Takeshi Kaneshiro Information

The director, Zhang Yimou was the main attraction for me and as for all that martial arts stuff I hardly know anything it is all mainly down to the choreographer.

How much training did you have to do?

I practised basic swordplay for about one month and then the action director worked out the scenes mainly whilst we were on set. I always looked after my face.

What appealed to you....

One could possibly pinpoint the beginning of Hong Kong’s movie infatuation with longhaired pretty boys on Takeshi. Beginning in the mid-90s he brought his soulful eyes and sensitive good looks to Hong Kong and was soon elevated to an Idol status among teenage girls and having his face plastered across innumerable glossy magazines. Admittedly Ekin Cheng was on the scene before Takeshi, but he didn’t really achieve idol status till his Young and Dangerous films. The difference for me though between Takashi and the idol boys that have followed is that Takeshi....

The star of Zhang Yimou's breathtaking House of Flying Daggers confesses to never having set out to become a celebrity while at school - only really deciding to 'give it a try' when someone suggested it to him.

"I just started because someone asked me to," he told me, during a recent interview at London's Dorchester Hotel.

"They said, 'you want to be a singer', and then I thought 'yeah, I'll try'. I don't....

I started doing movie work coincidentally but then I found that, I think it's all about creation. Whether you're writing a song or acting in a film it's all about the process of creating something. And I think that process is very interesting. It's not just acting. I'm just as interested in directing or camera work or any other of the new technologies of how they make movies, of how they make dreams. It's very interesting.

How much training was involved for House of Flying Daggers?