Entertainment> Celebrities

Lonely boy who changed his life

By Liu Wei (China Daily)
2009-02-20 13:47

For a long time since his film debut in 1998, Chen Kun was known as just a beautiful face. The image was all too convenient: the man with the melancholy eyes, a product of his turbulent childhood.

It is testament to his proficiency that today, the talk is more about his diverse roles: an intellectual in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, a psychopath in The Door and a romantic general in Painted Skin. His versatility speaks volumes.

Three more films await Chen in the coming months. He has just been picked for the lead male role in a biopic of Mulan, the Chinese heroine popularized in the West by Disney's animated film; Hong Kong director Peter Chan has also recruited him in Dark October, (see below); while in Founding a Country (see right) he plays the young Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek.

"I've read many of Chiang's biographies. He had spirit - when his father did something he thought was wrong, he would write letters to him, saying he had his blood but not his beliefs," he says. "I don't look like him but I'll try to embody him."

Chen, 33, has good reason to appreciate Chiang's spirit because faith has played a vital role in his own transformation from troubled adolescent to fulfilled adult.

While still a student at the Beijing Film Academy, Chen converted to Buddhism and says: "It has helped me open a door to a spiritual world outside the earthly one. It has even helped me to understand the souls of historical characters I'm playing."