This week marks the 17th year of Leslie Cheung’s death. However, many of his fans still mourn over his beauty, talent and his braveness to break gender norms.
Leslie Cheung was one of the most popular male singers and actors of the mid-1980s. Many people remembered him as the lead for Farewell My Concubine. In a BBC article, someone said that “he shows the Chinese-speaking world that gay people can be positive, bright and worthy of respect”.
He was the co-star in Happy Together directed by Wong Kar Wai. It is a stereotypical romance played by two man. Slowly, he becomes an iconic figure in Hong Kong that awakens the LGBT community in China.
Cheung’s orginal name was Cheung Fat-chung. He was born in 1965. Cheung’s music and films not only captured the hearts of fans in Hong Kong but also other Asian countries including Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.
He was the first foreign artist to hold 16 concerts in Japan, a record that has yet to be broken. CNN voted him as “The Most Beautiful Man from Hong Kong Cinema” and one of “Asia’s 25 Greatest Actor of All Time”.
In 1997, he came out of the closet at his concert. He was in a long-term relationship with his childhood friend, Daffy Tong. However, in 2003 he committed suicide due to his severe clinical depression. His beauty will always remain in our hearts.
