Now exiled in the
USA, Yu has directed Horror and fantastic movies. In a posh Hotel of the Belgium capital,
Ronny Yu talks about his careers in the Western and Eastern Hollywoods and his peculiar
way to direct movies and to keep learning new things on every shooting days.
Debuts - Horror and fantasy in Hollywood - Hong Kong, his Jiang Hu
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page content can be used without prior permission from the webmaster
An
Introduction by Ronny Yu:
Well, I hope there's no
camera…anyway, if there is, I have no choice…(laughing). That makes me remember
one day, a friend of mine wanted me to be an actor in his film. I said "you gotta be
kidding", he replied "No, no, no! you should play a bad guy!"-"and
I'll do Kung Fu too?"-I asked, "yeah, yeah! You're gonna do kung fu too!".
The scene starts a very simple scene, I'm sitting here like that, and then the hero walks
in and starts the conversation. I had about five lines to say… I took 6
hours…(laughing out loud) The next day, my friend said "you're dead! Bah…
never mind. You won't have to come back" (laughing out loud). When the camera started
rolling, I felt like…"what was the line?". So, I just stay behind the
camera now…Ok, now questions!!!
Top
INTERVIEW
Debuts
HKCinemagic.com:
Let's go back to your Hong Kong career. We've seen you started movies in 1965…
Ronny Yu: yes,
that's right
HKCM:
We'd like to know things about your move to the USA, your transition from Hong Kong to
Hollywood.
RY: Well, the
whole thing is like… my life. I mean, I never plan anything, I can't. When I was 9
years old, I got polio. My physical activity got limited. I never got to experience what
young kids do, soccer, fighting… So I started thinking of my own world, dark, full of
anger. I hated that. I never wanted to go out with my friends cause I always felt bullied.
I had to stay home a lot, with my two sisters (my family's three kids, and I'm the only
boy). When holiday come, my mom took my sisters out for shopping and I, had to stay home.
My father saw this, and he felt bad for me, he said "let's go back too the
movies!". He so loves movies. I went with him, I had no particular demands for this
but I went to see all kinds of movies. So on holiday he took me to the movie theatre
before his work , then at lunch he picked me up and we had lunch together. Then, he went
back to work, took me to another theatre and picked me up after 2 movies, around 5 or 6pm
and we went back home.
So in about 3 months of holidays,
I got to see…man… so many movies! (laughing out loud). In the beginning, I said
to myself "ok, this is entertainment, comedy westerns, bang bang bang…".
Then it become a therapy. When it's dark in the house, in the theatre I could dream. I
forgot the problems, that I couldn't walk that good. I felt like the hero up there, so
powerful. The bottom line is that my father actually inspired me. I never thought of being
a director, I just thought that making movies was great you know… When I grew up,
ready to go to college, I went to a boy school in England, and at that time I realized you
could study and learn about film making. I thought you just walked into the studio, and
learn one step at a time… And then I asked my father if I could go to America and
learn film making, and he said "No. Film is for entertainment. Film is for people who
cannot take the responsibility of working hard". I said "but I like it!",
he said "No, if you wanna go to America, you gotta study what I feel like
business". I wanted to go to America because once there, I knew I would get the
chance to learn a little bit about film making. So I finally went there to study marketing
and communication, something that is close because in communication, you can study
advertising, and advertising leads you to films! (laughing).
| "I always call myself "movie
maker" because I think I'm moving pictures to entertain people." |
 |
I got to learn
theory, appreciate films, classic ones, master ones. After I graduated, my whole family
moved to Australia from Hong Kong (my father retired). I went home and worked in my
father's office for a while. I hung on with all the film people in Hong Kong, I observed
them, how they put scenes together one shot after another. And then I met this guy, a cop.
We become close friends and one summer, 1978 summer, he took me on one of his rounds,
questioning the hookers…gambling bastards… That vas very interesting.
(laughing). We come out with that question "when you were young, what did you like
doing?". Everybody liked to hang out -especially me- with the guys with guns. Legally
when you can carry guns, you feel like you're so big! Everybody respects you...(laughing).
And so on, we wrote a script called "The Servant", a cop vs bad cop thing. We
find a friend who could put the money to shoot the movie and the next thing is… we
needed a director. We went out and asked the top directors to read our script who said
"this is silly." (laughing out loud). We didn't even know how to put the form,
we just wrote "scene 1: blah blah…" so when the directors saw that they
said "come on guys… (mocking tone) this must be a joke, right?". So we went
back to our "money man" who said "why don't YOU direct?". I said
" well, I don't know anything! I can't hold a camera, anything!". He said
"you wrote the script, so, of course you CAN direct it!". He didn't really care
of the financial risk. My friend -who didn't want to be a cop anymore- wanted to be the
hero, so he met the producer and said "yes, yes, of course Ronny can direct it!"
(laughing out loud). I was always thinking and saying "oh man, how am I going to do
this?". "Very simple Ronny, very simple" the producer said "we hired
the best cameraman, the best editor, that's easy, easy". I asked "but what if we
screw it up?", he said "nah, you won't, it's a piece of cake". I knew later
on, that he insisted and motivated us because that movie was his only chance, his only
ticket. Who seriously would have hired a real cop as the leading character? (laughing).
It was a nightmare for me. The
first day of filming, I didn't know even scheduling, I thought "ok, let's just have
the whole cast here". The cameraman wanted to help me out, and put the cast on a line
in front of me and asked "ok Mr director, now when do you want to put the
camera?" (still laughing). But I was so lucky, all these cool actors realised that
"this kid (me) doesn't know anything!" and rather than embarrassing me, helped
me saying stuff like "ok Ronny, why not reversing roles? What about letting us walk
on the scene for you and you just watch and then you decide how to shoot this?". I
was relieved (smiling). So it's like the whole thing for me, is like a learning spirit.
Even though it was tough and difficult, day time I shot the movie, and then night time,
the editors were really helpful telling me "ok this is wrong… this doesn't makes
sense… you have to go back tomorrow and give me two more shots" all his
reactions were to make the thing work. I started to feel something inside me, that I
wanted to tell the story. And so we finished the movie, and somehow it became the number
one movie!
[Ronny Yu's assistant on The Servant was Stanley Kwan]
I was so surprised and at that
time I was called by the office that distributed the movie and I asked them "how is
it possible?" they said: "because you don't know anything! It's also a new
language, it sounds different, so new, and the audience thought -wow!-". It's
exciting because you know at that time, I just thought movies cannot be slow, movies gotta
move, gotta move… so every time I thought I had to economize all those reaction
shots, something like to challenge the audience like saying to the audience "you have
to follow the movie, so don't fall asleep or something now, ok?". And the audience
realized that, that's why they loved the movie. And then somebody out there said to me
"Ronny, you gotta be a film director", and from then on, I started directing,
getting more and more offers up to 1993 when I had the chance to work on The Bride
With White Hair (a.k.a. Jiang Hu) and I gained, because of my sort
of inadequacy in terms of knowledge of film making. Every movie I make, even up to now is
a learning experience, and I'm still so nervous when I start a new movie, like a kid just
going to his new class.
I'm always trying different
things, just look at my work: you have thriller, comedy, horror… I need to get my
hands on different things. About the Hollywood thing, I just never thought of it, I still
feel I'm inadequate, even for doing Hong Kong movies I'm still learning! Hollywood is so
far away and so high levelled. Somehow, with The Bride With White Hair which went
to a lot of festivals, got recognition, I got calls from Hollywood: producers, agents,
lawyers who said "why don't you come over we have some offer…". That's how
it started… and as I still have that student approach, my adjustment to all that
studio system is long and tough. I'm open minded, I try not to fight my battles every
time, I learn how to pick the right time to fight my battles. If there's something I
strongly believe in, I try harder, if it's something that I know will help the movie and
it's not my idea, then why not? I always look at this as entertainment, entertaining
people after a hard day or family problems. For 2 hours, it's an escape. "Let them
have fun or scare the hell out of them for 2 hours!" and they go back to face a harsh
reality of life. I always call myself "movie maker" because I think I'm moving
pictures to entertain people.
Top
Horror
and fantasy in Hollywood
HKCM:
Aren't you afraid you're going to be type cast as a horror movie maker because of the
success of you two last movies (Bride Of Chucky & Freddy Vs Jason)
in that genre?
RY: It doesn't
matter to me because I know I can try and do other things. I didn't know whether or not
they would be successful. I always wonder that, when I pick a project of any genre:
horror, love…, if I -Ronny Yu- as a part of the audience would pay 10 dollars to see
that movie. You're being type cast in Hollywood because they wanna be safe on their
investments, you know.
| "I always wonder if I -Ronny Yu- as a
part of the audience would pay 10 dollars to see that movie." |
 |
HKCM: Do
you feel restricted in Hollywood?
RY: Well, I just feel… lucky that I get the next show.
Trying to get a movie made is so difficult. I'm not that kind of directors that are
waiting five years to tell their stories. I don't feel pressure either. Time is running
out you know, when you're getting old, you gotta keep getting movies out. I often say to
my agent "if the script is good, don't worry on developing this or that, when comes
the time of shooting, I will change some things". I just don't like to sit around and
develop a script for years. I have no problems. For example, New Line gave me 2 projects,
one is called Snakes on a plane, "snake-on-a-plane !!!(mocking)". I
asked the executive producer what was the story, he said "well it's about a flight
from Honolulu to Los Angeles, and when its halfway, at 20 000 feet, 500 poisonous snakes
escape from the safe, and the first person they bite is the pilot". I said "That
is a movie I wanna see! (general laugh)". Snakes give me goose bumps, even talking
about snakes… so they sent me the script and I said "I wanna do this one"
because I know it will entertain people. Its two human phobias: flying and snakes, so how
can you not entertain??? (laughing). People are gonna say "oh, you're doing horror
again", I will say "it doesn't matter".
HKCM: So
it's gonna be your next movie?
RY: Yes, and
after that I have a second one, a Freddy Versus Jason. I said "if you can
get a good script, I'll do it".
HKCM: A
second one?
RY: Yeah, it's
actually Freddy versus Jason versus… someone.
HKCM:
Would the "someone" be Ash from the Evil Dead trilogy?
RY: Yeah, right!
Sam Raimi is going to produce. People will say "Oh, I see, you wanna get more
money…", I'll say "Yes. Of course" (laughing out loud) I have no
problem with that!
If someone offers me a movie about a terminal patient, about to die and there's no hope,
and everybody around cries for him, I'll say "well…hum…I don't wanna see
that, I have cable TV for that". I think that even it's a movie about real things,
you've got to give people hope, even false hope.
HKCM:
Were you familiar with the "Freddy" and "Jason" characters?
RY: No. I told
them (New Line head directors).
HKCM:
Maybe that is what the producer wanted, someone who's not that familiar with the
characters…
RY: Yeah, yeah, that's what they told me, someone with a
fresh touch, like I did for the "Chucky" franchise. After I agreed to do it, and
even so I had to watch all 17 movies (the 7 Freddy and 10 Jason movies) (laughing out
loud). It took me a week for that, but I know the fans have been waiting for years for it,
and I didn't want to be this arrogant director by deciding "this is my movie, so
we're gonna change a few things". My mission was to satisfy the fans, and to keep a
little respect for these movies. Even for this kind of slasher movies, the director and
the director of photography had to keep some serious. That's why I hired the best people,
most of he people behind the scenes had never worked on a horror movie, the cameraman did
love stories, dramas, the director of photography worked on Mississippi burning...
If those people respect the movie, I guessed the audience would see it, and appreciate it.
We decided to go back to the first Nightmare on Elm Street, really scary…
We also brought some humour to it, some kind of relief for the audience. Freddy and Jason
are two monsters, such as Frankenstein or King Kong in their time, so there had to be
rooms for some action. These two had to be chopping each other… (laughing)
HKCM:
Confronting two highly known monsters is a kind of new fashion in Hollywood… don't
you think you started this movement?
RY: (laughing) I
don't know! I think it's easier because you already have an audience. And this audience is
curious. Another thing I wanted to do is to put this amount of blood so that audiences
will never feel this is real. This one is almost a cartoon! I didn't want to disturb.
The first that scared the hell out of me was the Julie Christie movie called Don't
look now (1973) shot in Venice. It haunted me. And the second one was The
Exorcist, because I was put in a catholic school (the best schools in Hong Kong are
catholic).
This is why my actual name is "Ronny", I had to get an English name to go to the
catholic school…I believed that God would save us all, and after seeing The
Exorcist, I was like "Wait a minute, God is not gonna help
me…"(laughing out loud).
HKCM:
It's funny you got involved in such movies because the ones you mention are far more
suggestive… is that a kind of revenge?
RY: Exactly!
(laughing out loud). I was so disturbed by those films that I didn't want to carry the
responsibility of people coming out of my films and say "wow… that was
disturbing!"
HKCM: How
come you made ghost movies such as Phantom Lover? Does that reflect a part of
your dark childhood?
RY: I made 4
movies that are more love, action or horror. When I was a kid I watched a lot of samurai
movies, and when you see a samurai chopping, the blood is so tremendous, almost like a
fountain. But you journalist sorta pointed that out for me. I remember that woman
journalist in England that told me that by watching my movies, we could notice a similar
threat going through, in terms that the characters are inadequate towards life itself,
somewhat handicapped. The Bride With White Hair is not from the normal society,
characters in 51st State also and of course in Chucky. Those characters
are way far from normal.
HKCM: I
heard you have a recurrent nightmare where you see yourself as a warlord…
RY: Oh
yeah… After I shot a movie in 1984 called The Occupant with Chow Yun Fat,
about a possessed singer. The company he works for studies Taoism, so I had to learn about
that. I went to a Tao temple, where people can talk to the spirits. There was this huge
tray of sand, and a monk with 2 long bamboo sticks, and a room where you could pray or ask
anything. When I went out from the room there was this monk, that had had a kind of
sensation I triggered and wrote a poem in the sand. I asked him about the signification of
it, he said "there's mention of a white horse, in your previous life". Since
that, when I'm stressed, I always have this dream where I'm riding a white horse, as an
armoured mounted general from China, who loves to conquer places and people, and I lead
troops, and I love killing. And suddenly I kind of surrender, and my horse is knocked
down. I felt of the horse and my leg is broken, and we're surrounded by enemies armed with
spears pointed at us. My second in command then says "we're dead.", and then I
wake up. I asked some monk about this dream, who said "this is payback, because in
your previous life, you were so bloodthirsty that in this life you had to suffer, that's
why you had this polio…".
HKCM: But
you conquered Hollywood with a lot of blood…
RY: (laughing)
See? This is another explanation! Its funny because the last time, the guy I talk to in my
dream is my cameraman who shot 51st State…so weird in a way!
HKCM:
What if there were less successful, would you still be doing films?
RY: yes, but
still there are lot of people left to entertain. There are a lot of elements that
contribute to the box-office success, like the advertising. You know 51st State
is for me one of my favourites because I didn't have to deal with dolls but real actors
such Samuel L Jackson, Robert Carlyle, it's such precious. Working in Hong Kong with
Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun Fat is a tremendous opportunity.
HKCM: Do
you regret your move to Hollywood?
RY: No, because
I'm still working on Hong Kong movies, working on a script inspired by Se7en. I
realised that I've never seen a Chinese movie dealing with serial killers, and there's so
many restrictions, traditions that could be a obstacle to the investigation that it could
be interesting…
Top
Hong Kong, his Jiang Hu*
HKCM: How did you feel when you heard
about the death of Leslie Cheung?
RY: I was in Los
Angeles when I heard the news. I thought they were joking, it was April 1st, I wondered
how they could make a joke on this… Then my cameraman called me to tell me, and I was
sad, of course, but also angered. All the time I was with Leslie, he was the one who was
always optimistic, even when we shot The Bride With White Hair which was the most
difficult to me. He was calming, always supportive. It's deceiving how people can react. I
was angered because he was so young, there were so much he could do… he was so
generous. Before his death we talked about making another Hong Kong movie together.
| "Phantom Lover is amazing, this
is a very personal movie and with Leslie, this was something we both wanted to do, that's
why he also produced and wrote all the songs." |
 |
HKCM: He
did a great part in Jiang Hu and Phantom Lover...
RY: Phantom
Lover is amazing, this is a very personal movie and with Leslie, this was something
we both wanted to do, that's why he also produced and wrote all the songs.
When I looked at the character in Jiang Hu I thought it had to be Leslie Cheung,
a rebellious almost like James Dean character. Everybody disagreed because Leslie was not
a martial artist. I said "I doesn't matter, as long as he's a good actor, I can use
stunt doubles to make him look realistic.
HKCM: Was
his character in Jiang-Hu different from the one depicted in the book?
RY: Completely
different. I love that story but I thought to make it more modern, that's why I went to
meet the author, an 80 years old guy. He said "ok… go…whatever (imitating
an old voice)". I was so excited, I thanked him very much and when he shut the door
he said to me "Mr Yu?…(speaking with a calm normal voice) Don't embarrass
me." (laughing)
We changed a lot of things, the Siamese twins…
HKCM: The idea of twins comes from the book?
RY: No, no, it
came by accident. We were with the scripts and the writers, trying to avoid to get normal
bad guys, so boring. I wanted something new, more surreal. The discovery channel was on
TV, end there was this report about those Siamese babies and I said "what if the bad
guys are Siamese twins?". Everybody looked at me like if I was crazy! "how are
you gonna shoot this?" they asked, we couldn't afford CGI. "the problem will be
solved" I said. The concept was interesting: Siamese twins, one male, one female,
what about their sexual desire? What if one wants sex? (laughing). Nobody thought of that
in Hong Kong movies!
HKCM: One of the twin actors was Francis Ng…
RY: Yeah, he's
great. And crazy. (laughing). We had to find a way to shoot them, I didn't want them to
look awkward, they walk together etc… this could diminish their power and they had to
have those witchy powers. I said "don't shoot them walking. They slide just like they
were put on a dolly, just like ghosts…
HKCM: In Jiang
Hu, nobody's really good nor bad…
RY: For me I can
identify with the twins, because they're inadequate. I feel sorry for them, and I wanted
the audience to feel sorry for them, it's not by choice. They were born like that, with
their anger and frustration.
HKCM: The
leading role was Brigitte Lin. How did you convince her to work with you?
RY: Before Jiang
Hu we knew each other for many years. We always tried to find a project to work on
together. When I got the script I said to her "Brigitte, this is totally you, you
gotta do this!". Brigitte started acting early in Taiwan, and when you start this
early in the industry, you gotta be tough. She's that kind of woman, as a friend I can see
it. Before she accepted the role, she hesitated because she had done so many parts like
this. But I promised her this one would be different…
HKCM:
It's like you could make your own choices in Hong Kong, was it the same in America?
RY: You can't
have it, but you have to fight in a very special way to get it. You can control all
aspects of your film in Hong Kong, the shooting, the advertising… I love the system
called test-screening in America, there are advantages when you make movies for this
audience, you got nothing to lose…
HKCM: Is
that something you miss?
RY: Like
everything else, the Yin-Yang: you loose something, you gain something. It's a huge
machine in America, that's been working for many years. It's amazing watching them release
a movie, the promotional campaign, how they spend the money… I had no problem for
that, all the things were for the good of the movie. People accused me to be a merchant, I
told them that if you wanna survive, if you wanna continue to make movies, this is
something you have to understand and accept. Why fighting and having to wait 10 years to
make my movie? In 10 years, I can make 10 movies…
HKCM:
Your next projects besides Snakes On A Plane?
RY: I'm adapting
the live version of Blood, The Last Vampire.
HKCM: A
final word?
RY: Don't lost
your dream, that's all we have!!
[*Note: Jiang Hu is a
Cantonese word to describe the world of Chinese warriors where rules are different from
the realistic world. Jiang Hu can also be used to described the world of
gangsters or Triads. Here Jiang Hu is the other title of The Bride With White
Hair, Between Love and Glory.]
Special
thanks to Ronny Yu for his time and kindness.
Interview conducted by David Vivier
(Vlad) and Julien Leconte with the help of Thomas Podvin.
Ronny Yu was interviewed at the Tulip Inn Hotel, Brussells, Belgium, on March 28th,
2004.
Our Warmest thanks to the 2004 BIFFF. Thanks extended to Marie-France Dupagne.
Original pictures of Ronny Yu by Julien Leconte & David Vivier for
HKCinemagic.com, all rights reserved.
Movie pictures are (c) by their copyright holders. All rights reserved.
No part of this page content can be
used without prior permission from the webmaster
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