AN INDULGENT OBSESSION

In one of Mellie’s challenge lists I admitted I can shop for hours. I could have elaborated. I can shop for hours and not buy anything. My favourite place to shop in the world has got to be the Mahboonkron Centre in Bangkok, commonly and affectionately known as MBK. It may not be the best place to purchase much, but it’s a paradise for the inveterate shopper.
About this time last year I was at the chinese DVD store in MBK, on my last day in Thailand, trying to get rid of a few extra bath. I’d found the DVD I wanted (“Hero”) quite quickly for a change, and was working my way through the discount bins, just in case there was anything inexpensive and irresistible, when I found I couldn’t stop watching the movie they were playing. I’ve had a long-standing rule about shopping – if you pick the same thing up three times, you should buy it. I think I should add a variation, if you watch more than ten minutes of the movie playing in the store, you should buy it. Apart from the fact that I do really like the film, it gave me my current indulgent obsession.
One of the things I’ve found out about myself as I get older is that I can safely allow myself to enjoy a good, healthy obsession. I’m not talking about being obsessed with food, or a particular author. I’m talking about being obsessed with a particular person, you know, the guy who’s currently top of the Shag List, shameful or otherwise. And enjoy really is the right word for it. It has none of the wonderful anguish of a teenage crush, or the desperation of an impossible love affair. It can be somebody unreachable, like a movie star, or somebody as close as the guy who sits two desks away from you at work. There is a kind of purity about it, no expectation that it is going to lead anywhere, no expectation that this is the Great Love of Your Life, and it really serves no purpose other than to be simply enjoyed.
That film I bought was “House of Flying Daggers” and the actor who is the object of my obsession is Takeshi Kaneshiro’ He’s been mentioned in here before. I didn’t see him in any of the bits of the film I saw in Bangkok. It wasn’t until I got home and watched the whole film that I made the almost calculated decision that this man was one I wanted to see as much of as I can.
It’s not been easy to find out much more than basic biographical info about him. He’s half Taiwanese, half Japanese, has worked as a model and released one (apparently not great ) pop album, speaks four languages fluently (including English – a bonus there !) and appeared in a couple of dozen Chinese and Japanese movies. That he appears not to be romantically involved with anyone is another bonus in the obsession stakes.
He started out making a name for himself playing quirky characters, the man obsessed with the expiry dates on tins of pineapple in “Chunking Express”, the same character looking for love in “Fallen Angels”, an actual angel with an obsession for sneakers who falls to earth with a broken wing in “Lavender” or the man running a business to find things people have lost in Lost and Found.. He moved on to a few films as the romantic lead, still a bit off-beat, like “Anna Magdalena” as part of a classic love-triangle, and half the pair of lovers who keep just missing each other in “Turn Left, Turn Right.” There’s a definite boyish appeal in all those films, a feeling that he’s a little bit lost in a world he doesn’t really understand, a vulnerability certainly, but a sense that he’s a survivor as well. There’s an openness in his performances too, he seems to have no fear of exposing himself to the camera.
He made one sci-fi action film, not very well received, then suddenly seemed to turn a corner, starring in his first martial-arts film. In “House of Flying Daggers” he starts out still with the boyish charm, but in a grown man, a womaniser, at ease and in control of the hedonistic life-style he’s chosen, only to realise the emptiness of that as he falls in love with the woman even he realises means the end of the life he has known, and ultimately the end of his life as he fights with his best friend over the woman they both love. It’s a fine performance.

None of that of course really explains why I decided to become make him the object of my obsession. Maybe you just need to see some of his films.

He’s just finished another film. They’re saying it’s the Hong Kong film industry’s answer to “Moulin Rouge.” Now that should be interesting.