HKIFF Heats Up

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Director Q&A Peter Chan The veteran director discusses his successes and (rare) failures, his rebellious streak and the troubled future of the Hong Kong film industry By Karen Chu Peter Chan is used to being called one of the Hong Kong film industry's most forward thinkers. Through his first production outfit, the United Filmmakers Organization UFO, Chan captured the opportunities and cultural undercurrents during the pre-handover boom times in the 1990s in films such as smash hit He's A Woman, She's A Man (1994), and the muchbeloved Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996), which swept the Hong Kong Film Awards with nine wins, including a best director statuette for Chan. During the lean times at the start of the aughts, Chan was one of the first Hong Kong filmmakers to explore the mammoth potential of the Chinese market, shooting for the first time in the Mainland with the musical Perhaps Love (2005). Named this year’s Filmmaker in Focus by the 36th Hong Kong International Film Festival, which is showcasing twelve of the director-producer’s signature works, Chan talked to The Hollywood Reporter about voting through the box office, creating the Chinese-language HBO and why his generation of filmmakers is so lucky. How do you feel about being named Filmmaker in Focus by the Hong Kong International Film Festival? It was just a matter waiting my turn in the queue. (Laughs) Surveying your two-decade career, which film do you think is most representative of your work? I can’t really say. It takes a 9 vital stats Nationality: Hong Kong Born: November 28, 1962 Selected Filmography: He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (1994); Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996); The Love Letter (1999); The Warlords (2007); Wu Xia (2011) Awards and Nominations: Best Film, 2010 Hong Kong Film Awards: Bodyguards and Assassins (2009); Best Film & Best Director, 2008 Hong Kong Film Awards: The Warlords (2007); Best Film & Best Director, 45th Golden Horse Film Awards: The Warlords (2007) long time for the value of a film to reveal itself — to prove whether or not it’s enduring. From popular consensus online, perhaps Comrades, Almost a Love Story left the biggest mark on collective memory. But for some films, the moment I finished, or even while I was making them, I knew they were failures — films like, The Age of Miracles, He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father. But it doesn’t mean I don’t like them. Whether or not it’s going to be a success, I put a lot of myself into the films I direct. You’ve mentioned before your aversion to authority, but you’re also a responsible producer. Can you have it both ways? I’d call myself a responsible rebel. As much as I work within a commercial framework, there’s always something in my films that goes against the mainstream. So I have to use a Hollywood package — with promotion, big stars, big budgets and production values — to wrap up my rebellious core, to balance the commercial appeal of my films. You also recently established the Now Popcorn Movie Channel with Bill Kong’s Edko Films, China’s Huayi Brothers and Hong Kong’s Now-TV. Are you trying to create the Chinese-language HBO? It’s Bill Kong’s dream to create the Chinese-language HBO. But we don’t have plans to create our own productions for the channel yet. But as a filmmaker and a businessman, I’d definitely like to go that route eventually, especially given that TV content in the U.S. is higher quality than most movies these days. For now, we’ve gathered rights among a number of filmmakers and content providers, and set up a platform of our own. There aren’t yet any concrete plans for exploring online streaming, but it’s only a matter of time. What’s your view on the recent Chinese box office, where big-budget films haven’t always been meeting expectations? The taste of the audience in China is ever-changing. A lot of the big-budget films are formulaic, and the scripts might not be so great. The Chinese audience used to think that they only needed to see big-budget films in the cinema. But these last few years have proven that the audience will go for smaller films. The audience always wants their voice to be heard. I believe for some films – such as Love is Not Blind [the 2011 romcom blockbuster that was made for 10 million RMB and grossed over 350 million] or You Are the Apple of My Eye – part of their success has had something to do with the audience ‘casting their votes.’ It’s become part of the phenomenon that the audience wants to participate in such films’ successes. The Chinese people don’t have a political vote; but a surprise hit can be seen in some ways as toppling the government. You can see this from the harsh way Chinese “netizens” occasionally criticize big-name Chinese directors. In a sense, they’re criticizing the directors because they can’t criticize the leadership. What would you share with the younger generation of filmmakers in Hong Kong? I’d tell them it’s very difficult to continue developing our industry. We are a city of only seven million people. At the end of the day, the film market is mostly about size. What Hong Kong has experienced in the last half century was a miracle. What did our generation of filmmakers do to deserve such success, that the 1.3 billion people in China would watch Hong Kong films, so that we can go there and make films as co-productions? It’d take another miracle to continue the growth of the Hong Kong film industry. It’d be impossible for a population of only 7 million people to dictate the taste of billions. Lightning doesn’t strike twice, at least not for my generation of filmmakers. thr
Reviews White Deer Plain Stunning visuals and convincing performances in an epic Chinese peasant tale don’t outweigh narrative limitation By Deborah Young Returning to Berlin competition after his Mongolian drama Tuya’s Marriage won the Golden Bear in 2007, Chinese director Wang Quan’an ambitiously brings Chen Zhongshi’s sweeping 1993 historical novel White Deer Plain, an epic tale of two peasant families, to the big screen. Unfortunately, this impressively lensed and scaled work flounders for focus, and not even its unusually explicit sex scenes (for China, not for the West) and earthy language can rescue the three-hour opus from ennui. Tracing the Bai and the Lu families from 1910 to 1938, the film presents historical and personal horrors in fleeting, tableaux-like scenes of little emotional impact. Although the film’s stunning look, coupled with the director’s reputation, may swing limited release in some territories, this is an art film even for Chinese viewers. It poses additional obstacles to Westerners who will be hardpressed to follow the multiple characters fading in and out of the tale and the passing references to 20th century Chinese caption Pusher continued from 1 history. The audience’s one entry point is the character of Xiao’e, a beautiful, bold and capricious young woman who joins peasant society as an unwelcome outsider; yet even here, the focus is blurred when it should be steady. While his lusty peasants recall Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum, writerdirector Quan’an lacks the narrative skill here to pull off such a long and complex story. The film opens on a vast plain of luscious wheat being harvested while three little boys, who will grow up over the course of the story, play mischievously. In school, the high moral standards of their ancient culture are drilled into them. Later in the film, the destruction of the ancestral temple of White Deer Plain will serve as a metaphor for the degradation of Chinese society as a whole. The brief first scenes are the last happy idyll before tragedy follows on the heels of tragedy. It begins when news reaches Jiaxuan, the head of the clan (played by the dignified Zhang Fengyi of Red Cliff and Farewell, My Concubine) that the Emperor with Frank casually getting the young hot-head out of scrapes. At home, Frank is shacked up with Flo (Agness Deyn), a beautiful, working class pole dancer and junkie several steps above her worn-out associates, who have succumbed to turning tricks. Floating on a wave of money and drugs, these outsiders could almost be mistaken for an enviously cool couple on the London party scene. Then Frank gets overly ambitious. Buying 45,000 pounds worth of drugs on one-day credit from jovial Serbian drug lord Milo, drolly played by Zlatko Buric who reprises his original role from the Danish film, Frank sets up a rendezvous with a high-rolling new customer. An undercover police op blows the whole deal, Frank gets busted and winds up with no cash and no blow – and a huge, unpayable debt to the now-ferocious Milo and his knee-capping thugs. It’s hard to find a new angle on this oft-told tale that doesn’t feel like variations on a theme, and narratively there is very little to get excited about. Prieto wisely shifts the focus to the inner conflicts of the increasing desperate dealer as he becomes first frightened, then belligerent and finally plain out of control. After he beats his sidekick Tony within an inch of his life and participates in tragically roughingup an old customer, it’s clear the road to hell is one-way. Yet however unsavory Frank’s actions, Coyle keeps him within human bounds and 10 1 has fallen and chaos reigns in the city. Caught in the struggle between Communists and Nationalists, the poor, hungry, overtaxed farmers are at the mercy of ever-changing authorities who stage public beatings, beheadings and executions. In this uncertain political climate, Heiwa (Duan Yihong), the son of Jiaxuan’s loyal servant Lu San, goes to work for the rich old land-owner Master Guo. His youthful body and rebellious attitude attract the attention of Guo’s sexually frustrated London looks suitably stylish, retro and grimy in Luis Prieto’s take on Refn’s urban thriller. youngest wife, Tian Xiao’e (Zhang Yuqi.) Inviting the harvester into her bed, she is so careless in keeping their affair a secret that the lovers are discovered, publicly beaten and sent away in disgrace. Back home on White Deer Plain, the tradition-bound Jiaxuan denies the couple permission to marry in the ancestral temple. Heiwa and Xiao’e are forced to live as outcasts in a precarious cave dwelling, until Heiwa’s anger at the system finds a violent outlet in politics and the Communist party.
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HKIFF Heats Up

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