Homepage - Interview - Fimographies
Introduction
This is the second part of the transcript of
the press meeting with the Hong-Kong delegation, organised by Sabrina Baracetti & the
FEF team and hosted by Tim Youngs, at the fourth edition of the Far East Film Festival of
Udine in April 2002.
The meeting was attended by directors Joe Ma, Thomas Chow & Soi Cheang, actress-singer
Miriam Yeung, HK film programmer Tim Youngs, FEF president Sabrina Baracetti, the festival
interpreter, plus all the press media, HK movie fans and local moviegoers.
Here is the first part with director Joe Ma &
actress-singer Miriam Yeung.
Thomas Chow and Soi
Cheang are both young directors. They have indeed presented their first features at the
FEF Festival.
Thomas Chow
has presented Merry-Go-Round his first feature film. It's a typical HK drama where
very young and promising newcomers (Zeny Kwok and Laurence Chou) are mixed with
experienced actors (Eric Tsang, Vincent Kuk and Helena Law).
But Thomas Chow isn't a total novice since he has been assistant director for the last ten
years or so working with the greatest HK directors, the ones from the New Wave, i.e.
Stanley Kwan, Ann Hui or Mabel Cheung.
Soi Cheang has been working with Digital Video
before making his first 35-mm feature with Diamond Hill, a film about incest and
with some horror elements as he describes. Like Chow, he was also used to production sets
since he's been assistant directors for Ringo Lam, Andrew Lau and Wilson Yip. His second
35-mm film Horror Hotline… Big Head Monster, supposedly a real scary movie, is
far away from any HK comedy-plus-horror package films. For this second experience as
director he cast not less than the current biggest names in HK, e.g. Francis Ng, Josie Ho,
Sam Lee, directors Wilson Yip & Alan Mak and scriptwriter Roy Szeto.
Both directors were very appreciative about
the warmth welcome from the FEF organisation, fans and moviegoers.
Homepage - Introduction - Interview - Fimographies - Top
Interview
Some of the questions below are from journalists or fans present in the
audience. We are grateful to them for their participation. We are happy to share, with
their fans, words and thoughts from the HK personalities from this question-answer
session.
Thomas Chow
& Soi Cheang, we saw here in Udine your first 35-mm features. Can you describe your
experience as moving from assistant director to your feature debut as director?
Soi Cheang: Of course, I was
very happy when I started my first director role. And I feel that I have waited a long
long time until I became a director. I was really looking forward to it. What I have
learned as an assistant director really helped me to get prepared to become a director.
Thomas Chow: Actually, it is
two complete different roles. Assistant director is like you work according to the script
and do mostly management things. It is not creative. But to be a director is quite
different. It's creative. I do like to be assistant director and I'd like to have a chance
to get a good script to be a director.
Thomas Chow, would you like
to discuss what you tried to archived in Merry Go Round by translating a radio play into a
live action feature?
Thomas Chow: Actually the movie is about first love, happy love, teenagers. Everybody, you,
your grandmother, grandson, whoever, will face first love. You'll all have the same
feelings like fast heartbeats, sweating palms in every generation. There is no difference
and that's what I wanted to say.
There is a circular motive
throughout the movie and a sense of community between the characters...
Thomas Chow: We have indeed the theme of the circle. The circle is like a merry-go-round. The
guy goes back for his girlfriend and makes a circle in his life. You keep going round in
circles in your life.
In Merry-Go-Round you
used a lot of new actors: Laurence Chou, Zeny Kwok… What was your experience working
with new actors and young ones as well?
Thomas Chow: There are two couples. The
17-year old couple and the kid one. With the older couple we communicated very easily and
they worked really hard. With the kids we had to take much more time and to pay more
attention to develop a relationship with them before going to the set. So prior to the
shooting we had two months together and we went to different places.
We coached the young kids to act. It wasn't really acting training but it was more to let
them open their mind to be eased to go to the set. It was quite different from working
with professionals, but I did enjoy working with them. It was a really good experience.
Soi Cheang, Horror
Hotline… Big Head Monster was quite well received here in Udine. There is a
sequel in work. How did you approach the horror genre that is usually mixed with some
comedy elements in HK features?
Soi Cheang: For the last ten years or so, HK horror movies were a sort of horror plus comedy
package. I think these two genres are opposed by principle. Because if I go to theatres to
be scared I don't want to find it funny. I can't laugh at the same time and being scared.
I can't mix these two emotions together. So because of this reason if I decide to make a
horror film, I want to make a really serious horror movie that makes you really scared
from the beginning to the end.
My creative choices come out more when I am on location. I feel scared myself. I have to
go to the locations I feel the atmosphere and the circumstances that make me feel weird.
It is a way for me to achieve the result. I can't get scared on busy streets because there
is nothing to be scared of.
Homepage - Introduction - Interview - Fimographies - Top
Why did you choose to make a
horror movie for your first feature?
Soi Cheang: I think that as a filmmaker I want to try different movie genre, if there are
opportunities to do so. However, personally, I really like weird stuffs. I like to be
scared, and I like horror films. So maybe I will still be focus for a while on this type
of movies. May be one day, if I want to make a comedy it will turn into a horror
movie…
Comedies are pretty popular
in HK at the moment. Do you feel that you'll undertake huge challenges if your next movie
is a comedy?
Soi Cheang:
As you know, I just made one movie and I don't really know what I am going to do next, and
what kind of movie it will be. If I have the opportunity I'd like to try different type of
genres. The economic situation in HK isn't great, there are a lot of problems, and most of
the investors say that things are already depressing in the newspapers. They ask then not
to make any more depressing movies but happy movies. So the audience have at least two
hours of happiness whenever they enter a theatre. So we really try to cheer people up. If
I have the opportunity, I would not necessarily choose a comedy. But they are the bosses.
They have the money so what can you do? (Laughter)
Horror Hotline… Big
Head Monster borrows some elements from other films. For instance, in the end it's a
bit like The Blair Witch Project, the same kind of filming, in Digital Video.
Soi Cheang: Indeed, the world is getting smaller and smaller. Everybody is influencing
everybody. I have seen The Blair Witch Project and I think that in a way there is a
lot of similarities in the ending part of my movie. Because the way it starts in a forest,
in the wildness, so it has to end in the wildness. It's the same situations and I wanted
to create a very authentic, almost a documentary feeling about it. I wanted my characters
to be into that particular shock. That's why I decided to shot in Digital Video. It was a
good idea to use that camera work to create this effect, and in the end it could look like
The Blair Witch Project. It will result in something not very good if I copy
something not suitable for my film. I thing directors influence each other.
Sam Lee has played a part as
the first victim. It's interesting to see him in such a role because he usually always
plays a comic part...
Soi Cheang: In a way everybody has already accepted Sam Lee as a very successful comedy
actor. In Horror Hotline… Big Head Monster he did a great job. I didn't want
him to be a stereotype. As I said before, I wanted to differentiate from HK
comedy-plus-horror movie genre. So I wanted Sam Lee to be a victim. He did play well this
role and achieved what I wanted him to achieve.
HK Films are different from Hollywood, European and even mainland ones. They offer something
else. Are there some special sets of qualities in these films that are unique to HK
features?
Soi
Cheang: I must admit that the quality of production from HK recently
isn't as good as it was before. There are all kind of circumstances for that and it is
very hard to define what's going on at the moment. I have been here in Udine for the last
few days and I've seen Korean, Japanese and Thai movies. I found that on an average basis
they are very serious and high standard productions. My peers and I here all want to make
great good movies. Somehow, it seems that we are missing something and I think that we'll
eventually find the problem, we'll change and we'll correct the situation. By then, I'll
be able to answer your question and to show you what are our specialities.
Thomas Chow: For the last 20 years, the local box office in the HK market has been declining.
It's not always due to poor quality productions. In fact, we are all very professional and
we are all trying to make good movies. But the audience was somehow drawn to watch
Hollywood movies and they all went to watch Western movies.
I think the core of the problem is whether or not we have a good story. If the story is
written correctly it should then be convey through the screen and it should be understood
by everybody. In the end we don't need to specify that it's made in HK, because the film
language is actually a universal language. It should be a movie appreciated around the
world if it contains a moving story. So I think that it is the goal we should try to
achieve.
-
Answer from Joe Ma & Miriam Yeung -
At the
moment the situation of the HK film industry isn't very promising. But how can you
explain the huge success of
Shaolin
Soccer by Stephen Chow Sing Chi?
Soi Cheang: You cannot only look at the box office revenues to know if a film is
commercially successful or not. My movie was only a small percentage of the production
budget of Shaolin Soccer. Stephen Chow is a superstar himself, he put a lot of
money into that movie and he worked two to three years to make only one movie. So it all
relative when you decide if a film is successful. Everybody has his own criteria to say
whether a film is successful or not. The commercial success is may be not related directly
to the box office figures.
-
Answer from Joe Ma & Miriam Yeung -
What did you expect
to find here in the Udine Festival? And what are your feelings now meeting up with
your fans from HK and from the rest of the world?
Soi Cheang: This is the first time actually I ever attend any film festival. Once I got here
and after a couple of days I was really pleased and I am very happy that the audience
here, ethnically Chinese or Westerners, are very passionate, enthusiastic and supportive
to our movies. I am really moved by their support and I thank them for coming to see our
films. I stayed and watched the movies I directed [Diamond Hill and Horror
Hotline… Big Head Monster] together with the audience. I found that the audience
here has completely got themselves engaged into the movies. They were more into my movies
than the HK audience was. I think that it's very flattering and am very happy. Thank
you… and I love the food here!
Thomas Chow: For me it's my first time in Udine, my first time in a film festival and my
first directorial job for Merry-Go-Round. I am really happy and would have never
imagined that my film made in HK would be shown abroad to a western audience. After
watching the film together with the audience, I find that I completely open my mind. I
have different perspectives on the way I look at my own films now and it's a very precious
experience. As a place, HK is very crowded, very busy, and Udine is completely different,
especially during lunchtime. There is nobody in the streets! You'll never have that in HK.
So I am very happy and appreciative to the FEF organisation, arrangements and their kind
reception.
- Answer
from Joe Ma & Miriam Yeung -
Why food is so important in
the HK movies? There is food everywhere in Chinese movies.
Soi
Cheang: In the Chinese culture, food is very important. For us it's
a real enjoyment and of course our eating style is different. Westerners will order their
own different courses. In China, the whole family gathers and we all order different
dishes but we all eat from the same dishes. We all share. It's is a part of our culture so
it is expressed in our movies.
Joe Ma: In HK, when you miss
somebody you'll ask 'do you eat?' which means hello. Our mothers always ask 'do you eat
more?' They don't care about your heart. They'd never ask if you were happy. That's the
way it is in HK.
Special Thanks to Soi
Cheang & Thomas Chow for their kindness and patience.
We are grateful to Tim Youngs and Sabrina Baracetti for the organisation and to have
allowed Soi Cheang & Thomas Chow to meet with their fans in the best conditions.
Thanks also to the main participants Tim Youngs from Another Hong-Kong
Movie Page, Shelly Kraicer from A
Chinese Cinema Page & Ryan Law from The
Hong-Kong Movie Database and to everyone
who joined in the meeting and who participated.
Special thanks as well to chief programmer Stephen Cremin, and the Far East Festival team for their
hospitality, help and organisation.
Text & press meeting transcript by Thomas, May 2002. Original photos are © by HK Cinemagic.
Homepage - Introduction - Interview - Fimographies - Top
