings them theopportunity to perform on the world stage but they have not gained star status for audi-ences outside of their own country, and therefore cannot be called transnational stars.These global performers have played an important but undervalued role in facilitatingthe transnationalization of contemporary cinema and challenging a Hollywood-centredapproach to film acting. Often less typecast than transnational stars, transnational per-formers are also less Americanized in terms of their acting style and able to incorporatemore of their own culturally specific performance tradition, hence providing an ideal sitewhere film acting as cultural practice and transnational vehicle can be effectivelyscrutinized.

This article aims to contribute to an understanding of transnational acting as rootedin its specific cultural and aesthetic contexts against the backdrop of pan-Asian filmmak-ing by using Chinese actress Tang Wei’s award-winning performance in the South Kor-ean film Late Autumn (Kim Tae-Yong, 2011) as a case study. Rising to stardom withher film debut in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007), Tang Wei became the first foreignactress to be awarded Best Actress at the prestigious PaekSang Art Awards in SouthKorea. It was Tang’s first film made outside China.1 Although Tang has probablybecome a star for some South Korean audiences, especially with the recent announce-ment of her marriage to the director of Late Autumn, she can hardly be called a transna-tional star with only one transnational film under her belt. More importantly, this film isby no means a typical Hollywood production in which a foreign actor is cast to add aflavour of exoticism, but reflects a more serious effort to embrace the age of filmtransnationalization.

Late Autumn and pan-Asian filmmaking

The past two decades have revealed an increasing interdependence among East Asianfilm industries, more specifically those in Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, Koreaand Japan. A new mode of pan-Asian filmmaking has gradually taken shape, manifestedin cross-casting, transborder directing and co-productions.2 This new trend indicates ahigh level of hybridity and a consequent transnationalization of East Asian cinema thatmight eventually result in the formation of a new regional cinematic identity. This excit-ing but under-theorized area certainly warrants further discussion but is beyond thescope of this article. What is particularly relevant here is cross-casting, which hasbecome one of the defining features of pan-Asian filmmaking. Since the beginning ofthe twenty-first century, not only have actors from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainlandChina travelled between these three Chinese cinemas with an unprecedented freedomand frequency, but it has almost become a formula for a Chinese-language blockbusterto recruit one or more Korean or Japanese actors in order to maximize profit within theEast Asian film market.3 The Korean film industry has also started using Chinese starsin domestic productions, including Cecilia Cheung in Failan (Song Hye-sung, 2001),

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Zhang Ziyi in The Warriors (Kim Sung-su, 2001), Shu Qi in My Wife is a Gangster 3(Cho Jin-gyu, 2006), Gao Yuanyuan in A Good Rain Knows (Hur Jin-ho, 2009) andTang Wei in Late Autumn.

As I discuss elsewhere (Yu forthcoming), in recent years Hollywood has also seenmore and more Chinese faces by employing Chinese actresses in their blockbusters. Butthe journey of a Chinese actress to the West is a very different story compared to theirexperience in Korean cinema. While Chinese female stars are usually cast in the leadingrole in the latter, the appearance of Chinese actresses in Hollywood blockbusters, with acouple of exceptions, is largely fleeting and insignificant, for example Yu Nan in TheExpendables (Sylvester Stallone, 2012), Li Bingbing in Resident Evil: Retribution (PaulW.S. Anderson, 2012), Xu Qing in Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012) and Zhou Xun inCloud Atlas (Tom Tkywer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, 2012). As the firstChinese actress starring in a South Korean film, Cecilia Cheung was nominated for BestActress at South Korea’s Dae Jong Film Awards. Ten years later, Tang Wei’s leadingperformance in Late Autumn gained her 11 acting awards in South Korea. WhileChinese female stars may survive in Hollywood mainly as a racial stereotype and asource of profit, they are provided with more space to act in pan-Asian filmmaking,with more chances to conquer the foreign audience with their acting ability rather thanmerely a token Chinese face. The acknowledgement of Tang’s acting skills by SouthKorean acting awards makes her performance in Late Autumn a perfect example throughwhich to explore the question: how can a non-Hollywoodized acting style break nationaland cultural boundaries to become transnational?

Late Autumn tells a doomed love story that has been shown on screen many timesand is one of the most influential narratives in the history of South Korean cinema. Theoriginal version – a story of a female prisoner and a counterfeiter chased by the police– was made by the famous South Korean director Lee Man Hee in 1966. Now lost, thisfilm is considered Lee’s best and won numerous film awards at the time. The success ofthe film led to its first remake by Japanese director Kôichi Saitô in 1972, retitled TheRendezvous, with a story about two Japanese lovers in Japan. The film was nominatedfor a Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and won awards for BestDirector and Best Screenplay at the Mainichi Film Concours in Japan. Three years later,Kim Ki-young, a leading Korean film director, remade the film under the name ThePromise of the Flesh (1975), adding his trademark cult film elements to a restrained andpoetic story portrayed in the first two versions. In 1982, another reputed Koreandirector, Kim Soo-yong, remade the film again with the title Late Autumn, whichsubsequently became one of his representative films. Despite the different styles, thethree Korean versions from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were written by the samescreenwriter, Kim Chi-hon.

When Kim Tae-Yong came to adapt the story in 2011, the biggest immediatechanges he made were to change the location from East Asia to the US and to rewritethe protagonists as an interracial couple. After being in jail for seven years, Chineseprisoner Anna (Tang Wei) is given 72 hours’ parole to attend her mother’s funeral inSeattle, during which time she falls in love with Hoon (Hyun Bin), a South Korean gig-olo whom she meets on the coach. It is obviously challenging to adapt such a classicstory, especially considering that the previous versions, made by well-known directors,are all critically acclaimed and have become classics in their own right. But the directorwas clever enough to repackage a traditional Korean story into a transnational productwhile daring to cast in the leading role a Chinese actress who does not speak a word ofKorean. Not only was the film a great success at film festivals in South Korea, but it

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became the highest grossing South Korean film in mainland China. Both successes can,to a large extent, be attributed to the leading actress Tang Wei.

Tang Wei’s minimalist acting in Late Autumn

Tang Wei gained overnight fame after her film debut in Lust, Caution in which she por-trays a student spy who seduces and then tries to assassinate a high-ranking Chinesecollaborator in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Tang’s restrained but poignant performanceestablished her reputation as an art-house actress. Her bold decision to appear in sexu-ally explicit scenes also placed her at the centre of controversy and resulted in her beingbanned from acting and indeed from making any public appearance in mainland Chinasoon after the release of the film in 2007. It was not until 2010 that Tang Wei returnedto the mainland screen with Crossing Hennessy (Ivy Ho, 2010), a Hong Kongproduction.4 Tang’s character in Late Autumn is in some ways similar to her role inLust, Caution in that both women are forsaken, suppressed and inhabit a turbulent innerworld. Indeed, in Late Autumn Tang continues to display the restrained acting style sheestablished in Lust, Caution but pushes it to the extreme, to what can be called mini-malist acting. Notably, at the director’s request, Tang does not wear any make-up forher role in this film, except in one shopping scene in which she deliberately puts onmake-up and tries on new clothes following her release from prison.5 Tang’s costumealso does not change. She wears a brown, dusty and gender-neutral trench coat through-out, which perfectly reflects her attitude towards the outside world and her own hopelessand colourless life, while also fitting into the cold and grey atmosphere of the film. In aworld predominately defined by visual spectacle and visual pleasure, it is obviouslya bold decision not to wear make-up or change costume, especially for an actress in atransnational production who usually relies on her appearance to attract an internationalaudience.

When discussing the first Chinese American film star Anna May Wong’sborder-crossing career, Yiman Wang (2010) suggests that costuming is key to Wong’sperformance of exotic foreignness. Indeed, this observation can easily be applied toother border-crossing performances, most notably Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung’sperformance in Centre Stage (Stanley Kwan, 1991) and In the Mood for Love (WongKar Wai, 2000). With a different cheongsam in almost every sequence, Cheung and herglamorous costumes largely contribute to the visual appeal of both films in seamlesslyplaying out the role of the exotic Other. It is safe to claim that costuming has not onlybecome an important element of Cheung’s acting, but also helped her performance tosuccessfully cross cultural boundaries, demonstrated by the fact that the former filmwon Best Actress for Cheung at Berlin and the latter won her a cult following in theWest. By contrast, the unglamorous and unchanged costume in Late Autumn undoubt-edly demobilizes dressing as a way of performance for Tang. It also tones down herOtherness both diegetically (as a Chinese immigrant in the US) and non-diegetically (asa Chinese actress in a South Korean film), drawing the audience’s attention to herperformance rather than her appearance.

As well as being embodied in her appearance – that is, in the lack of costumechange and make-up – Tang’s minimalist acting is also manifested in her minimal useof dialogue, facial expressions and body movements. The film has limited dialogue andno voiceover. For most of the screen time, Tang acts without words. Anna’s emotionsare conveyed mainly in Tang’s silence, in the gestures she makes, in her eye movementsand in her lack of reaction. With minimal facial expressions and body movements, Tang

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often appears emotionless, though Anna’s deep sadness is revealed sufficiently in Tang’smelancholic face and the look of self-abandon in her eyes. Employing a minimalist styleof acting, Tang presents a powerful performance in this doubly alienated space as aChinese actress in a South Korean film set in the US. One must wonder how Tangmanages to present successful acting in her immobility, silence and expressionlessness.In her discussion of Simone Signoret’s minimalist acting, Susan Hayward suggests that

Figure 1. Tang Wei plays Anna in Late Autumn (2011).

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Signoret’s performance relies on ‘small gestures (a shrug of shoulders, dismissivehands), a few words (marked by a slight lisp), eyes and lips to say it all’ (2004, 30).According to Hayward, Signoret can express a wide range of emotions through her eyesand lips which speak to her durability, because for spectators, the less ‘stood for somuch more’ (ibid.). Paul McDonald also points out the importance of studying theminutest details of the actor’s vocal and physical actions as a way of analysing perfor-mance in order to reveal ‘a larger understanding of the character’s involvement with thecircumstances of the narrative’ (2004, 32). It is probably too early to identify a series ofhabitual gestures in Tang’s performance, although it has become quite clear that Tangtends to use her eyes more than any other part of her body to convey the character’semotions, as seen in both Lust, Caution and Late Autumn. However, what is most strik-ing in Late Autumn is Tang Wei’s vocal performance, an innovative performance that Isuggest helped the film to cross cultural and language boundaries and can thereforecontribute to our understanding of transnational acting.

Because Late Autumn is set in the US and the two stars do not speak each other’slanguage, Tang Wei and Hyun Bin communicate in accented English for most of thefilm. As many critics notice, for transnational stars, speaking decent English is a funda-mental obstacle to overcome (Phillips and Vincendeau 2006; Small 2009; Shingler2012). Language problems in the careers of transnational stars have been identified byAlastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau (2006) as accent, comprehensibility and effortof linking overall performance – body language, facial expression – to unfamiliar verbalexpression. Indeed, many European and Asian actors have failed in their Hollywoodventures due to their accent. Many transnational performers receive harsh criticism fortheir insufficient language skills, which are often seen to have led to their unimpressivescreen presence and the limited roles they are offered. Although accent can sometimesbecome an asset and hence contribute to transnational performance, in most caseslanguage is a handicap, especially for those from Asia. There have been many moreimmigrant stars in Hollywood from Europe than from Asia. One of the importantreasons for this lies in the fact that Asian actors’ English is usually more accented andlimited than that of their European counterparts, hence seriously impeding their chancesof establishing a successful career in Hollywood. It is therefore unsurprising that inter-nationally known Chinese actors are usually kung fu/action stars who rely more on theirphysical acting skills rather than their language ability.

If a good command of English is commonly considered a prerequisite for transna-tional performers, multilingual skills are seen as an asset. Yiman Wang (2010) arguesthat Anna May Wong’s investment in British accent and different European languagesfunctions as a way to maximize her opportunity as a transnational star. Similarly, multi-lingual skills have certainly helped Maggie Cheung to become one of the most success-ful transnational Chinese female stars. She won Best Actress at Cannes Film Festivalfor her role in the French film Clean (Olivier Assayas, 2004) in which she acts in fivedifferent languages: English, French, Cantonese, Shanghainese and Mandarin. Tang Weihas been seen as one of a few Chinese actors who have a talent in mastering language.As a mainland actress, she can speak Cantonese and Shanghainese fluently, as shown inLust, Caution and the Cantonese-spoken film Crossing Hennessy. Her English is alsowidely deemed to be good. However, Tang’s language talent is not made much use ofin Late Autumn.

Much of Tang’s performance in the film is conducted in silence. When she talks,her lines are usually confined to basic and limited conversation such as ‘yes’, ‘why’, ‘Iknow’. In three outbursts, Tang has slightly more extended dialogue but she either does

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not use English at all, or uses it in a metaphorical or dramatic way. Tang’s performanceeffectively makes English – the main language used in this film – non-functional. Shedoes rely on her vocal performance to portray the character but this vocal performanceis defined neither by her ability to speak good English nor by the amount of words spo-ken. On the one hand, it is through her use of metre, pitch, tone and speed of deliverythat Tang delivers an effective vocal performance, whether it is unemotional, affective,passionate or angry. On the other hand, the film’s innovative use of dialogue and lan-guage provides Tang with a good opportunity to act vocally, as a closer look at threeclimactic scenes in the film demonstrates.

Jailed for seven years and haunted by the traumatic memory of murdering her hus-band, Anna shuts herself away from the outside world. Despite the male protagonist’sconsiderate attention, Tang’s Anna determines to remain silent and unresponsive untilthey arrive at an amusement park together. Hyun’s Hoon looks in her eyes and knowsthat Anna has numerous unresolved feelings but does not want to tell anyone. He there-fore encourages Anna to dub words for a couple at a distance. It seems that the manthey are watching is trying to end the relationship but the woman pleads with him toreconsider. Hoon starts to dub the couple’s conversation with amusement, assuming bothvoices until Anna unexpectedly picks up the woman’s part with an expressive and pas-sionate voice, completely different from the dryness and detachment that has character-ized Anna’s voice thus far. She even pretends to cry in positioning herself in thewoman’s shoes. The dialogue in this sequence has nothing to do with the story of thetwo protagonists but, from this moment on, the two lonely souls become closer. BothTang and Hyun’s voices are accented in their exaggerated dubbing but it is likely thatthe audience’s attention is drawn to their dramatic presentation rather than their accentedEnglish.

Two ensuing and equally ingenious scenes cement the development of the relation-ship between the two characters. Still in the amusement park, Anna finally reveals her

Figure 2. Anna and Hoon (Hyun Bin) in the amusement park.

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story to Hoon in a highly poignant moment: her adolescent infatuation, the return of theman she adored after she married someone else, a jealous husband and physical abuse,leading to his murder and her subsequent imprisonment. Anna speaks Chinese in thissignificant self-revelatory sequence, while Hoon interprets her facial expressions andresponds with the only two Chinese words he knows: hao (good) and huai (bad).Although it is evident he does not understand what Anna is saying, as he sometimesuses the two words incorrectly, we get the impression that Hoon understands Anna’sstory and emotions. He responds with deep empathy, which encourages Anna to revealthe hidden story and release some repressed emotion and pain. It is meaningful thatwhen Anna and Hoon finally get to understand each other, it is through a language theydo not both speak. This exchange can be read as a parable for transnational acting; aforeign actor does not always have to rely on verbal language to communicate meaning.

Another creative use of language is seen in a social gathering after Anna’s mother’sfuneral where Hoon gets into a conflict with Anna’s irresponsible, but now happily mar-ried, ex-boyfriend Wang. When asked why he attacked Wang, Hoon makes the excusethat Wang used Hoon’s fork and did not apologise. Anna is initially annoyed by Hoon’simproper behaviour but she soon turns to Wang and questions why he used another’sfork without offering an apology. She repeats this question a few times in English andthen in Chinese, with her voice increasing in volume. After hearing her ex-boyfriendsay sorry, Anna suddenly squats down and cries hysterically. This is the only scene inthe whole film in which Anna raises her voice and expresses her emotion overtly. Obvi-ously, ‘using someone else’s fork’ should not be understood in its literal meaning. Whilethis line of dialogue can be seen to imply the misdoing of Anna’s ex-boyfriend, it isAnna’s burst of emotion triggered by the line that is highlighted. Here, Tang Wei pre-sents an impressive vocal performance that has nothing to do with the language shespeaks or even the meaning of the line.

These exchanges demonstrate that the mastery of language (and the Englishlanguage in particular) is not central to transnational acting. Firstly, actors do not haveto use dialogue to act. Verbal dialogue has never been an essential aspect of film acting.In the silent cinema era, actors had to use facial expressions and body movement to por-tray a character. According to Béla Balázs, the distinction between early film and theatrelies in the ability of film to show details in close-up, thus allowing a greater range ofexpression to be visible. He privileged facial expression and ‘mute expression’ as theessence of film acting (Balazs 1952, quoted in Wojcik 2004). For a transnational per-former, if he or she is disadvantaged by accented English, he or she at the same time ispresented with the opportunity to concentrate on other, probably more essential aspectsof film acting, not unlike in early cinema. Furthermore, vocal performance involvesmuch more than speaking standard English; fluent and non-accented English is not aguarantee of good vocal performance. For transnational performers, language barriersmay seem formidable, but not insurmountable, as demonstrated by Tang Wei’s perfor-mance in Late Autumn. Through her unspoken and nuanced acting and an ingenious useof dialogue and different languages, Tang Wei delivers an understated but powerful per-formance. The numerous acting awards Tang received in South Korea show that herperformance is truly transnational and reflects a wider East Asian aesthetic taste, whichfavours a minimalist acting style.

Minimalist acting is, of course, not exclusive to East Asian performance traditionsbut it is highly appreciated and praised in East Asian cinema and can be considered adistinctive East Asian acting style. The unspoken and minimalist style of acting hasproduced many excellent screen performances in East Asian cinema, evident in

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performances from across Chinese, South Korean and Japanese film. Chinese actor TonyLeung Chiu-wai has won the most acting awards among his contemporaries.6 In hisaward-winning roles in such films as Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai, 1994), In theMood for Love, Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau, 2003) and Lust, Caution, Leung speakslittle and his facial expressions and body movements are kept to a minimum. It is acommonly held view that Leung’s success lies in his ability to use the expressions ofhis eyes to act in different roles. His eyes are often referred to in media reports as ‘elec-tric eyes’, indicating their expressiveness and charm. It is worth mentioning Leung’srole in City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989), which brought him his initial fame.This film was made in Taiwanese Hokkien and Leung did not understand a word. Hedid not know Mandarin at the time either. His limited language skills led to the direc-tor’s decision to make his role deaf and dumb. Deprived of the chance to speak, Leunghad to rely solely on facial expressions, his eyes and bodily gestures to express theemotion of his character. This unplanned decision resulted in the emergence of one ofthe most acclaimed actors in Chinese film history. The fact that Leung is the mostfrequent winner at two of the most prestigious Chinese film awards – the Hong KongFilm Awards and the Golden Horse Film Festival Awards in Taiwan – strongly indicatesthat the minimalist style of acting is perceived as good acting in Chinese cinema.

A similar tendency can be found in South Korean and Japanese cinema. Lee Byung-hun, the first Korean actor to have his hands and feet imprinted on the forecourt ofGrauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, received numerous domestic acting awardsfor his restrained and muted performance in films such as J.S.A.: Joint Security Area(Park Chan-wook, 2000), A Bittersweet Life (Kim Jee-woon, 2005) and Masquerade(Choo Chang-min, 2012). Japanese cinema has a long tradition of producing understatedand minimalist acting. Chishû Ryû, one of Japan’s most enduring character actors whoappeared in many films by the internationally reputed director Yasujirō Ozu, includingLate Spring (1949) and Tokyo Story (1953), was well known for his low-key actingstyle. Performances in recent masterpieces from Japan, for instance Departures (YôjirôTakita, 2008), the winner of Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards,clearly continue to embrace this distinctive acting style. In fact, the most significantexample to demonstrate the popularity of the minimalist style of acting in East Asiancinema is probably Late Autumn. This timeless story has been adapted for the screenfive times by four Korean directors and one Japanese director and, despite differentdirectorial styles, the leading female performance, whether the actress is from SouthKorea, Japan or China, remains the same: reserved, restrained and unspoken, relyingmore on eyes than facial expressions and body movements. This minimalist style by theleading actress is critically acclaimed across all versions and has become part of theenduring appeal of the Late Autumn legend.

A painterly performance tradition in East Asia

According to Cynthia Baron and Sharon Marie Carnicke, film acting reflects its uniqueproduction contexts and is best understood as ‘expressions of cultural-aesthetic tradi-tions’ (2008, 139). Similarly, Philip Drake argues that a performance is a sociallyembedded experience and calls for ‘further analysis of what makes film performance(and reading performance) particular as cultural practices’ (2006, 93). As briefly touchedon earlier, the discussion of non-Western performance traditions tends to emphasize theinfluence of theatrical traditions. Indeed, Chinese film acting owed a great debt to theperformance traditions in traditional Chinese theatre, such as Peking Opera, as well as

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modern, spoken drama. However, East Asian performance traditions are more diverseand richer than theatrical acting style can describe, and an over-emphasis on theatricalconnection may limit explorations of the cultural and aesthetic traditions behind acertain performance style.

In addition to film’s immediate cousin, more cultural factors should be taken intoconsideration when trying to understand acting as a cultural practice, such as the aes-thetic tastes of a given society in which a particular acting style is produced. A strongconnection can be made between the unspoken and minimalist performance style dem-onstrated by Tang Wei in Late Autumn and the emphasis on simplicity, emptiness anddetachment in East Asian art traditions. As Zong Baihua (1987) points out, influencedby ancient Zen and Daoist philosophy, emptiness is the key element of Chinese artisticconception, manifested in classical Chinese poetry, calligraphy and, in particular, tradi-tional Chinese painting. Traditional Chinese painting is mostly ink painting with a brushpen. Compared to Western oil paintings, ink painting does not stress the importance ofperspective and the close resemblance in shape and colour of the object. It insteadattaches great importance to the expression of the artistic conception and the subjectinterest of the painter. With simple lines and black and white colour, traditional Chinesepainting tends to represent the object in an abstract and symbolic way. A prominentcharacteristic of Chinese painting is its stress on empty space, represented by white. Itis important for a painter not to fill all available space in a picture. As Yun Shoupingcomments, ‘if one is able to realise how the ancients applied their minds to the absenceof brush and ink, one is not far from reaching the divine quality in painting’ (quoted inHe 2005). It is exactly the absence of image that creates rhythm and a feeling of intan-gibleness, reflects the spirit of the painter and inspires the viewer’s imagination. Thecharm of emptiness is also manifested in classical Chinese literature such as poetry,where an absence of words conveys more than words; and in classical Chinese music,where soundlessness conveys more than sound.

It is commonly agreed that traditional Chinese art and aesthetics have had afar-reaching influence on Japanese and Korean culture. For example, ma in Japanese,translated as ‘gap’ or ‘negative space’, has a similar meaning to empty space in Chineseculture. This canonization of simplicity and emptiness in traditional East Asian art repre-sents a wider aesthetic and cultural taste in East Asia, which has inevitably left animprint on modern artistic practice, including the mute and minimalist film acting inquestion. A good screen performance in an East Asian film usually requires minimaldialogue because silence can provide space for audiences to imagine the words that arenot spoken out loud. Similarly, dramatic facial expressions are usually avoided so audi-ences are given more freedom to interpret the characters’ emotions. In Late Autumn,Tang Wei remains silent and expressionless for most of the screen time. However, it isexactly this emptiness created by the absence of words and facial expressions thatconveys more poignantly Anna’s complex and hidden emotions.

‘Less is more’ is a key principle in East Asian minimalist performance style andcaptures the highly valued artistic conception of emptiness in East Asian culture. Thereis an interesting example which testifies to the different aesthetic standards in EastAsian cinema and Hollywood. When Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001), one of themost internationally well-known Japanese animations, was dubbed for its Westernrelease by Disney, dialogue was added to the final scene where there is no dialogue inthe original Japanese version. It is unclear why Disney made this change but it mightnot be unreasonable to presume that it was based on the belief that Western audiencesmight find it hard to enjoy the film if there is too little dialogue. However, this is not to

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say that similar artistic preference does not exist in other cultures. When Liv Ullmannpresented the Best Actor Award at the 1973 Oscars, she said that she learned a greatdeal from the influential Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, including that ‘often tobe most eloquent is to be silent’. In addition, the unspoken and minimalist acting styleshould also be related to specific ways of expressing feelings in East Asian society andthe perceived propriety of such expression, a topic warranting further discussion.

The close consideration of Chinese actress Tang Wei’s performance in anEnglish-speaking South Korean film challenges two critical clichés in the discussion oftransnational acting. Firstly, it demystifies the myth of language ability, particularly Eng-lish, as being fundamental to transnational performance. A good command of Englishwill undoubtedly help an actor to produce a more natural performance in an English-speaking film, but vocal performance requires much more than decent English. LateAutumn demonstrates that the language barrier is surmountable through innovative andimaginative use of language. Language should be treated as an acting tool rather than aHollywood-centred criterion. Secondly, a non-Hollywoodized performance can similarlybreak national and cultural boundaries and become truly transnational. East Asian cin-ema has produced many excellent screen performances that are distinctively differentfrom the Hollywood realistic and naturalistic tradition and need to be understood withintheir own cultural and cinematic contexts. In Late Autumn, Tang offers a minimaliststyle of acting that is rooted in East Asian cultural and aesthetic traditions and refusesto conform to racial stereotypes so often played out by Chinese actresses on the worldstage. It is exactly this culturally distinctive acting style – less reliance on dialogue andmore emphasis on facial expressions or the lack thereof – that makes her performancemore accessible to audiences in other cultures.

Late Autumn is by no means a film that has entered mainstream cinema in the West,but its cross-casting and transborder filming, together with the fact that the main spokenlanguage is English, make it a transnational film and provide a stage for a global audi-ence to appreciate Tang’s performance.7 Tang Wei, despite her emerging stardom inChina and East Asia, has not obtained the status of a transnational star in its conven-tional definition, hence she should more appropriately be considered a transnational per-former. While transnational stars usually put considerable effort into accumulating famein a global market by accepting roles in Hollywood blockbusters and by somehow con-forming to the American standard of good acting, transnational performers often havemore space to portray characters and to introduce a non-Hollywoodized acting style, asdemonstrated by the example of Tang Wei. In order to develop a better understandingof transnational acting and deconstruct a Hollywood-centred ideology in film studies,more research needs to be done on transnational performers who come from diverseracial and cinematic backgrounds. The role of transnational stars in facilitating filmtransnationalization has received sustained scholarly attention but how film actingfunctions as a transnational vehicle is a topic that demands further exploration.

Notes1. Tang Wei will make her Hollywood debut in the forthcoming Michael Mann film Cyber

(2015).2. Indicative examples include: Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien directing the Japanese film

Café Lumiere (2003); Hong Kong director Andrew Lau directing the Korean film Daisy(2006); and Korean director Heo Jin-ho directing the Chinese film Dangerous Liaisons(2012).

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3. Examples include Japanese actor Kiichi Nakai in Warriors of Heaven and Earth (2003);Korean actor Dong-gun Jang and Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada in The Promise (2005);Korean actress Kim Hee-seon in The Myth (2005); Korean actress Kim So-yeon in SevenSwords (2005); Japanese actor Shido Nakamura in Fearless (2006); and Korean actress SongHye-kyo in The Grandmaster (2013).

4. Tang Wei had to become a Hong Kong citizen in order to continue her film career.5. In various interviews, Tang Wei has mentioned that the director requested that she not wear

make-up in order to portray Anna, who leaves prison after seven years’ confinement, in amore believable manner. See ‘Interviewing Tang Wei in Late Autumn: English and FaceWithout Makeup are Not Problem’, http://yule.sohu.com/20120321/n338355656.shtml.

6. Leung was winner of the Best Actor award at Cannes Film Festival for his role in In theMood for Love. Leung is also a seven-time winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards andthree-time winner at the Golden Horse Film Awards.

7. Apart from being shown at a number of international film festivals, it only received cinemarelease in South Korea, the US, mainland China and Hong Kong.

Notes on contributorSabrina Qiong Yu is Lecturer in Chinese and Film Studies at Newcastle University. Her researchand publications focus on stardom and performance, contemporary Chinese cinema, gender andsexuality and audience/reception studies. Her recent publications include Jet Li: Chinese Mascu-linity and Transnational Film Stardom (Edinburgh University Press, 2012) and ‘Vulnerable Chi-nese Stars: From xizi to Film Worker’, in A Companion to Chinese Cinema, edited by YingjinZhang (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

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More Than a Method: Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Film Performance, edited byCynthia Baron, Diane Carson and Frank P. Tomasulo, 297–320. Detroit, MI: Wayne StateUniversity Press.

Baron, Cynthia, and Sharon Marie Carnicke. 2008. Reframing Screen Performance. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.

Bordwell, David. 2000. Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Brewster, Ben, and Lea Jacobs. 1997. Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and Early FeatureFilm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chakravarty, Sumita S. 2013. “Con-figurations: The Body as World in Bollywood Stardom.” InFigurations in Indian Film, edited by Meheli Sen and Anustup Basu, 179–204. Basingstoke:Palgrave MacMillan.

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Ezra, Elizabeth, and Terry Rowden, eds. 2006. Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. London:Routledge.

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Shingler, Martin. 2012. Star Studies: A Critical Guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Small, Pauline. 2009. Sophia Loren: Moulding the Star. Bristol: Intellect.Yiman, Wang. 2010. “Anna May Wong: A Border-Crossing ‘Minor’ Star Mediating Perfor-

mance.” In Chinese Film Stars, edited by Mary Farquhar and Yingjin Zhang, 19–31. Londonand New York: Routledge.

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Wojcik, Pamela Robertson. 2004. “General Introduction.” In Movie Acting: The Film Reader,edited by Pamela Robertson Wojcik, 1–14. London and New York: Routledge.

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FilmographyAnderson, Paul W.S., dir. 2012. Resident Evil: Retribution. USA: Constantin Film International.Assayas, Olivier, dir. 2004. Clean. France: Rectangle Productions, etc.Chen Kaige, dir. 2005. The Promise. China: 21 Century Shengkai Film, etc.Cho Jin-gyu, dir. 2006. My Wife is a Gangster 3. South Korea: Hyunjin Cinema.Choo Chang-min, dir. 2012. Masquerade. South Korea: CJ Entertainment.He Ping, dir. 2003. Warriors of Heaven and Earth. China: Columbia Pictures Film Production

Asia, Huayi Brothers Media, etc.Ho, Ivy, dir. 2010. Crossing Hennessy. Hong Kong: Distribution Workshop, etc.Hou Hsiao-hsien, dir. 1989. City of Sadness. Taiwan: 3-H Films, ERA International.Hou Hsiao-Hsian, dir. 2003. Café Lumiere. Japan & Taiwan: Shochiku Company, Asahi Shimbun-

sha, etc.Hur Jin-ho, dir. 2009. A Good Rain Knows. South Korea: Pancinema, etc.Hur Jin-ho, dir. 2012. Dangerous Liaisons. China & South Korea: Easternlight Film and Zonbo

Media.Johnson, Rian, dir. 2012. Looper. USA: Endgame Entertainment, etc.Kim Jee-woon, dir. 2005. A Bittersweet Life. South Korea: B.O.M. Film Productions Co.Kim Ki-young, dir. 1975. The Promise of the Flesh. South Korea: Dong-a Exports Co., Ltd.Soo-yong, Kim dir. 1982. Late Autumn. South Korea: Dong-a Exports Co., Ltd.Kim Sung-su, dir. 2001. The Warriors. South Korea and China: Beijing Film Studio and CJ Enter-

tainment.Kim Tae-Yong, dir. 2011. Late Autumn. South Korea: Boram Entertainment, etc.Kwan, Stanley, dir. 1991. Centre Stage. Hong Kong: Golden Way Films Ltd.Lau, Andrew, dir. 2003. Infernal Affairs. Hong Kong: Media Asia Films and Basic Pictures.Lau Wai-keung, dir. 2006. Daisy. South Korea & Hong Kong: Basic Pictures, Surprise Ltd., etc.Lee, Ang, dir. 2007. Lust, Caution. USA, China and Taiwan: Haishang Films, etc.Lee Man Hee, dir. 1966. Late Autumn. South Korea: Daeyang Movies.Miyazaki, Hayao, dir. 2001. Spirited Away. Japan: Studio Ghibli, etc.Ozu, Yasujirō, dir. 1949. Late Spring. Japan: Shôchiku Eiga.Ozu, Yasujirō, dir. 1953. Tokyo Story. Japan: Shôchiku Eiga.Park Chan-wook, dir. 2000. J.S.A.: Joint Security Area. South Korea: CJ Entertainment.

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Saitô Kôichi, dir. 1972. The Rendezvous. Japan: Shôchiku Eiga.Song Hye-sung, dir. 2001. Failan. South Korea: Tube Pictures.Stallone, Sylvester, dir. 2012. The Expendables. USA: Millennium Films, etc.Takita, Yôjirô, dir. 2008. Departures. Japan: Amuse Soft Entertainment, etc.Tkywer, Tom, Andy Wachowski Lana Wachowski, dir. 2012. Cloud Atlas. USA: Cloud Atlas

Productions, etc.Tong Stanley, dir. 2005. The Myth. Hong Kong: JCE Entertainment Ltd., etc.Tsui Hark, dir. 2005. Seven Swords. Hong Kong.Wong Kar Wai, dir. 1994. Chungking Express. Hong Kong: Jet Tone Production.Wong Kar Wai, dir. 2000. In the Mood for Love. Hong Kong: Block 2 Pictures, etc.Wong Kar Wai, dir. 2013. The Grandmaster. Hong Kong: Block 2 Pictures, etc.Woo, John, dir. 1989. The Killer. Hong Kong: Film Workshop.Yu, Ronny, dir. 2006. Fearless. China: Beijing Film Studio, etc.

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