Why I love Mag­gie Cheung’s per­for­mance in Irma Vep

A num­ber of pleas­ant excep­tions emerge through­out Olivi­er Assayas’ 1996 film, Irma Vep. First and fore­most, Chi­nese actor Mag­gie Che­ung stands out as the cen­tral char­ac­ter – play­ing her­self – in the French pro­duc­tion of a film with­in a film. To wit­ness an Asian star car­ry­ing the weight of the title char­ac­ter spoke vol­umes back then con­sid­er­ing the real­i­ty of today: Asian actors rep­re­sent one per cent of Hollywood’s lead­ing roles.

And, arguably, Irma Vep plays out like a dual valen­tine to French cin­e­ma and to Che­ung her­self – not only from Assayas, who was roman­ti­cal­ly involved with his lead dur­ing pro­duc­tion, but also from the film itself, in which the fic­tion­al direc­tor and cos­tume design­er are both enam­oured with Che­ung. It’s easy to see why: Irma Vep wouldn’t be what it is with­out Che­ung, who slips per­fect­ly into the character’s black body­suit (more on that icon­ic look later).

The sto­ry unfolds in Paris, where Che­ung arrives lat­er than expect­ed and jet-lagged from Hong Kong. She finds her­self in a film exec’s office where ten­sions are run­ning high: the cam­era fol­lows a pro­duc­tion team fran­ti­cal­ly try­ing to source fund­ing for Irma Vep. After see­ing her action films in Moroc­co, the direc­tor of the film, René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Leaud), casts Che­ung as Irma Vep – an ana­gram of vam­pire – in a remake of the clas­sic 1915 Louis Feiul­lade series, Les Vampires.

“You can be Irma Vep because you have the grace,” he admits to her enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly dur­ing their first meet­ing, echo­ing a state­ment Assayas once made about Che­ung: “[She is] an up-to-date ver­sion of an old-fash­ioned movie star.”

Indeed, Che­ung strad­dles present and past seam­less­ly, mix­ing silent era poise with mid-’90s cool. Dur­ing this time, French cin­e­ma strug­gled to redis­cov­er its iden­ti­ty amidst the force majeure of Amer­i­can movies. As cos­tume design­er Zoe (Natal­ie Richard) tells Che­ung, ​“I don’t like Amer­i­can films. Too much dec­o­ra­tion. Too much mon­ey. But why? For what?” As the self-styled auteur Vidal, Leaud per­son­i­fies the French New Wave. Mean­while, Che­ung is an out­sider who bare­ly speaks French, adding uncon­ven­tion­al charm to this play­ful plot. As the three-day shoot grad­u­al­ly descends into chaos, she remains a pic­ture of calm­ness as she rolls with the punch­es of the dis­grun­tled crew.

This is fur­ther evi­denced in the sex shop scene where Zoe fits Che­ung for her skin-tight latex suit (inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer’s Cat­woman cos­tume in Bat­man Returns). As she’s zipped in, the trans­for­ma­tion from Che­ung to Irma Vep is near­ly com­plete. And this despite the dis­or­der all around her: Zoe’s chain-smok­ing; con­ver­sa­tions which aren’t trans­lat­ed for her; and con­stant fuss­ing over the out­fit. All the while, Zoe’s affec­tion for Che­ung grows.

Back in her hotel, Che­ung cuts a bored and lone­ly fig­ure. Son­ic Youth’s ​‘Tunic (Song for Karen)’ fore­shad­ows a rebel­lious and sub­ver­sive act: ​“Good­bye Hol­ly­wood,” Kim Gor­don sings, as Che­ung finds her­self in Irma Vep’s clothes, prowl­ing the halls and stalk­ing the hotel staff and guests. Che­ung sneaks into anoth­er woman’s room and steals some jew­ellery that’s dan­gling from the bath­room sink. After slink­ing away, she takes the loot to the roof and toss­es it to the ground, lit­er­al­ly tak­ing meta-method act­ing to new heights. Where does Che­ung end and Irma Vep begin?

Short­ly after, Vidal has a ner­vous break­down and is replaced by a decid­ed­ly more patri­ot­ic direc­tor, José Mira­no (Lou Cas­tel). He removes Che­ung from the star­ring role and casts a French actor named Lau­re (Nathalie Boute­feu) as Irma Vep. How could any­one else be Irma Vep oth­er than Mag­gie Che­ung? (This ques­tion equal­ly applies to the upcom­ing eight-part TV remake star­ring Ali­cia Vikander.)

It doesn’t mat­ter at this point. Che­ung leaves Paris to meet with Rid­ley Scott in New York. In real life, the actor would lat­er gar­ner inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cal acclaim in future roles such as In the Mood for Love and Clean. Life has a fun­ny way of imi­tat­ing art.