Whether you like him or not, there's no escaping Anthony Wong Chau-sang in the next two weeks: he has two new films coming out on Thursday, with a top-billing role as a bawdy mobster in Turning Point and a voice performance in animation movie McDull Kung Fu Ding Ding Dong. But the jewel in his crown this summer is probably his critically acclaimed performance in Johnnie To Kei-fung's Vengeance: opening on August 20, the film sees Wong reprising his role as Kwai, the cool-headed hitman the 47-year-old actor played to perfection in The Mission (1999) and Exiled (2006).
This time round, Kwai leads a group of local assassins (the others being Lam Suet's Lok and Gordon Lam Ka-tung's Chu) commissioned by French hitman-turned-chef Costello (Johnny Hallyway) to flush out the mastermind behind the killing of his daughter (Sylvie Testud) and her family - only to discover he has to choose between adhering to his principles and sticking with his oath of allegiance to his shady boss (Simon Yam Tat-wah).
This is the third time you've played Kwai - how did you approach the role this time around?
Without having read the screenplay first, I imagined him to be a jaded figure who wanted out from the underworld. But then I read the script and it wasn't quite right ... in the end I played it like an extension of what went before. He's a professional caught in the murky world of the local triads - and just like most professionals in other fields, he's quite helpless about what he does; there're a lot of things he doesn't want to do, but fate has driven him to take that step.
How did you build up a bond with Hallyday? He mentioned in interviews that you were the only one with whom he could communicate with on set, as you could speak English well.
I didn't really go out of the way to communicate with him; I'm not the kind of person who likes to blabber on, and he isn't either. It's all saying hi and bye every day - '?a va? Bien? Merci', that kind of thing. At times he would ask me whether I know what's happening, saying 'I'm lost'. But I'd say, 'I'm lost too.'
How do you choose what to do these days? You've quite a varied plate of offerings these days; apart from the new films, you were also in Yu Lik-wai's Brazil-set Plastic City.