Tony Leung's new respect for plants

The Hong Kong actor was in town for the 36th Singapore International Film Festival and the local premiere of his film Silent Friend

- Carmen Sin

Actor Tony Leung Chiu Wai has a new respect for plants.

Since playing a neuroscientist who becomes fixated on researching the secret thoughts of an old ginkgo tree in his latest film, Silent Friend (2025), the Hong Kong star has become convinced of leafy intelligence.

For one thing, his morning jogs through the hills are no longer solitary. He says: "It's very strange, when I run now, it feels like the trees are not just living beings but sentient beings. It's like they're watching me and I have a lot of company.

"I don't know if every tree has a soul or mind, but some definitely do."

The osmanthus and jasmine flowers he keeps at home have also assumed a tragic aspect, he adds, citing Silent Friend costar Lea Seydoux's botanist character, Alice Sauvage, on the loneliness of garden plants, separated from their peers in the wild.

Leung, 63, is speaking to a group of local media from a Marina Bay Sands hotel suite on Nov 29, hours before the local premiere of Silent Friend at the 36th Singapore International Film Festival.

The gander through three characters' deepening relationship with plants over more than a century on a German university campus is his first European production, and his most experimental.

Camera angles flip from frame to frame, the protagonist is a tree, and among the many psychedelic sketches of "brain waves" is one that seemingly captures said tree's sexual climax.

The film levelled Leung's hierarchy of life forms.

Switching between English and Mandarin throughout, he says: "If you have this awareness of plants, then insects and other animals will also be included. You will realise that you're not at the top of the tree, with everyone else below you being stupid or without much thought. You'll think that we are all equal."

While building a new house by the lake recently, he was also careful to avoid any needless killing of trees.