Tony Leung Chiu-Wai joins ‘Silent Friend’ cast

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is going to be in Silent Friend.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai, a Hong Kong actor best known for his roles in In the Mood for Love and Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, has joined the cast of Oscar-nominated Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi's Silent Friend (also known as "On Body and Soul").

At the Venice Film Festival, Leung will be recognized and awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

He has starred in three films that were awarded the Venice Golden Lion, A City of Sadness by Hou Hsiao-hsien in 1989, Cyclo by Tran Anh Hung in 1995, and Lust, Caution by Ang Lee in 2007.

Pandora Film, a German production company, is putting out Silent Friend. It is Enyedi's third film; her other works include The Story of My Wife, which was a contender at Cannes, and On Body and Soul, which won the Berlinale Golden Bear and received an Oscar nomination.

Currently, in pre-production, Silent Friend offers three interconnected stories about a tree over the course of more than a century in the botanical park of Marburg, a medieval university town in Germany.

The movie, which Enyedi wrote, exposes the ephemeral nature of what we call reality by demonstrating the dramatic changes in how we perceive people, animals, and other living things.

Leung has joined the cast and will play the lead role of a prominent neuroscientist who is travelling from his birthplace of Hong Kong to the Marburg Faculty in the third section of the movie.

“We have been following Tony Leung’s career for a long time and we are very happy that he committed to this project,” said Reinhart Brundig, producer at Pandora Film.

With whom Enyedi co-produced her two previous films, legendary Hungarian producer Monika Mécs of Inform M & M, along with French producer Nicolas Elghozi of Galatée Films and Meng Xie of Radiance, are co-producing the new movie.

Beginning in April 2024, many seasons of Silent Friend will begin filming.