The qui­et inten­si­ty of Lee Kang Sheng’s gaze

Our first glimpse of Lee Kang Sheng in Tsai Ming Liang’s Rebels of the Neon God (1992) fea­tures the young man seat­ed at a desk. His back is turned to the cam­era while his leg jit­ters in bore­dom. When he spies a cock­roach skit­ter­ing across the floor, he cold­ly stabs it with a com­pass and nails its writhing body to the desk. This act of juve­nile cru­el­ty appears to reveal some­thing about Hsiao-Kang, the lacon­ic drifter that Lee would reprise as Tsai’s long-time lead­ing man – as an ama­teur actor in The Riv­er (1997), a watch sales­man in What Time Is It There? (2001), a porn­star in The Way­ward Cloud (2005), an alco­holic father in Stray Dogs (2013), and a mid­dle-aged man with chron­ic neck pain in Days (2020). But in Lee’s three decades as Hsaio-Kang, the char­ac­ter remains as elu­sive to view­ers as when he was first intro­duced. It’s unclear whether a nar­ra­tive links togeth­er these var­i­ous iter­a­tions of Hsiao-Kang. Rather, it is Lee’s famil­iar pres­ence that has tak­en on sig­nif­i­cance, anchor­ing us in time across Tsai’s min­i­mal­ist filmography.

It’s impos­si­ble to con­sid­er Lee’s work as an actor with­out men­tion­ing Tsai – an auteur whose work stands in stark oppo­si­tion to indus­try norms. Tsai’s films con­tain lit­tle dia­logue and action. They are quo­tid­i­an stud­ies of people’s lives, revolv­ing around a small ensem­ble cast. Lee has starred in every­thing the direc­tor has made, from tele­films to shorts to art instal­la­tions, since the two met in an arcade in 1991. Their col­lab­o­ra­tion remains indis­pens­able to Tsai, who’s con­fessed that he wouldn’t want to make films with­out Lee’s par­tic­i­pa­tion. Indeed, the affec­tive inten­si­ty – and famil­iar­i­ty – of Lee’s per­for­mance imbues Tsai’s work with its dura­tional grav­i­tas. ​“Lee’s whole essence goes against all the stan­dards set by soci­ety, espe­cial­ly those of the act­ing pro­fes­sion, and against pre­ex­ist­ing notions of per­for­mance,” Tsai remarked in a 2015 inter­view.

Lee is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly unas­sum­ing and strik­ing, such that it’s dif­fi­cult to dis­cern whether he’s act­ing or sim­ply being. His pres­ence tran­scends any fixed sense of char­ac­ter, even when, as a monk in the Walk­er (2012) series, he’s clear­ly play­ing a role. But unlike a movie star, who seizes our atten­tion by the sheer force of their celebri­ty, Lee’s on-screen pur­pose is more like a medi­a­tor, attun­ing us to the slow, delib­er­ate pace of Tsai’s cin­e­ma. Days (2020) opens with Lee sit­ting silent­ly, star­ing out at the rain. In this tranced repose, the actor’s gaze is soft and unblink­ing, as if he is on the verge of drift­ing off into sleep. But one minute into this five-minute scene, Lee’s eyes sud­den­ly dart side­ways, jolt­ing the viewer’s atten­tion in the direc­tion of his focus. This is the sub­tle pow­er of Lee’s gaze. Though nev­er con­fronta­tion­al, it holds the view­er in sus­pense. There is a unique sym­bio­sis to Lee’s and Tsai’s col­lab­o­ra­tions, but I find that Lee’s extratem­po­ral essence – a qual­i­ty that makes him ​“the world’s most anar­chis­tic per­son,” accord­ing to Tsai – becomes most appar­ent in his lat­er work with direc­tors who com­mand a faster nar­ra­tive pace.

In Yeo Siew Hua’s thriller Stranger Eyes (2024), Lee is intro­duced as a stalk­ing voyeur sur­rep­ti­tious­ly record­ing his neigh­bors’ dai­ly rou­tines. Police atten­tion turns on Lee’s Lao Wu after a baby dis­ap­pears in broad day­light. There is a fright­en­ing men­ace to Wu’s affect that becomes dimin­ished once the film shifts per­spec­tive, as his character’s moti­va­tions are revealed. Lee might have the least amount of lines com­pared to his co-stars, but his per­for­mance bol­sters Stranger Eyes’ pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with the ubiq­ui­ty of dig­i­tal sur­veil­lance. In one scene, Wu sits before a large screen to sur­vey footage, mar­veling at the inti­ma­cies his cam­era is privy to. Here, Lee’s eyes hold us in the act of spec­tat­ing, as we spy along­side him. As Wu, he func­tions as an obser­vant medi­a­tor, unset­tling the viewer’s gaze to the dif­fer­ent ways we see and are seen by oth­ers. It’s why, even in his most defin­ing roles, Lee rarely needs to speak. The heft of his per­for­mances as Hsaio-Kang is found in slight ges­tures and unmet glances. Lee’s ret­i­cence in Stranger Eyes only fur­thers Wu’s enig­ma, height­en­ing the ten­sion by leav­ing his character’s motives up to interpretation.

Lee’s lat­est role in Con­stance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace (2025) chips away at this sub­dued inscrutabil­i­ty, pre­sent­ing him with a refresh­ing range of emo­tions. As Che­ung, a mid­dle-aged con­struc­tion work­er involved in an affair with Didi (Haipeng Xu), a mas­sage par­lor work­er, we meet him as a shy­ly earnest lover on a date at a restau­rant in Queens. Lee’s Che­ung is ten­der in his inter­ac­tions, seem­ing­ly aston­ished in his infat­u­a­tion with the play­ful Didi. After din­ner, the two go to karaōke and Didi invites Che­ung to sleep over at the par­lor, where she lives and works. Their easy­go­ing romance is short-lived, how­ev­er, after Didi is mur­dered in an armed rob­bery on New Year’s. Her death rup­tures the tra­jec­to­ry of the film and the char­ac­ters’ lives; the tragedy cleaves the film into two. It’s in this lat­ter half – where the cam­era and char­ac­ters move slow­ly, weighed down by grief – that the sub­tleties of Lee’s per­for­mance shine. Grief can ren­der a per­son out of time, and Lee, with his unique­ly slow ​“act­ing rhythm,” embod­ies Cheung’s inner conflict.

Che­ung tries to hide his sor­row from friends and cowork­ers but the façade inevitably slips. There’s a vis­i­ble change in his pos­ture and affect. His eyes lose their bright­ness. He appears to move slow­er. Yet we nev­er wit­ness a moment of cathar­sis or break­down. Instead, Lee reveals the character’s suf­fer­ing in small dos­es. After Che­ung hangs up on a video call from his wife in Tai­wan, who fre­quent­ly nags him for more mon­ey, his face crum­ples in anguish. And when he final­ly sleeps with a new woman, he slaps him­self in self-pun­ish­ment. Blue Sun Palace is not with­out moments of gen­uine joy, sparked by Cheung’s new­found con­nec­tion with Amy, Didi’s friend and busi­ness part­ner. The two bond over their shared loss by eat­ing togeth­er and going to karaōke. But it becomes clear that Che­ung is try­ing to recre­ate his romance with Didi, as his expres­sions nev­er quite reach the lev­el of exu­ber­ance that we saw at the film’s start. Nev­er­the­less, it’s sat­is­fy­ing to wit­ness such an effu­sive show­case from an actor known for his restraint.

The poignan­cy of Lee’s per­for­mance aris­es from the ten­sion between mov­ing on and stay­ing put at the site of loss – an unre­solved strug­gle for Che­ung. The film’s final shot is a close-up of Lee/​Cheung, smok­ing and star­ing out at the beach that Didi had want­ed to vis­it with him. Lee con­tin­ues to smoke as the cred­its roll. The five-minute scene is a study of Lee’s con­tem­pla­tive face, as the view­er is left to parse the nuances of his expres­sion. Is Che­ung think­ing of Didi? What exact­ly is he rem­i­nisc­ing about? These ques­tions remain unan­swered as Lee looks on. Tsang offers us Lee’s silent gaze as its own kind of answer, teth­er­ing us to the ambi­gu­i­ty of the moment before the screen fades to black.