Winston Chao came to acting from the cabin crew of an airline with no training at all, and his gift is the one that job rewards: looking composed while something is wrong. Ang Lee saw it twice. Later casting mostly asked for the composure and forgot the strain.
Fi1m perspective
Watch Gao Wai-Tung being congratulated. In The Wedding Banquet (1993) Winston Chao plays a gay Taiwanese man who agrees to a marriage arranged to keep his parents happy, and for most of the film he is required to look pleased about it. The performance is a matter of holding a face while things go wrong behind it. What Chao does, and what Gua Ah-leh and Lung Sihung do around him as the parents, is show how much work the pleased face costs. His discomfort is always readable. He never reaches past it for a bigger gesture, and the film does not need him to.
He had never acted before. He had studied mechanical engineering, spent eight years as a China Airlines flight attendant, and was preparing to study Western literature when he answered Ang Lee's casting call. Lee coached him through the lead, then brought him back the following year as Li Kai in Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), a smaller part in a busier film; his scenes with Wu are the most adult thing in it. Stanley Kwan cast him as Tong Zhen-bao in Red Rose White Rose (1994). After that the career moved to Hong Kong and the mainland, and into history: he has played Sun Yat-sen five times on film and television, from The Soong Sisters (1997) to 1911 (2011).
Some who saw the debut in 1993 found it adequate and no more, a man doing what the script required. We think that is exactly what the script required. Wai-Tung is a character whose whole predicament is that he cannot afford a visible feeling, and an actor who supplied one would have broken the film. We spent most of The Wedding Banquet wanting someone to let him stop smiling, and we never once believed the smile, which is the point. It is the most useful thing a former flight attendant could have brought to the part.
The later casting mostly wanted the composure and not the strain under it. Sun Yat-sen, the founding father, is a role for poise and gravitas, and the authoritative supporting parts in Chinese productions since ask much the same. He has turned up in English as well, in Skiptrace (2016) and as Dr Minway Zhang in The Meg (2018), and as the villain Tony Lee opposite Rajinikanth in the Tamil film Kabali (2016), and he has made his stage debut in Crocodile. We have not seen enough of that work to judge it. A man who began by hiding his life from his parents has spent much of his career being the father of a nation. The two Ang Lee films remain the ones to see, and the first of them is where you can watch what he is for.
Biography
Winston Chao Wen-hsuan (born 9 June 1960) is a Taiwanese actor. He came to international attention for his performance in the 1993 film The Wedding Banquet, in which he played Gao Wai-Tung. Before acting, he worked for seven years as an airline steward and had no formal training; director Ang Lee cast him in the lead role and provided coaching.
Chao is also known for his roles in Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and Red Rose White Rose (1994). He has portrayed Sun Yat-sen five times on screen, notably in The Soong Sisters (1997), Road to Dawn (2007) and 1911 (2011). His later film credits include Kabali (2016), Skiptrace (2016) and The Meg (2018). He has received a Lily Award for Best Actor (2006) and a SIFF Award for Most Popular Actor (2007).
