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Q&A: Tony Yang

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Boyish good looks have opened many doors for Tony Yang You-ning. The Taiwanese actor was a model and appeared in music videos for singers such as Stefanie Sun Yanzi before making his film debut six years ago in gay movie Formula 17. His portrayal of a teenager in search of love won him the best newcomer prize at the 2004 Golden Horse Film Awards, and encouraged him to develop his movie career.

In 2007, he joined a stellar cast including Daniel Wu Yin-cho and Liu Ye in Blood Brothers, a tale of three friends whose relationship is tested when they are caught up in triad turf wars in 1930s Shanghai.

A quiet spell followed but Yang is back with a new movie and a stage drama. The 28-year-old can be seen this month in the Hong Kong run of Grand Expectations, local director Edward Lam Yick-wah's play about urban relationships, and in Taiwanese new-wave director Gavin Lin's movie, In The Case of Love, about a cat-loving college student.

You play a rock guitarist in In The Case of Love. Do you play guitar in real life?

I listen to a lot of music from rock and indie-pop to classical but I had never played any instrument before making this movie. I started to learn the guitar and practised hard for two months so that I could really play the instrument in the film. It's become one of my interests now.

You have to play with a cat in many scenes of this movie. Are you a cat lover?

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