HKCM: How did you start in
the film business?
Lawrence Ah Mon: I went to University in Southern
California where I studied film production. After I graduated I went back to HK and I
began by being an assistant director for Tsui Hark. I made one film with him: The
Butterfly Murders. That was shot in Taiwan. After that, I went back to HK and I joined
a HK TV station, RTHK. There, I started to do TV programmes and drama programmes for 4 or
5 years. Then I made my first feature film Gangs in 1988.
Could you tell us about your
first experience with Tsui Hark on the set of The Butterfly Murders?
It
was a very interesting film. If you've seen the film, it's a detective story that took
place in ancient China and it's a very intricate story. One of the ways people would
murder in the film is by using butterflies, which were poisonous. We had an interesting
time trying to get butterflies for the film. One of my jobs was to take care of these
butterflies, to make sure they didn't die! And when we were filming I had to let them out
at the right time making sure they were in the frame and all that.
I did a little second unit work also, just shooting butterflies! So it was an interesting
experience because it was my first time on a feature film and in an action film. And I
learnt a lot from him [Tsui Hark]. He is a very hot man to work with, because he is very
demanding. He never sleeps.
What do you think of Tsui
Hark's work within the HK film industry?
I think that he is a major force in HK films. He always starts new trends and he's always
one step ahead of anyone.
Back to your first feature as
a director, Gangs : you chose an original subject to deal with, the problems of
youngsters in gangs.
At the TV station in HK we would do a lot of docu-dramas and social dramas. So when they
asked me to do my first feature film, they wanted me to do something I was familiar with,
and also because at that time the triad problem among young people was a very serious
problem. I thought it was a good time to keep that in the film.
Is it still a very big issue
nowadays in HK?
It's always there, but at least it's not so much
talked about. Overall, it's hard to say that it's not a problem, but before they were
really taking people into gangs. Now, it's very informal. One of the reasons we decided to
make Spacked Out, a movie about the HK youth and not about young men in triads, is
that nowadays the problem is more internal for young people. Before, if they had any sort
of frustrations and anger they gang together in a bunch to vent their frustration outside
themselves. Nowadays, if young people have any kind of frustrations they sort of
internalise it. So there is a lot of suicide tendency, self-hatred, self-mutilation. It
has changed a little then.
How do you see the Young
& Dangerous series that portray heroes amongst triads?
Those films are based on comics. I think they tend to romanticise the problem of triads
and youth. It's not that they are not totally fabricated but I think that it's done in a
romanticised way.
After Gangs, you made Lee Rock and Arrest The
Restless, which are very different. They both take place in the sixties. Why did you
choose this period?
Actually the films sort of chose me! They were made because To Be Number One [by
Poon Man Kit, 1991] was a major box office hit and people put up money for Lee Rock,
and because they also knew this person. It [Lee Rock] is a real person. He happened to be
quite famous too. They decided to do a sort of biography on him. They just wanted me to be
the director. That's how it happened!
The movie is however very
different from To Be Number One. You seemed to be more focused on the social aspect
of your story rather than on big and trendy effects.
I think it's my own concerned. I am better in that kind of dramas than in big action set
pieces. What interested me the most about Lee Rock as a person was his dilemma. When you
live in this kind of era with a lot of bribery going on, it's like the norm. So you have
to make a choice, how to deal with it to survive. You have to go either with the system or
against it. I think he ended up by going along with it and his moral dilemma was my main
concern in trying to do the film.
Is it easier to work with
Andy Lau (Lee Rock) or Leslie Cheung (Arrest The Restless) than with
non-professional actors like in Spacked Out?
When you work with actors, you have
a certain style. They are stars and there are certain things they are good at doing. So,
you sort of design the film along certain lines which you think is best for the actors and
best for the film. There are some compromises going on when you work with film stars. With
non-professionals, they are like clay in your hands! When we choose them, we feel they
have a lot to bring to the film. Sometimes the film is adjusted to their personalities and
characters. Overall for me, it's lot easier to work with non-professional actors.
You are yourself an actor,
aren't you?
Not Really!
You worked for instance in Task
Force (by Patrick Leung, 1997)...
When your friends are in the film business and they think there is a role that is right
for you, they say, "O please do it!" I can't say no. But I think that it's good
for a director sometimes to get in front of the camera and to get that kind of experience,
to know what's like to be an actor. I think it's very hard to act.
It seems that it's the way it
is in HK because every director has played one day or another in a movie.
I think because good actors are hard to find in HK!
So directors have to be
actors?
Yes!
It took you 5 years to write Spacked
Out. Why did it take you so long?
As you know, the film business, because of the economic situation, went trough hard times.
So it was hard to get films off the ground during these years. It wasn't because we
weren't trying, because we worked on loads of scripts. Somehow nothing worked out. It just
happened that at the right moment they wanted me to do another low budget film about young
people.
You've worked
with Johnnie To. He was producer
on Spacked Out for instance. How do you see his work in the HK movie industry?
As a producer, he is great, he really gives you the green light and then he lets you do
whatever you want basically. Off course, he'll have some kind of inputs but he doesn't
really force you to do anything you don't want to do. He gives you a lot of freedom. We
have a lot of respect for him as a director. Right now, he's really way up there. He's
found his pace and he's really doing a great work.
You make realistic and social
movies unlike most of the HK films which are violent, romantic or comical. It's really
unusual to choose this path whilst the economic crisis dictates local directors to do
entertainment & commercial features.
How do you feel about that?
There are a few
directors in HK who work in the similar stream, realistic drama kind of style. Allen Fong
[one of the new wave directors] before me and Fruit Chan nowadays. I don't see myself as
being unique in the HK film industry. But there should be room for both: films which are
pure entertainment and other serious films trying to reflect life as we know in HK. So
it's possible!
What about your next
projects?
I have a few. I am going to do another film for Johnnie To. This time we're dealing with
man menopause, men in their forties! Another film in post-production, a sequel to Spacked
Out, will come out in a couple of months [Gimme Gimme released in 2001].
Lawrence Ah Mon (or Lawrence Ah Moon, Lau Kwok Cheong), sometimes called Lawrence Lau, was born
in South Africa and studied film production in California, USA. He first started as an
assistant director for 
Debbie Tam
is the young actress from Spacked Out. She portrays Cookie, a 13-year old school
girl in modern HK. She is not a professional actor and she was spotted by Lawrence Ah Mon
for her very first feature film. She shyly agreed (she's a kid in a film promotion and
production world, after all) to answer our question and was pleased to visit France and to
take part to the 2001 Deauville Asian Film Festival.
Can we ask a few questions to
Debbie?