Award-winning Hong Kong actor Tony Leung found out that his role in The Grandmaster was fashioned to complement international star Zhang Ziyi as a supporting actor during the preview screening of the martial arts flick. The 50-year-old is believed to be very unhappy and as a result he has stopped talking to director Wong Kar-Wai.
Tony was shocked to find out that many of his scenes in The Grandmaster, which took 17 years to complete, was cut by the director as he had thought of himself as a member of the main cast for the past decade. The actor previously 'complained' about his filming woes at the movie's press conference, explaining that he practised Chinese martial art Wing Chun for three years and broke his arms twice for the film.
Explaining for his decision to reduce Tony's scenes, director Wong said that Ip Man (character played by Tony) was a man of few words and he felt it was necessary for him to remove as much dialogue scenes as possible.
As Tony and Ziyi filmed separately, the former was not aware that the actress played a character with so much screen time and mentioned that she will definitely win an award for her role. Tony also said that he worked hard only to play second fiddle to Ziyi.
Although Tony has been fulfilling his professional duties by attending the promotional activities in Taiwan and Guangzhou, he is no longer attending dinner gatherings with the director, showing signs of a torn relationship between the two.
On the other hand, director Wong has been trying to mend his soured relationship with Tony by praising his acting as "the peak of performing". However, Tony's wife Carina Lau did not buy the compliments and even re-posted his 'weak explanation' on her microblog, inviting much empathy from the netizens.
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